Dualists could not distinguish between ‘I’ and ‘formless witness.’***

Dualist sages say God cannot exist without attributes. Then they are making God as an object whereas God is the subject. Attributes can only be seen in the objective world. Causality appears in the duality, but when one goes deeper into the matter even there the causality disappears.

Who else but the self could have imagined the objective world? Ramanuja and Madva see God as the imaginer, but where is the proof. Nobody has seen God creating. You have seen no other creator, whether God or angel. The only self is left. Therefore, the  self is the creator because imagining means creating. The Dvaita and Religionists talk nonsense. Has God a meaning to you? Yes. It is an idea. What is an idea? An imagination. So God has no proved existence beyond that of an idea.

Where people cannot and do not think, they follow others. A Gnani will see the world and get to know it is only appearance. He is not blind; he sees three states or objects as it is, but he knows it is only falsehood. Just as you see a mirage, the Gnani sees the mirage of this universe too, but he is not deceived by it. So long as one is ignorant, he will have the idea that God has created this world because the causal notion will be there. Nobody wants to suffer, and while the notion that suffering can be got rid of by appealing to God these wishes will sway the mind to believe in God. For them religion will arise, but for the man who wants the truth, religion offers no consolation.

Anybody can write a commentary on the Upanishads other scriptures and other scriptures, all they need to do to pour out with or mental word words. It is quite easy to do this even by those who have never understood the Upanishads and but think they have. Thus, the dualists and their disciple have written commentaries on scriptures: But all these have written to satisfy themselves, not to get the ultimate truth or Brahman. 

It is difficult to understand assimilate within a framework of some teaching or holding some philosophy as a yardstick.  We have to drop all our accumulated dross to understand and assimilate and realize the non-dualistic truth.  I am highlighting some scriptural citation only to show the seeker that the nondual sages themselves declare that scriptures, religion and idea of God are unimportant in pursuit of truth.  It is easier to understand, assimilate   and realize the ultimate truth or non-dualistic truth by rationalizing our views and understanding:- 

There is only mind which is present as the universe. Thus, we have to investigate the world that confronts us. 

The soul, the innermost self,  is that which knows everything, that which sees. Consciousness alone remains after one gets rid of all thoughts and ideas by identification with self. Consciousness is only the seer; it is not Brahman that is an error. It becomes Brahman only after an inquiry and reasoning.

Firstly, we have to realize the mind is not within the body but the body and world are within the mind. Therefore, all our practical life within the practical world is within the mind, which is in the form of the universe. The universe appears as waking or dream (duality or mind) and disappears as deep sleep (Nonduality or no mind).  Thus, the waking entity is not the self. The self is that which witnesses the coming and going of the three states.  The self is not an individual because it pervades everything and everywhere in all the three states. Therefore, our practical life within the practical world, which is based on individuality, is nothing to do with the self, which is ever formless.

One becomes aware of the fact that, the universe or mind, which appears and disappears, is the only form and shape created out of consciousness and nothing else. The consciousness alone is positive proof and on the standpoint of the consciousness or soul as self, one becomes aware of the   falsity of this universe or mind, which is mere appearance. The one which appears as mind (universe) and disappears as no mind (soul) is consciousness alone. Therefore, the mind and soul are one in essence.  Without consciousness, which is the innermost self, the universe ceases to exist.

Mental analysis shows that, the existences of the formless witness, which witnesses the three states coming and going without a break. This, on closer analysis, is found to be that changeless, soul or consciousness itself.

Thus, we have to focus our attention only on the three states.  The mind, which appears as waking or dream is duality and deep sleep is Nonduality.  Therefore, we have to find out what is it that becomes the duality (waking or dream as a whole) and Nonduality (deep sleep).  The individual experience happening within the waking and dream is nothing to with the consciousness, which is the innermost self. Identifying   consciousness as innermost self is necessary to realize the unreal nature of the mind. 

The mind cannot be destroyed but then when one overcomes the ignorance through wisdom than he realizes his body, his ego and his experience of the world to be consciousness.  Thus for Gnani the body is not body , the ego is not ego , the world is not a world but everything is consciousness even though he is in the midst of illusion knowing  and realizing the ultimate truth  in the midst of illusion is called wisdom.    It becomes very easy to assimilate the nondual truth, if one is able to drop his accumulated knowledge and inborn samskara.  Only one has to realize his body and his experience of the universe are one in essence to bring unity in diversity in our understanding and in turn it leads to self-awareness.  

Dualists could not distinguish between ‘I’ and ‘formless witness.’ They take ‘I’ as the self and witness. Their highest was the Jiva.

People are so much attached to the 'I' that they do not want to think that 'I' itself is mere illusion. Thus, it is necessary to know the fact that “I’   is the mind. And the mind is the universe. And the universe is waking experience. And waking experience is an illusion. Thus, they are unable to detach the ‘I’ from the Real witness.

And dualists and intellectuals keep on objecting: - If everything else is false, your statement that self is Brahman is itself false.  But when one says consciousness is false, there must be the awareness, consciousness, behind the very statement. The duality (mind or universe)   disappears as Nonduality (deep sleep).  One has to rely upon that which is permanent.  The formless witness or consciousness alone is permanent. Anything that one says,  he is saying within the illusion, but there is consciousness (formless witness)   before any statement could be made.

Again as a step leading to formless witness, the arguments, the three states avails. But if one knows the existence of the formless witness of the three states, nothing else remains to be known.

Plato mixed some of those Indian ideas with his own. ***

PLATO:- The Greeks got their best ideas in philosophy from India, some of their thinkers like Pythagoras having traveled to India. Plato mixed some of those Indian ideas with his own. Who has seen that substance called the "soul"? The Platonic dualism of soul and body is speculative, not philosophic. It is like Ramanujaism. Plato rose to the truth that the world is an idea, but he did not go beyond that to the ultimate, i.e. that the idea itself disappears in Brahman.

LEIBNIZ's monads have each a window through which they look on an independent material world. It is like Ramanuja's and Madhva's belief in the multiplicity of souls. 

SPINOZA'S doctrine of mind and body being two aspects of the same unknown reality, substance, is the equivalent doctrine of Ramanuja's Visishtadvaita. 

RAMANUJA believed in a plurality of minds or selves and also in prakriti matter. The latter he thought ultimately existed in the form of particles similar to our atomic theory. But recent science has killed the atomic theory and matter has vanished with it. Hence modern Ramanujists fear science and try to avoid it. 

Science investigations into objects; they are useful in the practical world and scientific inventions are very helpful in practical world.  The science, scientist and its inventions are part of the illusion. The ultimate truth or Brahman cannot be got from laboratory condition because the ultimate truth or has to be got   only through deeper thinking and reasoning.  Intellectuals are deluded that science is the correct path to the final reality, but they have to accept the fact that,  the truth of the whole universe is impossible from the external source, but until one investigate the innermost self  the truth will not be revealed.   

No one has ever seen the awakening of consciousness. No one has ever seen the first man or the first animal. No one has ever seen the god creating the world.  Such talk is not philosophy but hypothesis.

When the yogi sits down to meditate, he is thinking first of sitting, i.e. his body; next he says "I do not want such and such thoughts," i.e. he is already thinking of those thoughts. Thus, he is thinking of the object (form) never of the subject (formless). 

Hence Ashtavakra says: ~“This is your bondage, that you practice Samadhi (meditation or trance)"

Without imagination   has the thinker-- what do one get with thinking—he can get only a thought. Meditation is only an effort of the ego; it is an imagination, an idea.

When soul’s attention is riveted on the illusory object, it forgets itself. This is true whether an external object or an internal (one) idea. When soul is absorbed in the illusion it forgets its formless nondual true nature. When one inquires who the witness of the three states, he becomes aware of the existence of the existence of the formless witness of the three states apart from the three states, which is eternal.

When one cannot see into a man’s mind he can only say he cannot accept that there is a multiplicity of minds, he can only see his lips moving but not his mind moving. Hence he can neither accept nor deny this doctrine of multiple Jivas. It is an unproven hypothesis.

To say that each mind is different is unproved because you have never seen the mind. Can one say where it starts and stops, have you measured its thickness? All is supposition, not proof. 

Who else but the self could have imagined the objective world? dualists  see God as the imaginer, but where is the proof. Nobody has seen God creating. one has  seen no other creator, whether God or angel. The only self is left. Therefore,  the self is the creator , because imagining means creating. The dualists  imagine the existence of god and then go on talking about such imagined God. .  God has no  meaning  because it is mere  an imagined  idea. What is an idea? An imagination. So God has no proved existence beyond that of an idea.

Where people cannot and do not think, they follow others. A Gnani will see the world and get to know it is only appearance. He is not blind; he sees three states or objects as it is, but he knows it is only falsehood. Just as one sees a mirage, the Gnani sees the mirage of this universe too, but he is not deceived by it. So long as one is ignorant, he will have the idea that God has created this world because the causal notion will be there. Nobody wants to suffer, and during the notion that suffering can be got rid of by appealing to God these wishes will sway the mind to believe in God. For them religion will arise, but for the man who wants the truth, religion offers no consolation.

Dualist sages say God cannot exist without attributes. Then they are making God as an object whereas God is the subject. Attributes can only be seen in the objective world. Causality appears in the duality, but when one goes deeper into the matter even there the causality disappears.  

Kabir views humanity as being caught up in the illusion, searching for Ultimate Reality in all the wrong places, always seeking It outside of ourselves in various rituals, temples, forests and mountaintops, not realizing That for which we seek is already hidden within us. 

The ultimate truth or Brahman (God) dwells within the three states like fragrance in the flower; Musk lies within the Musk-deer yet seeks it afar." Until one trace the truth within the three states the illusion of birth, life, death and the world is experienced as reality.  ~Santthosh Kumaar

The world is both real and unreal. It is real because it is a manifestation of consciousness, but is unreal, in the sense, that it is not absolute and eternal like consciousness itself.

Peoples approach is more practical, and they stuck with the reality of the world, they take it as real. That is why all the confusion.

That is why Sage Sri, Sankara says: ~ VC-63. Without causing the objective universe to vanish and without knowing the truth of the Self, how is one to achieve Liberation by the mere utterance of the word Brahman? — It would result merely in an effort of speech.

65. As a treasure hidden underground requires (for its extraction) competent instruction, excavation, the removal of stones and other such things lying above it and (finally) grasping, but never comes out by being (merely) called out by name, so the transparent Truth of the self, which is hidden by Maya and its effects, is to be attained through the instructions of a knower of Brahman, followed by reflection, meditation and so forth, but not through perverted arguments.:

God is present everywhere, provided God is taken to mean the formless witness***

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: - As an eagle, weary after soaring in the sky, folds its wings and flies down to rest in its nest, so does the shining Self enter the state of dreamless sleep, where one is freed from all desires.

Yoga can yield only SEEN because everything that one can do or practice becomes a vanishing 'known.' It yields relative truth, i.e. true from a particular viewpoint, not ultimate truth.  All the objects which one sees are SEEN, passing away every moment, hence unreal.

All that Science has discovered only gives you an idea of something that is ever passing away; hence if scientists understand this and ask "Is there a Remnant, a Real?” they will come to Advaitic Truth through such rational inquiry. Everything in this world will go and vanish.

Hence one ought not to get attached to it. Not only one individual will change and die, but empires and mountains have been known to disappear.

One start with the matter and realize the matter is present in the form mind and analyze the  mind which is ever changing or passing  every moment to moment  one  gets at the Atman or the soul or    the spirit  or the consciousness or the Chaitanya.

When a man is able to make the distinction between witness and witnessed he will understand that every living creature, even animals possess the formless witness. In this sense only, he will come to understand that God is present everywhere, provided God is taken to mean the formless witness.

In all mental operations there are two factors--the knowing capacity and that which is known. The known things are all passing away and are therefore unreal. Without the knowing capacity   i.e. the knower in existence there could have been no such thing as knowing these things.

What is meant by word know? Knowing implies two factors, the knower or the knowing capacity, or that which becomes aware, and the known. Without these two factors one cannot use the word know. One finds the known always passes away. When one is distinguishing between knower and known, he uses the word Mind. When these disappear he uses the word soul just to show that there is something which has not disappeared, as thoughts and objects are seen to disappear. Nobody can see the soul appearing or disappearing. One can say only that it must have been there.

It is not body alone that constitutes man, but body plus the world. This one finds from his study of witness and witnessed analysis.

Everything that one has as ego, thought, feeling, and emotion in waking will pass away; it is only the "known"--as witness and witnessed analysis shows. Hence Sruti says "Neti, Neti", "not thing, not this" when examining the contents of mind and says these are passing phenomena and not the Atman—the witness. 

Either the formless soul the  innermost self, witnesses the waking or dream  or it does not see it at all.  It means the witness  is apart from the waking or dream. When the formless witness witnesses nothing, one calls it deep sleep. Thus, one has to become mentally aware of the existence of the formless witness of the three states, which is the formless soul, which is in the form of consciousness, to realize the fact that, there is no division. The whole experience of diversity (waking or dream) is a mere mirage created out of single stuff, which is consciousness. 

It is difficult to decide the truth on the waking entity, which is the false entity within the false experience. Therefore, it is necessary to rectify one’s observing base from form to formless to grasp the nondual truth. It takes time to make the faultless viewing and judging the worldview, but as one goes deeper reflecting on the formless witness (soul) as self, he reaches the faultless witnessing.  

Advaita only means negation of duality. The soul, which is present in the form of consciousness, is ultimate truth or Brahman. The consciousness is the cause of the origin, maintenance, and withdrawal of the universe is Advaita (i.e. non-dual), it means that the consciousness transcends all conceptions, positive and negative. Nothing positive can ever be imagined or said about it.

The consciousness is existence absolute, awareness absolute.  Existence absolute means that consciousness is not unreal or non-existent. And it is not unconsciousness.  Nothing positive can be stated about consciousness.

In one of the Upanishads the disciple says to the Master: "Lord, tell me the nature of Atman". The Teacher remains silent. Again the question is asked, and again the answer is silence. By his silence the Teacher indicated that the nature of Atman is in inexplicable, indescribable and unimaginable.

The soul, the innermost self is the One without a second. There is not the least shadow of multiplicity in the soul, which is present in the form of consciousness."