Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Oneness = Nihilism?
I find that as I embrace the concepts of non-dualism (Advaita Vedanta) that the ultimate conclusion is essentially nihilism.
All things are one, there is only one substance (God, Universe, Nature, etc...some refer to It as "That") all of the "things" we have names for are simply manifestations of That One substance.
There's no "Deity on a throne" in some "un-designated location", no Karmic scorekeeper, no individual Karma for that matter, no good, no bad, no cause & effect...there's just "That" doing what "That" does.
Essentially, we are sock puppets, living in a painful world. Order, control, and security are myths.
The punishment or reward due in some idyllic/hellish afterlife scenario as well as reincarnation, as most people understand it, are mind/crowd control myths perpetuated to maintain us as obedient little sock puppets.
But smarter, richer, better looking sock puppets expect us to produce and consume, as good little citizens of sock puppet land are supposed to...and when we do, we truly become the batteries that run the Matrix.
Brian
http://bmmerrill.blogspot.com
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Well, as it happened, I had barely finished this entry when I came across a teacher from Portland, Oregon named James Swartz (Ram or Ramji as some students call him).
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that there were (for lack of better terminology) "orthodox" followers of Advaita Vedanta and "modern" followers of what Mr. Swartz refers to as "Neo-Advaita".
From reading and listening to his teachings, it is obvious that I had absorbed this "Neo" teaching.
For me, these modernized teachings were the equivalent of being dropped in the middle of an unknown place with no map, money, or purpose. The effect was absolutely disorienting.
While there was some truth to what I had learned, there seemed to be lacking some degree of direction. I found later that most, if not all, of these Neo-Advaitan teachers themselves had learned from people who had an "experience" but who were not properly trained or qualified to teach others.
Like the game where you sit in a circle and someone says something, and then that person passes it around until it reaches the one who originally said it, the final saying bares little resemblance to the original.
What I learned from Ram is that Advaita Vedanta is thousands of years old and has not changed to reflect the social mores of the times. It does not rely on faith, but is entirely logical and sensible. Through the study of this, you come away with a system of knowledge of the true nature of reality and the true nature of ourselves.
There's no "golden carrot" to wave to try to gather "devotees" and such. The ultimate achievement is simply to realize that "you are, what you've been seeking". Your true nature is not limited, tainted by original sin, or somehow damaged.
More to share later...I'm going to begin to categorize all these entries for the sake of ease of finding what you're looking for. I feel strongly about the "Occupy" movement and would like to pull that out as a section of its own.