Hello everyone ! Have a wonderful Sunday 🙋🏻
The essence of duality and non-duality is quite intriguing and complex. We experience the physical world in many ways, the day to day reality gives us multiple experiences, emotions, thoughts, feelings regularly. We are so attached to the material world, the objective world that we always forget the true essence of our existence. We are so engrossed in this body-mind armature that we forget the true Self, the essence of our being. We are so driven by this logical and practical world that we cannot think or question beyond this empirical reality. Therefore, in a way, this duality, the empirical reality of our worldly experiences is what we think or pursue as the existing reality.
But then, seeking the Truth with questions like who am I? Why have I come here? How was this world created? Does God exist? All these questions do make us think and intrigue us more about our existence. Several years earlier too, mankind has been seeking these questions and explanations have been found in different texts of ancient scholars wide across the world.
Ancient Indian Sanskrit based texts like Advaita Vedanta have detailed explanations and resolved all these questions of our very existence in a well structured elaborate way, several thousand of years back. According to Vedantic doctrine, Advaita itself means our Individual self, the True Self. The texts include the Upanishads, Bhagawat Gita, Brahma Sutras, Tattva Bodha etc. Since then, several monks, scholars, philosophers over the years have acquired the spiritual wisdom and tried to simplify in their capacities. They developed and adopted different methods of teachings (Prakriyas) to impart the knowledge to their respective followers. Out of them, Swami Vivekananda, a renowned scholar from India widely known across the world have been on the forefront. His teachings were greatly based on Advaita Vedanta. Traditionally, this kind of spiritual wisdom can only be impactful when given by a competent teacher (Scholar) to a qualified student (meaning a student who has spent several years of learning, devotion, meditation, selfless service). That is the tradition of guru-disciple lineage. So, people like me and you, it is a difficult task or may require years of study and perseverance.
But yes, even though, we are so engrossed in this practical and logical world, we have the right to seek for answers to questions like understanding more about our true self, the essence of our being, our existence. The Vedanta has beautifully unfolded the essence of our being, the purpose of our existence. Even if we live in duality, in our day to day worldly experiences, there is always, an underlying stratum of reality, which reside in all of us, the Consciousness (Brahman) which is pure, eternal, whole and complete to which we all belong that is why the text stretches upon as “all is One”, The Non-duality. Like in our worldly life, every day, we go through different orders of reality – the conscious awake state where we experience the empirical reality through our senses, (The Duality), the dream state (the projected reality when we experience the world in our dreams) and the absolute state (when we are in deep sleep, we see or experience nothing, just darkness). In all these three stages, though we go through different stages of experiences, yet our underlying consciousness is the same. Therefore, likewise, living in this world too, in our conscious state, we experience empirical realities, different experiences, but in truth, we belong to the same Universal Consciousness (Brahman) which is not subjected to change in time/space. In our objective and subjective experiences, we experience everything in forms and names (Nama, rupa) but the underlying stratum remains the same, the Absolute Truth which is eternal, whole and complete, the Brahman.
Beneath, the complexities of this world, remain the pure, eternal and the ultimate truth. We do not acknowledge it or experience it because we remain unaware due to our ignorance. Our thinking is too limited to the boundaries of this material world and experience. That is why, spiritual wisdom, intense devotion, meditation and selfless services are some ways where we can understand our true self, the purpose of our being. The very purpose of this knowledge is to free one from this sense of limitation, the Enlightenment.
Thanks for reading.
Blessings and much love to all 💐
Agree, we need to learn to connect ourself spiritually❤️👍
Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback 💕
My pleasure🙂❤️
Thank you for sharing!!… I always follow my heart… 🙂
“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” – Douglas H. Everett
This is such an enriching quote. Thank you so much for your valuable response.
I count it a privilege every time an individual shares life with me. Thank you for taking the time to write from your heart to me and so many others.
Thank you so much for your valuable feedback.
In Chinese philosophy, specifically Daoist, we call the Brahman the Dao. It’s really interesting knowing more about the root of it (since the Daoist texts were translations from Sanskrit into Chinese). Particularly प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya or in Chinese: 心經 Xīnjīng (the Heart Sutra) is a corner stone of modern Daoism. I’ve always liked it, it gives me a deep sense of what is beyond the everyday. I would love to hear what you think about that Sutra if you ever had time to comment on it, it’s nicely short and easy to find because it is so popular. 💗
It’s really wonderful to know about the origin of Daoism philosophy. According to the Heart Sutras and Diamond Sutras, as far as I have understood, everything in this material world including our experiences are our emotional highs and lows as a part of life, it’s actually our state of mind. If we as individuals, can surpass them or do not hold permanently onto them, enlightenment can be attained. That is why, Buddhist and also Daoism, believe in the concept of Kony/sunyata ( emptiness or selflessness) as the essence of our being.
Anyway, thank you so much for your insightful feedback 🙏😊
Wow, that’s really helpful, I always had trouble linking the ideas to real life. As I’m reading this it shifted my view and also for the first time I’m imagining selflessness as an Z axis (up and down) to the X, Y axis of good/bad, towards or away from goals. Instead of just thinking in black and white, there is a self, or there is no self, I just imagined it as a gradient for the first time, so that you could surpass as in “go up and over” states of mind and emotions or experiences with either more or less selflessless, more as in not taking it personally or less as in reflecting how you mirror the world and what events trigger within. That’s very helpful thanks! 💡
Everything we experience in this world, are our own perceptual reality. There is no black and white, It’s our state mind how we perceive everything. Thank you so much for your valuable and insightful opinion 🙏.It is very helpful to me also.
Bonjour ou Bonsoir mon Ami, (ie)
Vois-tu !
Un commentaire c’est peu de choses
Quelques virgules et quelques points
Ce sont des mots qui sautent
Afin de composer des phrases en minuscules commençant par une majuscule
Alors j’y mets tout mon cœur pour que tu en déchiffres de la teneur
Chaque mot chante quand j’écris ces mots
Chaque point en devient un sourire
Chaque virgule ,pour partager une émotion
Dans mes points de suspension
Je te fais valoir ma tendresse comme une note qui s’envole en musique
Tout cela est pour toi
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Je te souhaite une excellente soirée ou journée
Toujours agréable de venir sur ton blog voir tes nouveautées et surtout te saluer
Gros bisous Amitié
Bernard
Greetings Bernard,
Thank you so much for your appreciation and kind words. I genuinely appreciate your kind gesture.
With best regards
Juri
The world would be different if everyone lived beyond these myriads of attributes….
Yes, that is so true. We remain unaware of our true self mostly, being engrossed in this material world all the time.
Anyway, thank you so much for your valuable response.
You’re very much welcome. Although I guess I’m the one who should say thank you.
🙏😊