Soh:

Hi

Thought this might interest you, on nondual awareness and its nature and the subtleties of insight:

http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/mistaken-reality-of-amness.html

Cheers

Soh

P.s Ramana went through stages too: https://www.mountainrunnerdoc.com/page/page/5213285.htm

Mr M replied:

Dear Soh,

Bhagavan Ramana never went through any stages, because stages are impermanent and hence unreal. What is real must always exist, and that alone is what we actually are.

Namo Ramanaya

🙏🙏🙏

Soh replied:

Dear Mr M,

Here is an excerpt with a quotation of Ramana as well from another site http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/turiya_peter.htm

🙏

Namaste

Soh

.......

Dear Mr M,

I found some excerpts that might be of interest, including from Ramana Maharshi:

“When the traditional teaching says that the world is an illusion, it doesn’t mean that the world is unreal or not really there. It is not that the world is unreal – the world is absolutely real – it is just that the reality of the world is not dead, inert stuff called ‘matter’. It is totally alive stuff called pure knowing, awareness or God’s infinite being.

— Rupert Spira”

From rupert website: “Rupert elaborates on three steps in recognition. Firstly, we recognise awareness of our self as awareness of our identity. When we say, ‘I think’, the ‘I’ refers to the body or mind. When we say, ‘I am aware of thoughts’, the ‘I’ refers to awareness. In the beginning, we separate our self from that which we are aware of. Secondly, we become aware of the nature of awareness. Lastly, we collapse the distinction between awareness and the objects of which we are aware.”

THE WORLD IS REAL OR ILLUSORY? ~ Ramana Maharshi



THE WORLD IS REAL OR ILLUSORY ?

Question: "Brahman is real. The world is illusion" is the stock phrase of Sri Sankaracharya. Yet others say, "The world is reality." Which is true?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Both statements are true. They refer to different stags of development and are spoken from different points of view. The aspirant starts with the definition, that which is real exists always. Then he eliminates the world as unreal because it is changing. The seeker ultimately reaches the Self and there finds unity as the prevailing note. Then, that which was originally rejected as being unreal is found to be a part of the unity. Being absorbed in the reality, the world also is real. There is only being in Self-realisation, and nothing but being.

Question: Sri Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) often says that Maya (illusion) and reality are the same. How can that be?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Sankaracharya was criticised for his views on Maya without being understood. He said that: 1. Brahman is real, 2. The universe is unreal, and 3. The universe is Brahman.

He did not stop at the second, because the third explains the other two. It signifies that the universe is real if perceived as the Self, and unreal if perceived apart from the Self. Hence Maya and reality are one and the same.

Question: So the world is not really illusory?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: At the level of the spiritual seeker you have got to say that the world is an illusion. There is no other way. When a man forgets that he is a Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled with bodies that are transitory, and labours under that delusion, you have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion. Why? Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self is dwelling in the external, material universe. It will not turn inwards into introspection unless you impress on him that all this external material universe is unreal. When once he realises his own Self he will know that there is nothing other than his own Self and he will come to look upon the whole universe as Brahman.

There is no universe without the Self. So ling as a man does not see the Self which is the origin of all, but looks only at the external world as real and permanent, you have to tell him that all this external universe is an illusion. You cannot help it. Take a paper. We see only the script, and nobody notices the paper on which the script is written. The paper is there whether the script on it is there or not. To those who look upon the script as real, you have to say that it is unreal, an illusion, since it rests upon the paper. The wise man looks upon both the paper and script as one. So also with Brahman and the universe.

Question: So the world is real when it is experienced as the Self and unreal when it is seen as separate names and forms?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Just as fire is obscured by smoke, the shining light of consciousness is obscured by the assemblage of names and forms, the world. When by compassionate divine grace the mind becomes clear, the nature of the world will be known to be not the illusory forms but only the reality.

Only those people whose minds are devoid of the evil power of Maya, having given up the knowledge of the world and being unattached to it, and having thereby attained the knowledge of the self-shining Supreme Reality, can correctly know the meaning of the statement "The world is real." If one's outlook has been transformed to the nature of real knowledge, the world of the five elements beginning with space (akasha) will be real, being the Supreme Reality, which is the nature of knowledge.

….

David Carse: “After the jungle, there is an intensely odd and very beau-tiful quality to the experience of life. In one sense I can only describe everything, all experience, as having a certain emptiness. This is the sense in which everything used to matter, to be vital and important, and is now seen as unreal, empty, not important, an illusion. Once it is seen that the beyond-brilliance of Sat Chit Ananda is all that is, the dream continues as a kind of shadow. Yet, at the same moment that all of what appears in the dream is experi-enced as empty, it is also seen as more deeply beautiful and perfect than ever imagined, precisely because it is not other than Sat Chit Ananda, than all that is. Everything that does not matter, that is empty illusion, is at the same time itself the beyond-brilliance, the perfect beauty. Somehow there is a balance; these two apparently opposite aspects do not cancel each other out but complement each other. This makes no 'sense,' yet it is how it is.

There is one tradition within Advaita which says that maya, the manifestation of the physical universe, is over-laid or superimposed on Sat Chit Ananda. I'm no scholar of these things, and can only attempt to describe what is seen here; and the Understanding here is that there is no question of one thing superimposed on another. Maya, the manifestation, the physical universe, is precisely Sat Chit Ananda, is not other than it, does not exist on its own as something separate to be overlaid on top of something else. This is the whole point! There is no maya! The only reason it appears to have its own reality and is commonly taken to be real in itself is because of a misperceiving, a mistaken perception which sees the appearance and not What Is. This is the meaning of Huang Po's comment that "no distinction should be made between the Absolute and the sentient world." No distinction! There is only One. There is not ever in any sense two. All perception of distinction and separation, all perception of duality, and all perception of what is known as physical reality, is mind-created illu-sion. When a teacher points at the physical world and says, "All this is maya," what is being said is that what you are seeing is illusion; what all this is is All That Is, pure Being Consciousness Bliss Outpouring; it is your perception of it as a physical world that is maya, illusion.”

Namaste 🙏

Soh

P.s.

From Zen Master Hakuin on the Five Ranks of Zen, “If the disciple had remained in the rank of "The Apparent within the Real," his judgment would always have been vacillating and his view prejudiced. Therefore, the bodhisattva of superior capacity invariably leads his daily life in the realm of the [six] dusts, the realm of all kinds of ever-changing differentiation. All the myriad phenomena before his eyes-the old and the young, the honorable and the base, halls and pavilions, verandahs and corridors, plants and trees, mountains and rivers-he regards as his own original, true, and pure aspect. It is just like looking into a bright mirror and seeing his own face in it. If he continues for a long time to observe everything everywhere with this radiant insight, all appearances of themselves become the jeweled mirror of his own house, and he becomes the jeweled mirror of their houses as well. Eihei has said: "The experiencing of the manifold dharmas through using oneself is delusion; the experiencing of oneself through the coming of the manifold dharmas is satori."” - http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2008/02/tozan-ryokais-verses-on-five-ranks.html

———-

Update, Soh answered someone else’s question on Ramana:

“ Ramana’s journey is from I AM to one mind, thusness stage 1 to stage 4

Not yet anatta

This: “Question: So the world is not really illusory?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: At the level of the spiritual seeker you have got to say that the world is an illusion. There is no other way. When a man forgets that he is a Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled with bodies that are transitory, and labours under that delusion, you have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion. Why? Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self is dwelling in the external, material universe. It will not turn inwards into introspection unless you impress on him that all this external material universe is unreal. When once he realises his own Self he will know that there is nothing other than his own Self and he will come to look upon the whole universe as Brahman.

There is no universe without the Self. So ling as a man does not see the Self which is the origin of all, but looks only at the external world as real and permanent, you have to tell him that all this external universe is an illusion. You cannot help it. Take a paper. We see only the script, and nobody notices the paper on which the script is written. The paper is there whether the script on it is there or not. To those who look upon the script as real, you have to say that it is unreal, an illusion, since it rests upon the paper. The wise man looks upon both the paper and script as one. So also with Brahman and the universe.

“

Still falls into this error:

Subject object union

“Effectively Phase 4 is merely the experience of non-division between subject/object. The initial insight glimpsed from the anatta stanza is without self but in the later phase of my progress it appeared more like subject/object as an inseparable union, rather than absolutely no-subject. This is precisely the 2nd case of the Three levels of understanding Non-Dual. I was still awed by the pristineness and vividness of phenomena in phase 4.

Phase 5 is quite thorough in being no one and I would call this anatta in all 3 aspects -- no subject/object division, no doer-ship and absence of agent.

The trigger point here is the direct and thorough seeing that 'the mirror is nothing more than an arising thought'. With this, the solidity and all the grandeur of 'Brahman' goes down the drain. Yet it feels perfectly right and liberating without the agent and being simply as an arising thought or as a vivid moment of a bell resounding. All the vividness and presence remains, with an additional sense of freedom. Here a mirror/reflection union is clearly understood as flawed, there is only vivid reflection. There cannot be a 'union' if there isn't a subject to begin with. It is only in subtle recalling, that is in a thought recalling a previous moment of thought, that the watcher seems to exist. From here, I moved towards the 3rd degree of non-dual.

The Stanza One complements and refines Stanza Two to make the experience of no-self thorough and effortless into just only chirping birds, drum beats, footsteps, sky, mountain, walking, chewing and tasting; no witness whatsoever hiding anywhere! 'Everything' is a process, event, manifestation and phenomenon, nothing ontological or having an essence.

This phase is a very thorough non-dual experience; there is effortlessness in the non-dual and one realizes that in seeing there is always just scenery and in hearing, always just sounds. We find true delights in naturalness and “

- https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

“It will be obvious by then that only the deeply held dualistic view is obscuring our insight into this experiential fact. In actual experience, there is just the crystal clarity of phenomena manifesting. Maturing this experience, the mind-body dissolves into mere non-dual luminosity and all phenomena are experientially understood as the manifestation of this non-dual luminous presence -- the key insight leading to the realization that "All is Mind".

After this, not to be too overwhelmed or over-claimed what is more than necessary; rather investigate further. Does this non-dual luminosity exhibits any characteristic of self-nature that is independent, unchanging and permanent? A practitioner can still get stuck for quite sometimes solidifying non-dual presence unknowingly. This is leaving marks of the 'One mirror' as described in the stage 4 of the 7 phases of my insights. Although experience is non-dual, the insight of emptiness is still not there. Though the dualistic bond has loosened sufficiently, the 'inherent' view remains strong.”

- https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html

Likewise

5m

Anurag Jain

Soh Wei Yu

also when you say Consciousness dissolves, you have to first answer how did it ever exist in the first place? 🙂

 · Reply

 · 4m

[3:57 PM, 1/1/2021] Soh Wei Yu: lol

[4:01 PM, 1/1/2021] John Tan: In subsuming there is no container-contained relationship, there is only Awareness.

[4:03 PM, 1/1/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Anurag Jain

So Soh Wei Yu

how does Awareness "remain"? Where and how?

 · Reply

 · 1m

[4:04 PM, 1/1/2021] John Tan: Anyway this is not for unnecessary debates, if he truly understands then just let it be.

.....

"Yes.  Subject and object can both collapsed into pure seeing but it is only when this pure seeing is also dropped/exhausted that natural spontaneity and effortlessness can begin to function marvelously.  That is y it has to be thorough and all the "emphasis".  But I think he gets it, so u don't have to keep nagging 🤣." - John Tan

- https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2018/10/differentiating-i-am-one-mind-no-mind.html

And likewise kyle wrote something very clear on this in 2012, the final phase is awareness merged with phenomena for advaita and ramana but it still does not go beyond alaya: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2012/07/turiya-vs-dzogchen_30.html

I AM is pure presence. So all phases are all about pure presence, only the clarity of insight into its nature differs. Reification after the actual authentication due to lack of clarity to penetrate deeply rooted karmic tendencies”

——-

One mind is still substantiated nonduality even if nondual

Therefore

Excerpt from https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2009/09/realization-and-experience-and-non-dual.html

4. On Non-Dual Experience, Realization and Anatta

I have just casually gone through some of your forum discussions. Very enlightening discussions and well presentation of my 7-phases-of-insights but try not to over-emphasize it as a model; it should not be taken as a definite model of enlightenment nor should you use it as a framework to validate others' experiences and insights. Simply take it as a guide along your spiritual journey.

You are right to differentiate non-dual experience from non-dual realization and non-dual realization from the insight of anatta. We have discussed this umpteem times. Non-dual experience in the context we are using refers to the experience of no-subject-object division. The experience is much like putting two candle flames together where the boundary between the flames becomes indistinguishable. It is not a realization but simply a stage, an experience of unity between the observer and the observed where the conceptual layer that divides is temporarily suspended in a meditative state. This you have experienced.

Non-dual realization on the other hand is a deep understanding that comes from seeing through the illusionary nature of subject-object division. It is a natural non-dual state that resulted from an insight that arises after rigorous investigation, challenge and a prolonged period of practice that is specially focused on ‘No-Self’. Somehow focusing on “No-Self” will spark a sense of sacredness towards the transient and fleeting phenomena. The sense of sacredness that is once the monopoly of the Absolute is now also found in the Relative. The term ‘No-Self’ like Zen-Koan may appear cryptic, senseless or illogical but when realized, it is actually obviously clear, direct and simple. The realization is accompanied with the experience that everything is being dissolved into either:

1. An ultimate Subject or

2. As mere ‘flow of phenomenality’

In whatever the case, both spells the end of separateness; experientially there is no sense of two-ness and the experience of unity can be quite overwhelming initially but eventually it will lose its grandeur and things turn quite ordinary. Nevertheless, regardless of whether the sense of Oneness is derived from the experience of ‘All as Self’ or ‘as simply just manifestation’, it is the beginning insight of “No-Self”. The former is known as One-Mind and the later, No-Mind.

In Case 1 it is usual that practitioners will continue to personify, reify and extrapolate a metaphysical essence in a very subtle way, almost unknowingly. This is because despite the non-dual realization, understanding is still orientated from a view that is based on subject-object dichotomy. As such it is hard to detect this tendency and practitioners continue their journey of building their understanding of ‘No-Self based on Self’.

For Case 2 practitioners, they are in a better position to appreciate the doctrine of anatta. When insight of Anatta arises, all experiences become implicitly non-dual. But the insight is not simply about seeing through separateness; it is about the thorough ending of reification so that there is an instant recognition that the ‘agent’ is extra, in actual experience it does not exist. It is an immediate realization that experiential reality has always been so and the existence of a center, a base, a ground, a source has always been assumed.

To mature this realization, even direct experience of the absence of an agent will prove insufficient; there must also be a total new paradigm shift in terms of view; we must free ourselves from being bonded to the idea, the need, the urge and the tendency of analyzing, seeing and understanding our moment to moment of experiential reality from a source, an essence, a center, a location, an agent or a controller and rest entirely on anatta and Dependent Origination.

Therefore this phase of insight is not about singing eloquently the non-dual nature of an Ultimate Reality; contrary it is deeming this Ultimate Reality as irrelevant. Ultimate Reality appears relevant only to a mind that is bond to seeing things inherently, once this tendency dissolves, the idea of a source will be seen as flawed and erroneous. Therefore to fully experience the breadth and depth of no-self, practitioners must be prepared and willing to give up the entire subject-object framework and be open to eliminate the entire idea of a ‘source’. Rob expressed very skillfully this point in his talk:

One time the Buddha went to a group of monks and he basically told them not to see Awareness as The Source of all things. So this sense of there being a vast awareness and everything just appears out of that and disappears back into it, beautiful as that is, he told them that’s actually not a skillful way of viewing reality. And that is a very interesting sutta, because it’s one of the only suttas where at the end it doesn’t say the monks rejoiced in his words.

This group of monks didn’t want to hear that. They were quite happy with that level of insight, lovely as it was, and it said the monks did not rejoice in the Buddha’s words. (laughter) And similarly, one runs into this as a teacher, I have to say. This level is so attractive, it has so much of the flavor of something ultimate, that often times people are unbudgeable there.

What then is the view that Buddhism is talking about without resorting to a ‘source’? I think the post by Vajrahridaya in the thread ‘What makes Buddhism different’ of your forum succinctly and concisely expressed the view, it is well written. That said, do remember to infinitely regress back into this vivid present moment of manifestation – as this arising thought, as this passing scent – Emptiness is Form. :)

---

Update: shared these with someone on AtR group:

Soh Wei Yu

Admin

Group expert

+1

Ramana is into Thusness Stage 1 to 4, substantialist nondual but not anatta. (see: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../ramana-maharshis... )

2009:

(10:01 PM) Thusness: actually kennethfolk should not belittle ramana maharishi and the advaita or vedanta practitioner

only in terms of insight we can talk about it.

(10:01 PM) AEN: kenneth belittle ramana meh

i tot he quote him

(10:02 PM) Thusness: not the jhanic experience.

(10:02 PM) AEN: wat u mean

(10:02 PM) Thusness: i am sure we are no where close to these practitioners in terms of jhanic experiences.

(10:02 PM) AEN: oic

(10:03 PM) Thusness: ability to sit for few hours doesn't mean anything to these practitioners.

(10:03 PM) AEN: ic.. ya ramana maharshi can enter samadhi for days or what and no need to eat etc 

(10:03 PM) Thusness: the absorption is another dimension.

(10:03 PM) AEN: oic

(10:03 PM) Thusness: so don't think we know a lot...

(10:03 PM) AEN: icic..

(10:04 PM) Thusness: certain thing needs practice.

just like exercise and body building

need to develop the skill through discipline

(10:04 PM) Thusness: and need to give up all worldly stuff for it.

(10:04 PM) AEN: oic..

(10:05 PM) Thusness: needs to be vegetarian

(10:05 PM) AEN: u mean meditation?

need vegetarian

(10:05 PM) Thusness: without that, certain sort of experiences will not be there.

(10:05 PM) AEN: oic..

(10:05 PM) Thusness: yeah

needs even fasting also

(10:05 PM) AEN: what kind of experience can arise due to vegetarianism

(10:06 PM) Thusness: these practitioners have a lot of discipline and sacrifices...

(10:06 PM) AEN: oic..

(10:06 PM) Thusness: so don't think we know all.

(10:06 PM) AEN: thats why ramana left home and entered seclusion for years rite

(10:06 PM) Thusness: yeah

(10:06 PM) AEN: btw how does vegetarianism help

wat kind of experience

(10:07 PM) Thusness: in terms of insights, due to the arising of prajna wisdom, we have deeper clarity

not that we are superior in terms of experience.

don't mistaken

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Ramana Maharshi's Stages of Enlightenment

Ramana Maharshi's Stages of Enlightenment

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