Non-duality Or Duality?

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by Rick, Mar 24, 2005.

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Which is your sect in the philosophy?

  1. I believe in Duality

    3 vote(s)
    30.0%
  2. I believe in Non-Dual nature

    6 vote(s)
    60.0%
  3. I cannot say

    1 vote(s)
    10.0%
  1. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    Which is your philosophy?

    Advaita or Dvaita?
     
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  3. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    check the question: are you EITHER dualistic OR non-dualistic?

    so asking from that un-examined premise keeps any inquiry in that precept

    rather, why do we separate those two abstracts? why does some reality, idea etc
    have to be one or the other? why cant they be understood as a complimentary dynamic polarity?

    In modern physics they found this ambiguity didn't they. How a 'particle' of matter-energy can either be a particle or a wave. Depending on the actualizing of evidence, which INCLUDES the observer's consciousness.

    I see Advata Vedanta as falling into a subtle dualsim, where it posits a 'One' and a 'Many'. Where the former is believed to be superior over the latter. This belief causes division, from one's being, and from other members of the community, and from Nature.
     
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  5. cotton Resident Pirate Registered Senior Member

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    Advaita is non dualism and Dvaita in dualism right?
     
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  7. Yorda Registered Senior Member

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    I believe in both of them. Duality exists in the mind, in the material world, and from this point of view, in the "reality", there is no duality, because the two opposites form a oneness. But it's hard to speak of non-duality with a dualistic mind in a dualistic world. THE reality is neither this or that, nor something in between.

    Yes.
     
  8. cotton Resident Pirate Registered Senior Member

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    So a yin/yang type of thing? Is what you are saying? You need both to balance them out.
     
  9. Yorda Registered Senior Member

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    Opposites don't have an absolute existence, they exist in the mind. Opposites exist because we're aware of our body which manifests only one pole, which is male or female. Both of them can't materialize at the same time because where these two form the oneness, there can't be anything negative or positive (there can't be any physical existence), but only the sum, the creator of them.

    Two things can't exist on the same space and time in the material world, so the oneness must be separated, but it still continues to exist as a tension of infinite power, in form of a magnetic force, and connects them together forever. The two opposites can never be fully surrendered. If we have two magnets in space, they are destined to meet sooner or later, it requires no power, they move by themselves because they only seek their natural state of being, more oneness, they want to be whole.

    Up and down can be considered as two opposites. Now, in space, where there is no gravity, there is no up or down, and that's the "actual" non-dual existence. The oneness exists as between two mirrors which reflect it eternally and gives it an illusional two-pole existence.

    Only because of separation, good and evil were born from the oneness, which is neither good or bad, but divine. Knowledge is only possible by separation. The consequence is that the material world must consist of good and bad so that it would be visible, and possible.

    The manifestation of the oneness can be seen on an empty paper. There is nothing on this empty paper, yet everything could be drawn on it. So you see that this "nothing" already includes "everything", because they are one and the same thing. You can only see something in this oneness if this "something" separates from the oneness. Draw a red apple on it. This red apple was there already before you made it visible, but it couldn't be seen because the apple's form and the backgrounds' negative characteristics were not separated, they were united, identical. The form of the apple was yet not separated from "everything" which includes in "nothing".

    Since the apple appeared in "nothingness" in the colour red, it means that it must have left a reflection of itself in opposite colour, a green apple, in "everything", as a negative, invisible image. Whatever you see is only visible because it has been separated from its complementary half. If man is born as male, he leaves the negative, the invisible, female side, in his consciousness.

    Because the ordinary man identifies himself with his body, he doesn't express his female side, he doesn't see it, he seeks completion in the external world, in another human, which manifests the opposite pole. But since they're both of matter, they are not really opposites and they can't form a oneness. However, the oneness which is seen in the union of the two poles is manifested in the creation of a new human being, which still only manifests one pole because of natural laws. Balance means that the two poles become identical with each other.

    When I speak now, the negative side, the "not-speak", silence, is left invisible, undisclosed, in everything.

    God is the indivisible oneness, and because of that, he can never be seen or understood, or found in this world, because he has no complementary half which he could be compared to, so that he would become visible - God can only be you!

    God, the attraction between the opposites, forms the material universe. Without this attraction, nothing would be possible.
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2005
  10. BeHereNow Registered Senior Member

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    473
    duendy: I understand you to say that Advaita or Dvaita do not have to be chosen. Is this because there is more to them than simple dualism/nondualism?
    Would you say that dualism and nondualism are not mutually exclusive, and can contain elements of one another?

    I believe Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba agres with you.

    "In his commentary on Gita, Adi Sankara has explained that there is Advaita in Dvaita and Dvaita in Advaita. Further, the Visishtadvaita contains both Advaita and Dvaita concepts as well. All the three schools of philosophy, therefore lead to the same goal and their underlying meaning is Brahma Sathyam Jaganmithya (Brahman alone is the truth and the world is illusory). The whole world appears as containing innumerable names and forms. One should not be enmeshed with these names and forms. It is only when the names and forms are set aside and the underlying source is identified that it is possible to recognise the truth. And that truth is Tattwamasi (That Thou Art)."
     
  11. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    ...No, i dont feel he's saying the same as what i am understanding. alright he SEEMS to accept the polar relationship between transcendence or 'Oneness' and immanence, or the 'Many'/ Nature, but them keeps to the belief that only this idealized 'One' is the true reality and manifest Nature is 'illusion'.

    As i say this is the Eastern form of dualistic thinking, in a more subtle form

    I understand an ambiguity. that reality 'shifts'....is alive. you canot pin it down. when the idea of a 'one' is positied, you then denigrate what is believed to be NOT that

    we KNOW this. the manifest. the 'escape' from that as in idea of 'beyond' that--as a permanent state is what causes unacceptnce of flowing Nature
     
  12. everneo Re-searcher Registered Senior Member

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    If transcendence and immanence are in polar relationship why do you give so much importance to material form? should you not treat both equal ?
     
  13. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    6,585
    ell, material form is what we KNOW. i mean it is definately real, no? it is all around. you eat, have shelter, are body and mind, interact with other material forms, etc. So it is a given.
    However, the IDEA of A 'One' is just that. OK, people do experience non-ordinary experiences where there can be a diverse range of felt-experience all the way to a sense of 'oneness' and so on, but we always return to 'material form', and we experience such experiences FROM material form.
    So to assume from such experiencs that it is MATERIAL form which is 'illusion' seems to me to be quite an hypothesis, faith, belief........
    Rather i am seeing that therer has been an abstraction done, and the idea of a sense of being transcendent is grasped as being superior to other forms of consciousness. And further thqat that philosophy when taken seriously is destructive to communal relations and relationship with Nature. Because then the ideal becomes ESCAPE from that, which is seen as inferior to the ideal--the state/goal of 'Oneness'.

    I rather see all forms of experience as being a continuum, and reality as ambiguous.
    If we emphasize either materiality or trancsendence we get an unbalanced sense, and an unblanced relationship with others and Nature. so we need to understand how we have split what in reality is an ambiguous whole dynamic organic reality
     
  14. everneo Re-searcher Registered Senior Member

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    Ying-Yang, Shiva-Shakti, Vishnu-Vishnu_Maya all are well balanced/continum. It is being said to attain Shiva, the mercy of Shakti is a must. To attain Vishnu, the grace of Vishnu Maya is a must... and so on. Both are equal. Only the order of continum starts from your favourite.
    If you are stuck there you may not come to know the other end of the continum soon.
     
  15. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    6,585
    Well if you are 'stuck' anywhere, that's not flowing. i fel that is the essence. that one must allow flowingness

    i personally like to explore these myths right to the roots if possible. For example with the Siva~shakti myth i've found a few important things out in my journies.......That the interpretatio of it by patriarchs deify Siva to 'God', whereas the original is that Shakti is the Great Goddess (this is explained in the book The God of Ecstasy: Sex-Roles and the Madness of Dionysos).....one can see this pattern repeated through out patriarchal approriation of mythic origins)......also, in this forum--cant remember the title of thread, ther's a link where a Michael Crowley suggests Sivas possible original meaning being connected to hallucinogenic mushrooms of the psilocybin family--ie., for example mythic references to his 'blue-neck'...etc

    SO. for me, THE essence behind ALL mythology is hallucinogenic inspiration. I personally am familar with such inspiration, and it was doing so that got me ven interested in looking at mythology etc.
    I am also aware from researches just how other peoples who have possibly taken hallucinogenic substances interpret the experiences according to how they integrate them.
    For example, the beliefs surrounding them wold influence the myth, as would the consensual reality---ie., did they take them in a patriarchal set?......thus they may interpreat the experience along those lines and thus emphasize an asceticism, rather than an orgiastic one. or they may mix those two modes as did the Orphics, though keeping to the belief in eventual escape from Nature,

    So, what am getting at is ...YES, i agree thereare two forms of being. we could use the modern physics' insight of reality being both particle-like and wave-like. That oe can have definate perception of reality in all its diversity, and also a more ambiguus wavey like experience of reality. now which one is real?
     
  16. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    I dont thats quite the scenario in case. Your thought forms are not completely bound by the contraints of this mythical manifest of Brahman. You cannot feel or think brahman (since you are constrained by senses and constrained by this world) but you unite with the ultimate reality when you realize it.The realization occurs when you superseed all the cause and effect relationships and think, like a cause can cause effect and that effect can become a cause for another effect and so on. This cause and effect relationship is what was emphasized upon by all the advaita philosophy.

    I think you are partially right about dreams or prophetic dreams like uniting with the great one, since they are still bound by senses, since our senses are designed to see or feel,taste, or touch the worldly (cause and effect) things and not the one that eternal.Change is what make these things unreal. that which superseeds all the changes and manifest is the ultimate reality. Hence this world is evolutionary and hence all a myth. therefore to gain knowledge of this world would be to gain knowledge of myth itself.
    I think to gain knowledge of the reality, we have to be on a higher level where are senses superseed the current limitations to see.

    Again mentioning physics and particle stuff, is wrong. You have to understand that the particles and other stuffs are the mainifests, even at quantum level, but that which superseeds them is brahman.
     
  17. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    But i hear you repeat the sameold 'patriarchal' idea of our senses being 'cons-trained', or trapped.
    As far as i know, this idea originated in the West with Orphism, and some sholars claim Orphism had contat with Oriental idea similar with what you say.
    The Orphics had their cultic saying, 'soma sema', meaning 'the body, a tomb', and felt their 'divine spark' was trapped in 'gross material sensual reality'. Yet their goal included sensuality though on 'higher level'...and i mean seuxal experience.

    The Orphics reformed the Earth religion of
    Dionysos, which was much more celebratory of sensual, material reality, AND transendence. Not splitting the two modes of experience, Nature and spirit

    The myth of Brahman is also a patriarchal appropriation of Goddess religion. masculination...ie., the supreme god's masculine emphasis. This will include the idea of male being more intimately connected with spirit, and female with 'Maya' which is indoctrinated as an 'enticer' of the male spirit. a seducer...Mara/delusion...and so on

    so in all of these ideas, i am seeing a pattern. a particularly patristic male desire to escape Nature, rather than feel a cninuum between Nature and spirit
     
  18. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    No i would say that male and female fail to reduce the equation to its finality, since the opposites are still present, but those opposites are due to the nature of their own or the complete nature itself and they are not eternal in themselves, they are simply manifestations,the utlimate reality is brahman, and everything is a manifest of it.

    I dont think brahman has got anything to do with patriarchal ideas...
     
  19. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    I dont agree. One only has to look at how Brahamanism was male orinted--ie., male priests. These priests replaced the rishis who were ecstatics who --as the name suggests directly approached spirituality--themselves possibly replacing Goddess communal ecstatic rites

    Then there is the doctrine of 'karma' and from that belief the 'caste system' with --of course, the priveleged classes, the Brahmnins at the top of the tree........

    so one can see how an interpretation of a myth can create a divisive community

    thing is zion. all the idea of a higher abstraction being called the 'One' is simply THAT...a higher abstraction. an IDEA. do you know for sure about that? or do you know for sure more directly the life you are living now which is diverse, but alkso has potential for experience of deeper dimensions where there's a sense of
    inter-relationship.
    The trouble with the idea of the One and the Many is that all diversity becomes subsumed into a mono-category labelled 'Maya' or illusion. So it is being denigrated. such a myth is saying that if you dont aspire to their version of the 'One', then you are in 'illusion', or as the Buddhists would say--'ignorance'. so you are guilted straightaway if you dont conform to their indoctrination, and societal structure. Where, If you happen to be at the 'bottom', they will claim this is cause you have not obeyed their supremem knowledge in 'past lifetimes' and thus must work out your 'karma'.....

    See how it works?
     
  20. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    3,336
    Or you could see the positive or scientific aspect of it, you can shape shift to anything,since it wont change the ultimate truth, hence your structure individually doesnt matter, therefore the truw understanding of nature can be gained with the same.
     
  21. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    No. Because i, and all who are aware of it, are experiencing the ruination of Nature by an amalgamation of mindsets who fear and denigrate Nature.
     
  22. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    by saying that the very nature of our existance is manipulative isnt positive?...
     
  23. exsto_human Transitional Registered Senior Member

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    My thought is that duality is an illusion. The concepts of subjective state and objective state are neccesarily dual, however I think we can all agree that we (I, you) cannot experience the objective. What we cannot experience is metaphysical and we don't care about it. It's just a logical concept which does not cohere with intuitive experience (Such as the intuitive experience of thought).

    So if we can establish that there is no difference between object and subject in the realm of intuitive experience we can also state that there is no such thing as duality, because for there to be duality there would have to be differentiation between subject and object otherwise everything would be subject or object.

    So either if you choose to state that everything is subject or object you will still end up with non-dual nature.

    Finaly we can reduce this to: For all values of X(X=X), X = everything, everything = everything.

    And what can we do a universal qantifier that qantifies everything?

    Well it's usless quite obviously, so we will just ignore it.

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    Oh and Zen by the way.
     

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