Thoughts on Advaita Vedanta Metaphysics

Debate Room
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All esoteric traditions that speak of suppression of the self are radically mistaken. There is no suppression of being, there is suppression of the image of the self as given in the presence self, the social self and the biographical self. In Hinduism, there is talk of peeling the various layers that make up the psyche — memory, language, emotions etc, — until remains something that constitutes the true substance, the brahma, which is eternal. However, this act is not only not possible, but it disregards an even more serious fact: it is only as a substantial irreducible self that you can experience divinity. This condition, rather than an obstacle, is your path to that experience. The problem with the metaphor of the drop of water in the ocean is that it represents no salvation. If I disappear, there is no salvation. What is the difference between saying that I am going to become a great God — and losing my personality — and saying that I am going to dilute myself in matter and turn to dust in the grave? There is not much difference, I disappeared anyway. In order to have salvation, on the contrary, it is necessary that I remain; that there is a human, stable core that can say ‘I’. It is necessary that I enter into synergy with God and at the same time remain myself.

René Guénon follows the Hindu metaphysics, according to which, above the divine person, Ishwara, who is the face of God turned to created beings, there is the Being, or secret essence of God, and above the Being the Supra-Being, the Suprapersonal and anonymous, infinite and eternal Brahman, alternating in states of “manifestation” and “non-manifestation” (“days and nights of Brahman”) in which entire universes appear and disappear together with the Being itself. This conception is totally self-contradictory, because if there are no created beings before which God can “manifest”, to whom would He manifest Himself? For Himself? This would imply that in His states of total non-manifestation He would ignore Himself, constituting an infinite ocean not of wisdom, but of forgetfulness, and, even worse, with no one around to awaken Him again to His own presence. The God who is not a Person can only be a “thing”, an abstract “quid”, an “x”, a “something”, and I don’t see how the state of “something” can be superior to that of “person”, which is, in fact — as exemplified analogously and partially in the very human person — the perfect synthesis of transparency and impenetrability, above which nothing can be conceived. The scale that rises from Ishwara to Brahman is in fact reversed, it is a “thingistic” distortion: the Person of God present to Himself, the eternal I-Am in the form of the Trinity, is the summit of universal reality. No “quid” can be above that. Guénon was sorely mistaken in supposing that Christian metaphysics was “incomplete” by ignoring Brahman. Brahman is not a self-subsisting reality, it is but a subjective state of the personal God among billions of other possible states.

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You have asserted there is a god. Please provide proof or evidence of such an entity. If you can not, then you can not support this argument.

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Suppression of the “self?” Now there is a deepity if ever there was one. What do you imagine the “Self” is possibly suppressing when it is the “Self” doing the suppressing? How does one suppress the 'Self" by giving the “Self” ultimate control over “its self?”

No true ‘self’ fallacy. Complete horseshit. The mind making distinctions and pretending to understand itself better based on these distinctions. Psychology is full of theories of mind. Little magical kingdoms all claiming to be a partial explanation of something we call “mind / self.” A real “Blind men and the Elephant” scenario. As useful as a bedtime story.

There is no evidence for the unfolding of Brama. Shiva is a delusion. Demonstrate an irreducible self when that which is self is an ever changing concept, altering with age, events, education, and trauma. There is ‘NOTHING’ you can point to and demonstrate an unchanging 'self." You can not dip the same ‘self’ in the same river twice.

Synergy with god and remaining self… bla bla bla… Demonstrate evidence for the existence of anything at all past death. What evidence do you have? You are deluding yourself with abstractions. You respond to a mystery with a more complex mystery and pretend you have an answer. What you have is a plate full of shit.

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Looks like a cut and paste from:

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What did you just say? What is it supposed to mean? Can you “dumb it down” a little?

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It seems it is an amalgamation of a series of essays designed to show that Christianity (perhaps the Catholic version) is a better religious scheme than other religions.

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As a former catholic, I find that very hard to believe.

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I am also a recovering Catholic. I find it downright impossible to believe. My personal incredulity does not make it untrue. THAT comes from the first twenty years of my life as a devout Bog Irish catholic.

The humbug is unceasing. Yesterday I was reading about three pious frauds Catholics are still encouraged to revere: The fake mystic and stigmatist Therese Neumann, Fake stigmatist Padre Pio and the disgusting old hag SAINT Theresa of Calcutta.

IMO The Catholic church still takes the biscuit for hubris and corruption.

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What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity or deities?

Until you can do that, all else is naught but conjecture.

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He said the same thing I said. Suppressing the self means you are a self pretending you are suppressing self.

A Hindu has not suppressed the self by walking about in a orange robe with a red dot in the middle of his forehead while discussing the suppression of self. (Pure Ego) The same is true of a Buddhist. Just listen to the asshole talk. He says one thing and does the opposite. Have no attachments, but put that fucking dot on your head, sit in a special way, talk in a special way, breath in a special way, and think in a special way. Suppress the self so you can train it to be this way or that way. It is still the self being this way or that way. Nothing has changed.

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@Cognostic

Was it not Sigmund Freud who invented the model of consciousness we use? IE Ego, Id, Super Ego.

Am I mistaken, or did Herr Doktor Freud present no empirical evidence for his ,model? So he was actually bullshitting?

Are there in fact any empirically based models of consciousness? I’m not being snide, I’d really like to know.

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No useful ones, imo. The subject is a hot mess.

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That’s pretty much what I thought. I think models tend to seem simplistic and rigid.

I came to that conclusion obliquely . About 30 years ago. After studying several models of social change, I concluded they are all flawed. I have asked why does there needs to be a model of social change, other than convenience and tidy thinking? I came to think that social change is continuum. That we seldom have enough data to support our conclusions.

My own notion of consciousness/ ‘mind’ fits in there somewhere. It ain’t neat and it ain’t pretty.

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All psychological models are bullshit. “Magical Kingdoms” This is why psychology is a “Soft Science.” It still comes up with models and can explain behaviors and even make sense of some of the thinking behind the behaviors, but in the end, when you get right down to the core, there is a whole lot of guesswork and fluff in your favorite psychological theory.

The Brain is no more divided into an id, ego, and superego than it is divided into parent, adult and child states. Buddhist psychology divides the brain into thousands of parts with each part taking on a role depending on the stimulus outside the body. It is no more right or wrong than Freud’s assertions.

I hate psychoanalysis’s regression bullshit but I love the defensive mechanisms. Good and stupidity in everything. Even in my words.

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Yeah, spent 6 months as TA client in a group. Then read the journals for the next ten years. Used TA once at work; a book “TA For Managers” . The technique I used seemed to work at the time. It was consistent with Maslow, who was my theoretical base.

I completed a diploma in personnel management in 1974. That almost certainly means I am wildly out of date

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Yea. this is the thing about psychological theories, they work. However, when they do not work, therapists invent terms like “Resistance.” My favorite psychoanalytic bullshit term. When the client does not go along with the therapist’s interpretation according to Psychoanalytic Theory, then the client is said to be resisting. The dipshit psychoanalysis’s believe in things like repressed memories and the free association of the unconscious mind to the conscious mind. As if there were such a thing. " Resistance, in psychoanalysis , refers to oppositional behavior when an individual’s unconscious defenses of the ego are threatened by an external source. This would be for the purpose of inhibiting the revelation of any repressed information from within the unconscious mind."

Now I really do like “Defensive Mechanisms” and do believe they offer a self preservation value; however, they are used to "get what we want’ more frequently. This, in my opinion, is a better way of looking at them.

IMO: Resistance is when a therapist pushes a client in a direction they do not want to go. In psychoanalysis the therapist believes he has to understand what is going on with the client to be helpful. This is not the case. The client can literally label his problem ‘X’ and refer to it as ‘X’ throughout treatment and I need know nothing at all about it. And it can still be resolved. The work does not occur in me. It occurs in the client or the client was not motivated.

Every time I hear someone say, “I went to therapy and it didn’t work.” I want to cringe. It’s obvious to me the therapist was an idiot. Therapy does not work. Counseling does not work. Clients work. They show up for sessions. They do the hard work. They make decisions. They work through issues or choose not to work through them. In all cases the client is whole, complete, and capably in control of his or her own life.

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Yeah.

If it turns out the client has been lying through his teeth, that’s because that’s where he needs to be in the counselling process.---- As explained by my psychologist, who uses cognitive therapy… This my eighth year with her, although I now see her only every three months, for monitoring. This is because my shrink is no longer practising in this state. They had a good professional relationship, although they didn’t always agree.

Did my treatment and therapy work? Well, I haven’t killed myself or had any significant suicidal ideation in the last 5 years or so. Don’t really care about the ‘why’ of it, I only care about the ‘what’. That doesn’t mean I necessarily recommend any aspect of my treatment to others

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My psychiatrist diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (Asperger’s Syndrome) in 2012. Explained a great deal, but at 65, didn’t change a whole lot. Still as weird as I ever was. That means my family still don’t really want me around for more than the odd hour or perhaps two. My communication here is tightly edited. I post approx. 60% of what I write

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Exactly! This makes no sense whatsoever. This world is an illusion. Ok, let me shoot you in the head, and then you can tell me whether you, me and the world, is an illusion. SMH.

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BINGO! The self still exists, and they are back to square one. Suppress the self…yeah right. UGH!

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Where did you get “The world is an illusion” from anything I said? At no point did I make that assertion. Was this an attempt at agreement or a supposed witty retort? Either way, you obviously did not grok the reply.

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