Why exactly does metaphysical duality occur? I get that it exists, but is there any reason the Hindus/Buddhists provide for the actual reasons as to why humans are born in the first place? It seems like some sort of cruel joke if for the Hindu, manifestation is nothing but any obstacle to pass through to the manifested. It would have been better if no one was ever born in the first place.
Why exactly does metaphysical duality occur? I get that it exists...
William Bailey
Other urls found in this thread:
en.m.wikipedia.org
vridhamma.org
twitter.com
Daniel Nguyen
it probably only makes sense once youre in the state of enlightenment and cant be translated into dualistic thought
Jonathan Phillips
Shouldn't there are least by some sort of analogy through which the concept can be transposed; for after all, which is above is like that which is below.
Matthew Perez
maybe it's like explaining something to a toddler, just doesn't work. Sounds like a huge meme doesnt it
Easton Morgan
I'm not really sure what you are implying here by saying a huge meme
Joseph Perry
As in probably not true, wishful thinking. I have the same question you do about this topic, the Oneness of everything. It makes this reality seem utterly pointless
One thing I wonder about too is whether that isn't a duality itself- the duality between oneness and duality. Clearly you are in one state or the other? The answer is I guess that duality is also Oneness. fucking memery
Jason Turner
There are various different ways people try to answer this, some Sufis and Neoplatonists talk about the 'overflowing' of God, others talk about how the 'self-disclosure' of God is part of the process of his reconciliation with himself. There is also something called 'lila' in Hindu thought which they regard as sorta the non-volitional and spontaneous 'divine play' of the supreme being.
en.m.wikipedia.org
>Brahman is full of all perfections. And to say that Brahman has some purpose in creating the world will mean that it wants to attain through the process of creation something which it has not. And that is impossible. Hence, there can be no purpose of Brahman in creating the world. The world is a mere spontaneous creation of Brahman. It is a Lila, or sport, of Brahman. It is created out of Bliss, by Bliss and for Bliss. Lila indicates a spontaneous sportive activity of Brahman as distinguished from a self-conscious volitional effort. The concept of Lila signifies freedom as distinguished from necessity.
>the all-comprehensive Divine Being in its cosmic aspect of playful, aimless display (lila)—which precipitates pain as well as joy, but in its bliss transcends them both.
Ayden Lopez
Yeah I've sort of thought about it a bit recently and in some ways, it almost seems worse than materialism in regards to the human emotion at least. At least in some sort of materialism you can say that the sensations you feel are real and you can achieve things which are real, even if they are temporary. But in the vedanta, it's literally everything is just temporal manifestations that are nothing but potential of the higher state. Brahma just seems to be like a meaningless void. That doesn't even seem like somewhat to which I would wish to aspire. It's lower manifestations perhaps, but I get a bit uneasy when the entirety of the doctrine is laid out in its totality.
Daniel James
Thank you, that's just the sort of answer I was curious about. I must admit, while it seems reasonable, it is almost a bit saddening.
>Hence, there can be no purpose of Brahman in creating the world. The world is a mere spontaneous creation of Brahman
Doesn't really get the hopes up to hear those sort of things in a religious context (although I suppose metaphysics is the more precise term here)
Lincoln Fisher
Duality is illusory, born of yourself being under a "lower" state of consciousness. Babies don't have much of a distinct sense of self, hence recognizing themselves to be one with everything by their nature. Only later does the psychological structure known as "ego" appear. And this creates our illusion of being distinct individuals, separate entities from everything else. People who have undergone NDE's often describe "everything being connected" and other maxims of monism, which leads us to believe that our biologically-embodied forms are essentially keeping us in a lower state of consciousness from what we truly are, and the only way to access that while still living is through meditative practises and maybe psychedelics too, if necessary.
Dualism is not a thing - you are always in a state of oneness, but ego represents a kind of "static" over that reality which is always there, preventing it from being fully felt. It's a mistake a monism for not being able to contain differentiation within itself - the electromagnetic spectrum is all light, but of many different manifestations. The key is to remember that there is a part of your consciousness which contains all the illusory shades of experience above it, which is itself always connected to that absolute state of oneness with everything else. It doesn't appear or disappear, coming and going - it is always there, and the realization which Eastern scripture speaks of is the shedding of the superficial layers, and returning to that fundamental substrate.
Jose Carter
I suppose Jesus might have said that one must become like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven for that reason.
Blake Bennett
Interesting breakdown ty, and Im not trying to be pedantic here, but isn't this still two states of being. The unaware one and the aware one? The confused illusory state, and the ascended true one?
Parker Lee
Buddhism explains the cycle of rebirth through dependent origination, which is a 12-step casual chain.
vridhamma.org
If it seems complicated, just know that it’s not. Rebirth, in Buddhism, is a result of the habit pattern of craving for sensation. The goal of Buddhism, as one monk put, is to make a home in peace, which is the result from ridding oneself from this confusing cycle of craving.
Cameron Cooper
>Brahma just seems to be like a meaningless void
it's wrong to regard it that way because the Upanishads describe It as blissfull awareness/intelligence eternally at home and at rest within itself, abounding in bliss, undiminishing, undecaying, etc; It is void only of the non-eternal phenomena and limitations that would spoil such an idyllic setting but is Itself """""characterized""""" by a primordial and blissful 'fullness' denoted by the classic formula Sat, Chit, Ananda = existence, consciousness, bliss
>I get a bit uneasy when the entirety of the doctrine is laid out in its totality.
There are two things to consider here, the first is that this may just be the defenses of your ego trying to batter away any threats to itself, that you maybe should look inwards and ask 'who is feeling uneasy, about what and why?' and see where it leads you. What you consider to be important at this moment could very well end up seeming like cheap baubles once you reach a certain point or have a certain insight. The second is that it may have to do with the material you are currently reading, books *about* Vedanta or Hindu philosophy etc are always going to be more sterile and dry than the core texts/writings (although you have to read some of these before you can understand the better translated material). The Upanishads themselves are very warm and full of light and have wonderful lines like 'the knot of the heart untied and all doubts resolved' (mundaka up.). Once you understand enough Hindu/Vedantic terminology to get everything I would highly recommend Shankara's commentary on the Katha Upanishad, which I was very much moved by in my heart. It's in the Gambhirananda compilation with 8 Upanishads.
Eli Russell
Not who you replied to, but these notions of unaware and aware, illusory and ascended, or whatever dualistic/binary categorization or type of thinking you think of are not dualistic.
Think of the notions of existence and non-existence. At first glance it obviously seems as though these two things would suggest Dualism. That is, these two things are distinct and separate from each other, but they are not. They are inter-dependent, mutually arising. One would not exist without the other. It may seem as though this is still dualistic and it may be partly due to how you frame and view it. This may not be the best way to describe it, but two things that are inter-dependent to each other are actually just the same thing.
You can also think about it in terms of organism and environments. Alan Watts gives a really good example of bees and flowers. Typically we may view the organism of Bee as a singular and separate thing from the environment it inhabits - namely the environment that has flowers. But this is wrong. Bees would not exist without flowers, and vice versa. They are inter-dependent. The Bee and the flower are one.
Dylan Myers
That doesn't answer OP's question, he was asking about 'why' not the mechanics of 'how', dependent-origination only answers the 'how' but not the 'why', and Buddha never gave an answer on this second question.
Dylan Perez
I'd say that both of it is one, but again, differentiated within a oneness. Many people get hung up on this, and I understand why. It seems untenable to them that if everything is oneness, how a sense of separation even arises. I ponder it plenty too, and I'm just sharing my personal opinions, not claiming them to be true. Think of onions - they have layers. Let's define the innermost layer of the onion as being the "truest layer of it", since every other layer outside of rests on it, but the innermost layer itself rests on nothing, being fundamental. We agree that all of the onion is the onion - there is nothing on the onion that is "not onion". The outermost skin, which is peeled off, is still part of the entity named "onion", and could be likened to the densest shades of ego - the rest of the onion, down to the innermost core, is the progressive gradation from the superficial to the ultimate, which are themselves only two different names for the singular entity known as "onion".
You might say "but the skin is a different substance", and that "the onion" as a singular entity is a mental construct, and that physically there is distinction there, that the skin is not the same as the onion layers, and even the innermost layer not the same as the outermost layers. I could even remove the analogy of the skin, and just keep to the edible onion itself - where the outermost parts represent less-true parts of the onion, down to the very core, which is the truest part of the onion - and liken this to the nature of our being. That one could progressively shave off the external layers, and still be able to say "there is onion", but if the innermost core was reached and then removed, no onion remains. And this could be the example of what our own natures, as consciousness, consist of - our body is our most superficial dimension, then there are emotions, eventually the mind, and finally consciousness - all of these were really wrapped up in consciousness, consciousness containing them all, but while the superficial dimensions were there, we lived in them and thereby lost connection to our truer reality.
Also there's what I call the "identification function", which is what produces our sense of identity in the first place - that we "identify" with ourselves - our thoughts, actions, speech, emotions, likes, etc. In reality, these are just phenomena - not "my thoughts", simply "thoughts", but when they are attached to there comes to be the illusion of a "me". This is what I have personally observed through my practises of meditation.
I agree it's a tough issue though. One that experience (ex. Psychedelics for the simple way, or certain meditative states for the harder path) will show to you immediately and experientially - but our reasoning must piece together a formal doctrine around after the fact.
Christian Phillips
Bees are so cute, though. I wish one would sit on my finger.
Samuel Morgan
Depends on the school of Hinduism. In Advaita Vedanta, the illusion of the phenomenal world occurs through ignorance, the highest reality is that nobody is really born or dies, everything is Atman-Brahman. In more devotional sects, God creates the world so that souls have an opportunity to grow spiritually and eventually be united with God.
Grayson Adams
Based reply ur right
Isaac Wright
it's because of time,
time isn't real