20 October 2015

I just finished reading two new books of Nisargadatta's latter books.


Let me put it this way: It is almost impossible to understand what he is saying.


Never does he place the entire range of his teachings into an overall context. He speaks in aphorisms, pithy answers to questions asked to him by students, with answers only for them, according to his own admission. He tells readers not to read "I Am That" because those are not his current teachings, which have changed.


Also, the teachings in I Am That are very, very different from those in his first book written 25 years earlier, Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization.


Part of the "problem" in his own words, is that he does not think about any of his answers, they spill spontaneously from his mouth as Consciousness addressing Consciousness in the questioner, in an effort to get the questioner into a statee entirely prior to all concepts.


In this way he teaches much like me: helping students get entirely into a don't know state where mind is mostly ignored.


So many teachers, especially the neo-advaitins, have almost no spiritual experiences, but only a simplistic denial of the existence of an inner Self of any sort, from which a whole simplistic philosophy follows.


Nisargadatta wanders hither and yan, using undefined terms, or term s defined with other under-defined terms. It is as if he makes it absolutely impossible to follow or understand him.


For example, it is not clear what he means by Prior to Consciousness. It was not even clear to Ramesh Balsekar who spent years with him. Is he referring to an Unmanifest Self entirely outside of Consciousness, a noumenal Self, or is he talking about Robert's "gap," the experience of existence prior to the arising of the I-sense and self-consciousness, and ccalling that the unchanging and Absolute. If the latter, his entire philosophy is rather trivial.


He also talks about your existence 100 years ago and insists that not knowing what you were at that time, proves that you must have been there in order to be the unchanging constant background that is currently expressing you are unaware of your existence then. he says you are that knowing principle who is unaware of what you were then. This is really crappy logic, unless he is is referring just to the state of Consciousness before the arising of the I Am, the pre-I Am experience of awareness without thought or self-recognition.

And so it goes. There are so many cracks in his model that make an understanding of Maharaj's "wisdom," nearly impossible unless you are very nimble on your feet, accept what he says at that moment, and are not able to hold his multiple inconsistencies in your mind at once.

It is as if he says, "A, not B, not A, C, not A, not C, and B."


Ramesh held steadfastly, the Maharaj's absolute referred to the awareness state that existed before thought. To me, this is rather trivial, barely a beginning of spiritual discovery to me.

7 comments:

  1. I´m quite surprised to read this.

    Nisargadatta is incredibly easy to follow and consistent. The inly problem is that in "I am That" he chose to focus on Consciousness, while his real teaching about the ABsolute appeared in books such as "Prior to Consciousness" or "Consciousness and the Absolute".

    And, OF COURSE, he speaks about a Noumenal Self beyond Consciousnessm not about a mental state prior to thought. Ramesh and others had no clue, and many people recognize that he did not get it AT ALL. But Nisargadatta´s teachings about That which is prior to Consciousness is extremely understandable, since it is our everyday experience: There is a Noumenal Witness that did not come into existence, and is beyond time and space, and It witnesses Consciousness Itself and Its contents.

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  2. Read more deeply. It is not everyday experience. You are talking about feeling that you are observing your body and the world, but that division is one of the first things that disappear after a bit of meditation. Then there is just oneness; all experience, all phenomena are one undivided state. At this point one sees "Everything is Consciousness," which ha also says at times.

    Read these two new books I mention that take place within the timespan of Jean Dunn's trilogy. At many points he makes no sense whatsoever.

    To him, you can never experience the Witness or the Absolute, and in a large sense you are saying we all do as everyday experience. This means you have to read more deeply.

    The first witness of Consciousness he posits as the I Am, that comes into existence, and the I Am creates the world. the experience you have is of the I Am sensation witnessing the world, not the absolute witnessing the world, for if it were, you would be witnessing the absolute witness, which he says impossible. He says if you witness it, it is not the absolute.

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  3. Read more deeply. It is not everyday experience. You are talking about feeling that you are observing your body and the world, but that division is one of the first things that disappear after a bit of meditation. Then there is just oneness; all experience, all phenomena are one undivided state. At this point one sees "Everything is Consciousness," which ha also says at times.

    Read these two new books I mention that take place within the timespan of Jean Dunn's trilogy. At many points he makes no sense whatsoever.

    To him, you can never experience the Witness or the Absolute, and in a large sense you are saying we all do as everyday experience. This means you have to read more deeply.

    The first witness of Consciousness he posits as the I Am, that comes into existence, and the I Am creates the world. the experience you have is of the I Am sensation witnessing the world, not the absolute witnessing the world, for if it were, you would be witnessing the absolute witness, which he says impossible. He says if you witness it, it is not the absolute.

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  4. Hello again, Ed.

    You said to me: "You are talking about feeling that you are observing your body and the world, but that division is one of the first things that disappear after a bit of meditation. Then there is just oneness; all experience, all phenomena are one undivided state. At this point one sees everything is Consciousness, which he also says at times...To him, you can never experience the Witness or the Absolute, and in a large sense you are saying we all do as everyday experience. This means you have to read more deeply."



    No, neither Nisargadatta nor myself say that we experience the Absolute Witness. We say we are It. What we experience is Consciousness, and we experience It from beyond It.

    What I mean is, everyday we experience the appearence and dissapearence of something which is like a bubble of Consciousness, within which we find the whole cosmos, micro and macrocosmic worlds, and our inner experiences, no matter how spiritual, subtle or gross. It is this bubble of Consciousness, and not the cosmos within, what allows us to know we exist. And yes, Consciousness comprises everything that exists, so it is correct to say that "Everything is Consciousness", in the sense of "Everything that exists in space and time and its an object within Consciouness"

    But even Consciousness appears and dissapears. Even this bubble of Consciousness is an object to us. And it is INDEED the experience of every human being that Consciousness does not watch us. Quite the contrary, WE watch Consciousness. And this "WE" is not personal at all. It is a Noumenal principle to which even Consciousness is an object. Right now, in this exact moment, this impersonal "I" is watching Consciousness from beyond. How could it be otherwise? If we were within Consciousness, then we would be an object. But that is not the case. Consciousness is an object TO ME. TO US.





    Consciousness is not located anywhere in space and time, since it has no form, no chemical composition, no location at all. In fact , everything in space and time (even space and time themselves) appear within this bubble of Consciousness. This is the case for every human being.This Consciousness is trascendent regarding the world. It is beyond the universe, not because I say so, but because the universe consists of space, time, and the trillion things, no matter if they are macrocosmic or microcosmic, and they all are appearences in Consciousness. They are objects within Consciousness.

    BUT there is a Noumenal principle that not only trascends the universe, but the very Consciousness in which the universe appears. Again, this is not because I say so, or Nisargadatta says so, but because it is the only certainty a human being can have. Consciousness comes and goes, and Its appearence and dissapearence are objects to sone Noumenal principle, absolutely impersonal, which is beyond Consciousness

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  5. You didn't read Eds answer properly. Please, if Enlightenment says to you "read more deeply" so please do it - you won't regret it. I promise.

    You deny that you and Nissargadatta (as if you are sitting next to him near computer) experiencing Absolute in everyday life.

    But it is exactly what you say in earlier comment to my mind.

    You say "That which is prior to Consciousness is extremely understandable, since it is our everyday experience: There is a Noumenal Witness that did not come into existence, and is beyond time and space, and It witnesses Consciousness Itself and Its contents."

    So your everyday experience is:
    1. A noumenal witness that did not come into existence (then how are you experiencing it?)
    2. it is beyond time and space
    3. It witnesses Consciousness Itself and Its contents. (You talk of noumenal witness as if it would be a third person "It witnesses Consciousness...", "Right now, in this exact moment, this impersonal "I" is watching Consciousness from beyond", so to me the natural question arises "who is this YOU that is watching "even" noumenal witness - whatever that is to you)

    To my mind as long as there is this 'I'ness or identification mechanism or principle of identification or don't know how to express it, i actually very much liked Eds expression "..feeling that you are observing your body and the world - That Division.." so long you are either on a good ego trip or just a trip or whatever you like. Anyway... i am too analytical...


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  6. 1/Actually, Arvydas, you should be the one reading Ed more carefully, since he has been saying the same thing I did for ages. I could give you like a thousand statemens in which he says exactly the same I did: That there is an Absolute Witness that watches Consciousness and is completely beyond It. Actually he even did it a week ago, and has been doint it since I met his (wonderful, BTW) teachings.

    2/ Again, no, I did not say that I experience the Absolute. It is a wrong interpretation of my phrase. I indeed said "It is our everyday experience", but that is the first part of a phrase taken out of context, a phrase which finishes, after the colon sign, with " There is a Noumenal Witness that did not come into existence, and is beyond time and space, and It witnesses Consciousness Itself and Its contents" . So what I meant is that our everyday experience is the fact that there is a witnessing of Consciousness that occurs from beyond Consciousness. Exactly Ed´s teachings for years, and Nisargadatta´s main teaching. Obviously an object does not witness itself. It needs a prior principle that is able to be a subject to that object. You don´t hear a bird because "there is a bird", but because there is the prior ability to hear. Same here. Consciousness does not appear from "nothing" . Actually there is no such thing as Consciousness, but "Awareness of Consciousness". That is my experience, your experience, Ed´s experience, Hitler´s experience. No difference.

    3/ I sometimes use the third person when I talk about the Absolute because it is absolutely impersonal. Is the deepest sense It is our real "I", because It is our deepest nature, but It is not a "thing", or a "being". It trascends even "being". And yes, right now, Arvydas, your Witness is watching Consciousness. When Consciousness appears in the morning, there is, by definition, a Subject observing this Object. You can choose to identify with the Manifest Self Ed talks about, which is obviously correct, but you can´t deny that the Manifest Self is an object to a prior principle which is able to witness even the Manifest Self.

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  7. Thank you Edji for acknowleging how frustratingly confusing it is to read Nissargadatta! It usually makes me feel less clear and less motivated to look when I read him. Yet later on it comes back, out of the blue! There are seeds in those books. or maybe little time bombs.
    I wish we had some songbook of the Bhajans he used to do
    Yours,
    Andrew

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