Vedanta is solipsism. Ramana Maharishi was solipsist?

[Forza21]

2 minutes ago, Faith said:

 At 5min he says eka jiva vada is radical solipsism. 

 

This is not the standard teachings of Advaita Vedanta and he even says that in the video. I never heard of this solipsism stuff being anything until this all blew up on Actualized.  It's rubbish as far as I'm concerned. 

I didnt see it yet. Is it really safe to watch and free of wrong interpretation ? I literally had mental breakdown because of text i posted. 😂 

[Faith]

40 minutes ago, Forza21 said:

I didnt see it yet. Is it really safe to watch and free of wrong interpretation ? I literally had mental breakdown because of text i posted. 😂 

Um, I don't know. I don't subscribe to solipsism, so it doesn't affect me. He's just explaining to someone what Eka jiva vada is and that it's radical solipsism that some radical nondualists may use as another means to liberation. 

 

[Joseph Maynor]

Get this.  I printed out Shankara's writings a while back and this is what they look like -- just to show the detail in Advaita Vedanta if you really wanted to go deep.

 

Shankara's Commentary of Eight Upanishads -- 903 pages

 

Shankara's Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita -- 522 pages

 

Shankara's Commentary on the Brahma Sutras (aka the Vedanta Sutras) -- 874 pages

 

"The sage Adi Shankara's interpretation of the Brahmasutra (the Brahma Sutras) attempted to synthesize diverse and sometimes apparently conflicting teachings of the Upanishads by arguing, as John Koller states: 'that Brahman and Atman are, in some respects, different, but, at the deepest level, non-different (advaita), being identical.'  This view of Vedanta, however, was not universal in Indic thought, and other commentators later held differing views.  It is one of the foundational texts of the Vedānta school of Hindu philosophy."
SOURCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma_Sutras

 

 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Joseph Maynor

[Forza21]

10 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

Get this.  I printed out Shankara's writings a while back and this is what they look like -- just to show the detail in Advaita Vedanta if you really wanted to go deep.

 

Shankara's Commentary of Eight Upanishads -- 903 pages

 

Shankara's Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita -- 522 pages

 

Shankara's Commentary on the Brahma Sutras (aka the Vedanta Sutras) -- 874 pages

 

 

Are you going to read it ? 
 

well, as i said, i think im off Vedanta, at least to The time ill be mentaly stable again.  If you find something interesting, ill read it 🙂

 

what i found is that often Ego means something diffrent. It might be Big Ego = God = which is pure conciousness + maya. Whole creation. So when they say its one ego, its not illusory body-mind-ego, but whole creation. 🙂 Its hard for for us to grasp, because its different culture.

Edited April 14, 2022 by Forza21

[Orb]

@Forza21 you're healing from discordant beliefs about needing to depend on a spiritual dogma to feel stable. 

 

I think you're on track, no need to depend on anyone's teaching, literally just do whatever is relieving to you, just meditate and take care of yourself.

[Joseph Maynor]

@Forza21  Yep, eventually, probably not at first though because they're very dense with a lot of terminology that I'm not yet ready to understand.  I'm going to make videos on Advaita Vedanta. 

 

This is the book I'm going to start with though though when I do my videos:

 

"Wisdom of Vedanta" by Swami Abhayananda
https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-vedanta-Swami-Abhayananda/dp/149351640X

[Faith]

@Forza21 Yeah, If your not going to start back in the beginning and relearn the basic principles of Vedanta and build on that do to this confusion you have, then you really should probably not focus on Advaita Vedanta at all.

 

The title of this thread saying Vedanta is solipsism is very misleading, in my humble opinion. Anyways, the point of any teaching is to one day be able to throw it away, but you have to understand it first.

 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Forza21 said:

I didnt see it yet. Is it really safe to watch and free of wrong interpretation ? I literally had mental breakdown because of text i posted. 😂 

I've had mental breakdowns before, they are not fun...
What I do is I take a break from it all and focus on self care and Love and reset myself that way, if a belief or fear of something grows too strong to handle.
For me, the realization that nature and reality is brutal and loving but also uncaring of the ego's will as it has its own Will - meaning that everything is ultimately easily destroyed and ruined - this frightens me, as I need things to be the same in order to be relatively stable.  I walk a thin line between spiritual revelation and psychosis and sometimes it overlaps.

My experiences have shown me that there are souls, like swimming in a soup, and it is a more unified experience of Love, everyone who ever was or will be is already there, giving their heart away in song (metaphor) to the divine.  Life is like a song.
Try to find things that allow you to feel inspired, bring things into your environment that give you a sense of safety, order.
Meditate, a lot.

Try meditating on the emotion of joy - wire your brain to accept joyful emotion.  Bring things into your life that evoke the power of joy.
The problem with spiritual teachings is that the path is so tailored to the individual, not the collective, but we work in a collective fashion to understand things.  Try going inwards.  Start a journal and really seek the truth, and what it means for you, individually, without any advice or authority from anyone - face death... for real, and go into the fear of it until it becomes second nature to move past the fear, and you will find Love there, illuminated in all things, together as One.  As I say this to you to try to explain, it does a disservice in a way because then you have a concept.  

 

When you find "it", you can play with it, like a puzzle.  Finding your own unique pieces to the picture.  And it manifests things in real time.
Everything is alive, and aware.  You are not alone, you are surrounded.  By life itself.  Connect to that so you don't feel alone.

That's all I can really think of, hope it helps!  Good luck!

[God]

3 hours ago, Faith said:

 

At 5min he says eka jiva vada is radical solipsism. 

 

This is not the standard teachings of Advaita Vedanta and he even says that in the video. I never heard of this solipsism stuff being anything until this all blew up on Actualized.  It's rubbish as far as I'm concerned. 

The man speaks the truth.  It's all really common sense tbh if you think about it.  You've never experienced anything outside your mind.  You can't.  The outside world is just a belief/assumption.  Tell me if this doesn't make sense.  I'm curious about what you don't agree with.  I suspect you may just be oversimplifying his ideas and taking them the wrong way.

 

There are 2 main parts to solipsism.  One is the above, simple and easy to explain.  The other is some deep, confusing Turquoise-level stuff.  But you first need to realize that your reality is brain-produced.  iirc, the eyes actually see upside down, and the brain just flips it.  Without the brain, the world is upside down😉

[Faith]

@God

I prefer the traditional approach vs the solipsic non-traditional approach. Be my guest to take whatever approach works for you. I have no interest in the solipsism view or debating about it. 

 

Just a short clip from Rupert "Solipsism is madness". 

[God]

17 minutes ago, Faith said:

@God

I prefer the traditional approach vs the solipsic non-traditional approach. Be my guest to take whatever approach works for you. I have no interest in the solipsism view or debating about it. 

 

Just a short clip from Rupert "Solipsism is madness". 

"From our own experience in the waking state, where we see that we just know one thing, we just know one experience. It's only thought that abstracts the multiplicity and diversity of objects"

 

So he's saying.. all we know for certain is our experience.  Anything outside our experience is just a product of the mind, a belief/assumption.

 

He's basically just describing solipsism, which states that anything outside our experience can only ever be a belief/assumption.

Edited April 14, 2022 by God

[Mandy]

@God There's no "our". 

 

solipsism (n.)

1871, coined from Latin solus "alone" (see sole (adj.)) + ipse "self." The view or theory that self is the only object of real knowledge or the only thing that is real. "The identification of one's self with the Absolute is not generally intended, but the denial of there being really anybody else" [Century Dictionary].  https://www.etymonline.com/word/solipsism

 

Solipsism asserts there is a self and it's cut off and "alone" from other. Ramana is saying there is Self, no self, just Self. No separation, no distinction. 

 

 

[God]

14 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@God There's no "our". 

 

solipsism (n.)

1871, coined from Latin solus "alone" (see sole (adj.)) + ipse "self." The view or theory that self is the only object of real knowledge or the only thing that is real. "The identification of one's self with the Absolute is not generally intended, but the denial of there being really anybody else" [Century Dictionary].  https://www.etymonline.com/word/solipsism

 

Solipsism asserts there is a self and it's cut off and "alone" from other. Ramana is saying there is Self, no self, just Self. No separation, no distinction. 

 

 

Solipsism most certainly does not suggest there is any "cutting off" of anything from anything.  This would go against the basic idea of solipsism that there is nothing outside you, and even if there were there's no reason so assume this as it can only ever be an assumption.  Solipsism means basically.. "there is God, and God is experiencing itself". That's basically it.  Anything on top of this would require evidence and explanation.

 

E.g. you might say there are souls and there's reincarnation, but then you'd have to come up with a complex explanation of theoretical spirit science, show evidence for this, explain how it's not just conjecture, and explain why it's a fundamental and absolutely necessary part of reality and why reality couldn't function any other way.  Solipsism strips away these assumptions and relies only on what we know to be true.

Edited April 14, 2022 by God

[Faith]

12 minutes ago, God said:

Solipsism means basically.. "there is God, and God is experiencing itself". That's basically it.   

 

No sir, that's not solipsism.

 

Solipsism means there is only one ego/mind and this mind (person) is imagining all other things, including other minds (people).

 

You can not try to make solipsism into some "absolute" term, referring to God/Isvara, that would be altering its definition to suit your own agenda. 

 

[God]

10 minutes ago, Faith said:

 

No sir, that's not solipsism. Solipsism means there is only one ego/mind and this mind (person) is imagining all other things, including other minds (people).

 

You can not try to make solipsism into some "absolute" term, referring to God/Isvara, that would be altering its definition to suit your own agenda. 

 

This would be a bastardization of solipsism with random assumptions which don't need to be there.

When I talk about solipsism, I'm talking about Leo's version of solipsism, which makes no assumptions.

 

Of course god didn't become human, and then imagined everything around him.  Solipsism starts before the big bang.  Before ego.  Before everything.  Consciousness is the source/beginning of everything.  That's where everything happens. You never left consciousness.  You're not in some physical place, you're in consciousness, and you're experiencing imaginary sensory data within that consciousness, and interpreting it as this world.

Edited April 14, 2022 by God

[Faith]

10 minutes ago, God said:

This would be a bastardization of solipsism with random assumptions which don't need to be there.

When I talk about solipsism, I'm talking about Leo's version of solipsism, which makes no assumptions.

 

Of course god didn't become human, and then imagined everything around him.  Solipsism starts before the big bang.  Before ego.  Before everything.  

 

So, thanks, you've made it even more clear that you don't know what solipsism actually means, therefore no need to continue the discussion. I don't mean to sound rude, but you need to use better terminology before we could move forward discussing this, because Leoism's and Leo "versions" of twisting words don't apply on this forum. 

 

[God]

1 minute ago, Faith said:

 

So, thanks, you've made it even more clear that you don't know what solipsism actually means, therefore no need to continue the discussion. I don't mean to sound rude, but you need to clarify your terms before we could move forward discussing this, because Leoism's and Leo "versions" of twisting words don't apply on this forum. 

Leo's version is the official version.  Officially, there is no getting "cut off" from anything.  It's just "your experience is all that can be known to exist without making assumption".

 

Sorry if I made you upset.

[Faith]

4 minutes ago, God said:

Leo's version is the official version.  Officially, there is no getting "cut off" from anything.  It's just "your experience is all that can be known to exist without making assumption".

 

Sorry if I made you upset.

Again, you are either playing games or your mistaken. The definition of solipsism is referring to "self" (small "s") the ego-mind, not the "Self" (capital "S") brahman/god.

 

So, which are you talking about? If you're talking about God,  like you said you were a moment ago, then that is NOT solipsism. 

 

And, if your talking about the small self/ego. That would be solipsism, but is just BS for so many reasons. 

 

 

 

 

[God]

10 minutes ago, Faith said:

Again, you are either playing games or your mistaken. The definition of solipsism is referring to "self" (small "s") the ego-mind, not the "Self" (capital "S") brahman/god.

 

So, which are you talking about? If you're talking about God,  like you said you were a moment ago, then that is NOT solipsism. 

 

And, if your talking about the small self/ego. That would be solipsism, but is just BS for so many reasons. 

 

 

 

 

What would you call solipsism with a big S then?  There is no name.  They're both solipsism, just different interpretations.

Edited April 14, 2022 by God

[Faith]

39 minutes ago, God said:

What would you call solipsism with a big S then?  There is no name.  They're both solipsism, just different interpretations.

 

You would call it Isvara (or Ishvara) in Advaita Vedanta which is the supreme Self/God.

 

Again, it's not solipsism.  There's no need for the term solipsism if you are speaking about Isvara, because Isvara is saguna Brahman aka the absolute with qualities. Which already encompasses every-thing subtle and gross in all the universe.