FORMLESS PATH- FACEBOOK POSTINGS
The quest of truth begins with inquiring:-
Is there a God?
What is his nature?
There has to be a proof. When such questions arise then it is the starting point of the quest for truth. Everyone has their own idea of god or no God, according to his parental grooming or accepted idea through circumstances. But he must know god as Truth. One must have proof of that God has created man and the world, because, no one has seen god creating the creation. One can only assume or imagine about the existence of god. God exist only for those who accept the belief system.
Why did God create pain and pleasure?
Why does he crate pleasure and make one indulge in pleasure?
Why does he torture people with misery, new epidemics, terrorism, and wars?
Has God no better business to do? Why he created pain and pleasure in his creation?
Is god a sadist and teaching people lessons through these violence and sufferings.
What lesson can God teach the people died in terrorism and wars, which is going on in the name of religion and god?
How can one accept that God is all-merciful when he constantly displeases all humanity with hide and seek play of pain and pleasure?
How does one know that man is related to God?
Why God created injustice, oppression, starvation, poverty, exploitation, inequality, slavery, epidemics, violence and wars?"
Only through scriptures one is saying man and world are creation of god. No one has ever seen God, creating this universe, that he has manifested himself is merely supposed. Even it may be god’s creation, but how do one know, because man and world was not in existence prior to his creation. Man is talking of gods’ creation only after god created it. The religion, scriptures saints and sages prophets came into existence only after the creation came into existence. Therefore, the scriptures cannot be taken as proof.
The saints and sages, prophets, might have been imagined the existence of god. To accept these scriptures blindly without reasoning is to possess the sheepish mentality.
Inquiry implies doubt, proof, evidence, so that even if God were to come and say that He is God, one would inquire into the truth of the statement. People are overawed by doctrines enunciated upon authority of some god men or religion or scripture.
The truth is universal, not individual. The truth must be tested. If it is true, it will survive the test and will bear proof, without any scriptural authority to support it. The idea of god cannot stand without the religious authority. The religious authority suggests the existence of god but it cannot prove his existence. Blindly believing and belief is not the proof, because the belief is not god.
The truth has to be un-contradictable and it has to universally applicable. The truth has to be common for all people who pursue inquiry to the utmost extent. The world often appears to be a reality when it is not properly inquired into. Even if most of the population declare that this world is the ultimate reality, their assertion is of less value than the assertions of a seekers of truth who have inquired into the nature and reality of the world and found it to be an idea.
Conviction of the Truth comes only by adequate reasoning in right direction. The bookish knowledge is not the means to acquire Self-Knowledge; there must be reasoning on them to know they are speaking of un-contradictable truth.
Some have got faith in a particular religion or teaching. Some have no faith in them. Thus there is contradiction. Nothing can be done about it. In the real truth there can be no contradiction, nor any possibility of it.
How does one know there a God? The onus of proof is on the one who makes this assertion. Without proof one should not accept any doctrine. To reason means to go to the very end of things.
Verification, the testing and proving of truth, is absolutely necessary in pursuit of truth; in religion the truth is merely assumed.
There are degrees of truth, most doctrines are partially correct in coming gradually nearer to truth and thus pointing towards it. Only nondual alone cannot be contradicted, all others are contradictable. The religion is based assuming the existence of god. Mere assuming the existence of the god makes one accept the duality as reality. The idea of god makes one think he an individual separate from the world and idea of god. Until this conviction is there discovering, assimilating and realizing the ultimate truth is impossibility.
As deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning on the true base reveals the fact that, the nature of truth is non-dual. It can never be changed under any circumstances. It may be misrepresented. It must apply to the whole of existence, to the whole of the three states. It is in the experience of duality alone that one has all changes.
The ultimate truth remains unchanged and remains immortal. It can never die for it never changes. The mind is seen, and goes, but the witness or knower of the mind, can never go. Seeker has to take this principle as his guiding thread and nondual truth becomes easy to assimilate.
The reality can never be subject to the changes of the unreal; it is unchanged. The mistake usually made is that real becomes unreal, or that unreal is real.
Scholastic or mystic argument leads nowhere. If one says “God is formless “another will say, God has a form. If one says "this scriptures has higher then all other scriptures” another will say, "No, that is lower and there are many scriptures higher then that." It is impossible to get anywhere with such talk because both sides are merely assuming and imagining. Truth means the absence of conflict.
The consciousness dwells in all the three states as their formless substance and witness. People worship only images or their belief, thinking that God is there. People do not recognize Spirit /Consciousness / Self to be the real God, but that they do not realize that god, as the spirit, which pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states.
The ignorant people are not capable of discriminate and reason to unfold the mystery of the mind. Therefore, they will not be able to grasp the nondual truth. It is realization of the true self that will free one from bondage of duality, which he experiences as reality. But the belief system makes them to believe the duality is reality therefore, they cannot think beyond physicality. The individualized god can exist only in duality.
No one has ever seen God; they only heard or read about him. Some may claim they seen him in their vision. But vision is mere an experience similar to dream. If one takes the visions as real then the dream also has to be taken as reality. Observe how one religion is inimical towards another. Why has God created them so?
No one knows god’s capacities, what he can create, and what he cannot create. Therefore, any statement one might make about God would only be a lie, because god can exist only when man exists, and believes in the belief of god. If there is no belief then there is no god. Thus god is the religious software used in belief system. If the software is discarded then it is only physical existence that prevails. The truth will unfold only when one is able to know the truth beyond the physical existence.
The truth of religion can only be proved by physical strength or by imagination, or power of the weapon or political power, never by reason. Belief in religious prohibitions arises out of fear of God's punishment. Religion is not truth merely because it always shows contradiction.
Seeker of truth has to regard the theosophy in the same way as he regards the idea of God of religion. Mere assuming or imagining the gods’ existence through belief will remain as belief. The belief is not truth, because every religion has its own belief, thus belief is limited to individuality, so it is not universal. The belief cannot be god, because to believe in something man has to exist prior to god to believe. Until and unless one finds the answer for: with what the physical body is able to function itself as a person and perceive the world, the truth will not be unfolded. The truth is based on the power which holds the physical existence, not on the physical existence, which appears and disappears.
Religionists place God as the unknown reality and they base everything on the creation and creator theory. Every religionist has a different idea of God. Every man has a different idea of reality, hence there is need to know the ultimate truth. The fallacy of religionist’s appeal to scripture lies in the varying and conflicting interpretations of the same scripture which different persons feel entitled to give or hold.
Therefore, one has overcome all the inherited conditioning of belief system to unfold the mystery of the physical existence/mind. Reason is common to all, whereas belief system is based on individual speculation and imagination. The truth cannot be based on the belief system or on its scriptures.
Scripture can be interpreted in a many different ways and hence can never finally determine truth. Many scholars, god men, priests and intellectuals, each have different interpretations for example. Most people take their own interpretations and call it truth.
The god exists only when the man exists. Man and his experience of the world exist only when the mind exists. Therefore it is necessary to unfold the truth of man’s existence, before investigating about gods’ existence. Until and unless one is able to unfold the mystery of the mind, which appears and disappears, he will not be able to know the reality of the true existence.
Individualized God propagated by the belief system can exist only in experience of duality. Deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning revels the fact that, the self is not physical, but it is the formless spirit. The experience of duality/mind is mere mirage on the standpoint of the true self/spirit. Reasoning on the physical base is erroneous when one finds the fact that the self is not physical. Therefore, one has to base the reason on the spirit, which is the true self. Whatever is seen known believed and experienced as a person within the mirage is bound to be falsehood, because they are based on the false physical self. The seeker can become aware of the fact that, physical existence is mere mirage, when he indulges in deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning on the true base.
Thus, man and his experience of world and his belief of god is part and parcel of the mirage. The mirage is created, sustained by spirit and finally it dissolves as spirit. The formless substance and witness of the mirage is real and eternal.
Reason is not intuition but that which exercise of thinking faculty which distinguishes between error and truth. But reason must be rectified from form base to formless base. The aim is to rectify it and make use of it. When it is rectified, the closer to truth one proceeds.
Therefore, deeper reasoning is necessary in order to unfold the mystery of the physical existence/mind to realize the fact that, the physical existence is mere mirage. Only the ultimate truth can be taken as god, because god is not an entity or identity within the experience of diversity because it pervades in everything and everywhere in all the three states.
sunthosh-formlesspath.blogspot.com
sunthosh-formlesspath.blogspot.com
sunthosh-formlesspath.blogspot.com
At every stage in one’s life, wherever he turns or goes, ignorance meets him. One always worries what is going to happen in the future to him, or to the world? What will happen to the money if I deposit it, will it be safe? What is happening inside my body? What is the ultimate condition of this this world? He will not get answers. Because futures have yet come, he is thinking of the past and future fears in the present. The present is always built on past and survives on the hopes of the future. But when one becomes aware of the fact that time is illusion and one which is aware of the time is timeless existence, which is the consciousness. To overcome the sense of time one has to realize the one which is aware of the form and space also is consciousness. Thus consciousness alone is real and form, time and space are unreal because they are one in essence.
Only when a man begins to express doubts, or says he wants to know the highest truth while admitting his ignorance of it, one should talk nonduality with him.
Due to prejudice many modern thinkers are often on the right track in their rationalistic outlook, but they can't tolerate wisdom coming from others.
Just as a new-born child cannot understand mathematics, so the mass of mankind must grow up intellectually before it can understand nondual truth. However nondual truth must now in this modern world be explained in a way by which a larger number of people can grasp it.
Just as one cannot teach physics chemistry to children in the nursery class so one cannot teach nonduality to the millions of grown-up adults. They will understand only what they will be able to grasp, i.e. religion or yoga.
Self-Knowledge gives a connecting link from primitive religion to the highest truth "knowing which nothing remains to be known."
Only when one becomes aware of the fact that the self is not the form but self is formless he will capable of grasping, understanding and assimilating the nondual truth. There is no use if discussing with people who are not receptive and always want the discussion on their own point of view. It is wise to discuss with only people who are receptive.
There is no use of instilling doubts in the minds of others: these doubts must arise of their own accord and only then they will find the others. The seekers of truth in beginning question the truth of religion they have to clear their problems then only indulge in pursuit of truth. It would be unwise at the first instance to tell them their religion is untrue.
When there is no capacity for thinking, then yoga is suitable, if there is still less capacity to think then rituals. Truth pursuit is suitable for those who are capable of thinking deeper and deeper.
There is no need to condemn yoga or religion but only one has to understand the fact that, they are not the means to acquire Self-Knowledge. In fact they are greatest obstacle in pursuit of truth. According to their stage of understanding, people believe what helps them at that stage. They are not aware of the fact that yoga and religion are like play with toys and follow fables.
Truth pursuit is only to who has intense urge to know the truth. Mysticism or religion is suited for those who are not seeking truth. Religion and yoga is needed for the mass. It helps them to cast the burden on conceptual god and move on in the worldly life. Only when one finds the religion and yoga are inadequate and useless to quench his inner urge to know the truth, and then only he must take the path of truth.
A Gnani feels there is no clash with others, he quarrels with none. He sees all their points of view. He knows that they take things as they seem to be, hence are necessarily dualists. In truth all is one. Thus “search for truth" to become one with it. .
Nondual is so strong that it makes one feel impregnable in argument and invulnerable in exposition. Hence it gives intellectual courage. If people want truth, they have to search within the three states; if they want to please their ego, they have to follow their ego, by following orthodox religion which is egocentric. Until the conduct based orthodoxy think the freedom is achieved from their personal conduct they are doomed in illusory cycle of birth, life and death. If they take the illusory birth, life and death as reality they accepted the false self as real self. Thus they will remain believing the false self as real self and false experience as real experience and follow the false doctrines based on the ego as self.
Only people who are able to reason deeper take to path of wisdom. Others will follow religion, or if that fails, they take yoga and mysticism because they are easier follow the blind belief and it is hard to reason. But people of sharp acute intellect need not take to meditation but may go direct to wisdom.
Religious and yogic path are egocentric paths, which leads to imaginary freedom. Only soul centric path leads directly to ultimate truth.
So long as doubts or possibilities of doubts exist, one is not a Gnani. When ignorant who are not aware of the fact that, the self is not physical but self is formless consciousness cannot understand, they say, "Why worry oneself over that?" But that is evading the issue.
The illusion can be understood only when the mind learns to view and judge the worldview, on the true base. The orthodox nonduality has no truth.
Vedic religion was modified and reintroduced with new add-ons by Sri, Sankara a great Advith Master to uplift the Vedic culture and Santana Dharma [Hinduism], which were in ruins in the clutches of Buddhism. 18 puranas are introduced in the name of Veda Vyasa.
As one goes deeper in the annals of the history, it indicates the fact that somewhere someone has added the puranas in the name of Veda Vyasa the grand master of Vedas. It is impossible to accept and believe that Veda Vyasa authored and introduced puranas which has all conceptual gods because:-
In Vedas the God has been described as:-
Sakshi (Witness)
Chetan (conscious)
Nirguna (Without form and properties).
Nitya (eternal)
Shuddha (pure)
Buddha (omniscient)
Mukta (unattached).
It indicates clearly all the gods with form and attributes are mere imagination based on the false self.
And also in Yajurved says:
Translation 1.
They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc).
They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example table, chair, idol etc.)
[Yajurved 40:9]
Translation 2.
"Deep into shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti are intent."
[Yajurveda Samhita by Ralph T. H. Giffith pg 538]
Translation 3.
"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time."
[Yajur Veda 40:9.]
So, Yajur Veda indicates that:-
They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example table, chair, idol etc [Yajurved 40:9]
Those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." [Yajur Veda 40:9.]
When the religion of the Veda knows no idols then why so many gods and goddesses with different form and name are being propagated as Vedic gods. Why these conceptual gods are introduced when Vedic concept of god is free from form and attributes.
Who introduced concept of god with attributes and attributeless gods, when Yajur Veda says: - those who worship visible things, born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like), in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness. Therefore, all these add-ons proves that the form and attribute based concepts are introduced by some sages of the past with new belief system and code of conducts in the name of Vedas.
Sruti is made the final or exclusive authority in apara Vidya and that for supporting the tenet of the CAUSAL relation or creatorship of Brahman, Nirguna Brahman = the "Absolute beyond qualities," which can be defined only in a negative way. For the Shankarian school = the Ultimate Reality, higher than the Lord. i.e. of Saguna or apara Brahman ... The support of Scriptural Revelation is, therefore, absolutely necessary for this hypothesis of cosmology, this Saguna or apara (= inferior) Brahman, but not for the absolute truth of Nirguna Brahman. The Sruti itself says: "This Atma is NOT to be attained by a study of the Vedas. [Katha Upanishad I, 2, 23.]
Therefore, all the add-ons and attribute based knowledge, which are inferior, have to be bifurcated and excluded to know the ultimate truth. The seeker of truth has to drop all the inferior knowledge based on the attributes and go beyond Vedas to understand assimilate and realize the ultimate truth or Brahman.
One has to go beyond Vedas means go beyond religion. Go beyond religion means, go beyond concept of god. Thus, going beyond Veda, religion and conceptual god means going beyond illusion. That is end of Vedas [ Veda –antha]
When one goes into the annals of the history it looks like the true Advith expounded by Sri Sankara and his param guru, Goudpada was lost or mutilated by the orthodox, because the preaching and practice does not match.
It is necessary for the seeker to do his homework, and verify the validity of all the claims, rather than blindly believe, what others expound as knowledge, till, the un-contradicted truth is obtained.
The seeker must have the courage of Buddha to accept the truth and reject the untruth. Since Buddha rejected religion, idea of god and scriptures, therefore, it is evident that, he has gone through every aspect and verified and found them to be inadequate and useless for the pursuit of truth.
Even Buddhism is mixed up with regional culture and traditions of the local religion, wherever it existed. Thus to get the full essence from Buddhism is very difficult.
The scriptures are for ignorant masses, who wholly accept the material world as it presents itself. Wisdom is for those who have begun to realize that things are not what they seem.
Each sect concocts a God to suit its own purposes. Such concocted Gods have no value in pursuit of truth. Man himself suggests that there must be a God. It is an auto-suggestion.
Prayers and sacrifices belong to a premature stage of development. However when no answers come to prayers, struggle for existence presses man, and doubt arises again. Faith in religion weakens as man pays more attention to facts of life and this world.
Reason is the common ground for whole humanity in modern age, whereas the appeal to scriptural relations reaches only the sects. Those who argue that truth is only in their religion are vain logicians, depending on mere ideas, speculations and imaginations.
Truth is bitter pill. It becomes very difficult for the seeker to accept it at first; because of his inherited conditioning. Gradually he will be able to grasp it as he moves on.
The illusion is present only in ignorance where, 'I' and you are separate entity. In truth, there is neither 'I' nor you, nor, the illusion. Therefore there is no teaching, no teacher, and no student in reality.
Truth pursuit is a very personal journey. Seeker has to verify minutely on his own, “what is truth”, and “what is not truth”, before accepting anything as truth. The illusion exists as reality, only on base of the ego, which is he false self within the false experience.
For Gnani, who is aware of the fact that the self is not physical but self is consciousness, there is no illusion, even though; he is in the midst of illusion, because he is fully aware of the fact that, all the three states are consciousness. Therefore he is conscious of consciousness in the midst of illusion.
The language of the duality, invented by the within the duality, for use in the dualistic world, when used to describe non-duality, produces these apparent contradictions, because there no apparatus in non-duality, because noting exist other than the soul, which is in the form of consciousness.
Non duality is the state of oneness of existence and there is no scope for anything like non-existence in the realm of nondual truth.
A Gnani do not consider himself as wise and others are less wise. No one is wise or less wise in in pursuit of truth. The inner revolution starts within and ends within. Gnani is neither a scriptural scholar nor he is a philosopher. Gnani neither a teacher nor he has any teaching. He silently works and helps the fellow seekers inspiring them guiding them towards inner reality in his own way. The scholar will remain as scholars and philosophers will remain as philosophers and intellectual remains as intellectuals arguing on their point of view. I am not propagating any philosophy because philosophy is nothing to do with pursuit of truth.
Gnani respects all the nondual sages of truth of the past. Sharing the knowledge is his only mission. Inspiring the serious and sincere seekers of truth and divert their attention towards the inward reality is very much necessary.
Seeker of truth should not hold any teacher or teaching or wise men as a yardstick and indulge in argument instead try to list out the doubts and confusion arises from that teaching or declaration and try to find answer independently on their own, which opens the inner dialogue, and the inner discrimination will start on its own in subconscious, and then the truth will start revealing on its own without intellectual spoon feeding. It is not my advice but it is my humble suggestion because the advice comes from the go and suggestion comes from the inner core.
There is no need to follow anyone. If one wants Brahman follow the inner guru not Hinduism. If one wants ultimate truth follow Christ within not Christianity. If one wants Nirvana follow Buddha not Buddhism. By glorifying the form and name of the sages will not yield truth. Deeper self-search is needed in order to realize what is what. It is not the man who has to get self-realization but it is the self that has to realize it is not the man and the world but it is consciousness. Thus it is the self, which has urge for freedom from this illusory prison called universe or mind.
The universe will not vanish when wisdom dawns, only the ignorance disappears and unreal nature of the universe or mind or waking is exposed, same way as the unreal nature of the dream exposed when waking takes place. The wisdom dawns in the midst of duality because in reality there is no duality.
Nothing is needed other than perfect understanding of what is what is needed.
The truth cannot be experienced. Because it is prior to any experience. Experience belongs to individuality. And individuality is falsehood. There is neither individual nor his experience in reality.
Man and his experience of the world cannot exist without waking experience. Whatever we are discussing, we are discussing within the waking experience, which is mere illusion from ultimate standpoint. Thus whatever is known, seen, believed and experienced as a person is bound to be falsehood.
The path of religion, path of yoga and path of wisdom is meant for different classes of people. Mixing up with one another is like mixing oil in water.
One has to move ahead with his chosen path, which satisfies him.
