An Interesting article - any response?

Charles A. Hillig chillig at JETLINK.NET
Thu Dec 5 08:50:24 CST 1996


Charles A. Hillig wrote


>>      Any attempt to seek a time-based, linear "causality" ignores the fact
>> that cause and effect are, quintessentially, the same thing because they
> >"both" arise simultaneously.
>
>Or, in other words, we dream at the same time as we are wakeful?

       We are neither "dreaming" nor are we ever "wakeful."
       "We" are not really here at all.
      Only the Self is present
      As Maharshi has said,  the so-called dream world and the waking world
are                              exactly the same.
           One just SEEMS to last longer.


>> >In the waking state we see several objects and the impressions are
>> >formed in the mind  and they reappear in the dreams perhaps jumbled
>> >up arbitrarily. In other words the variety that is there in the
>> >waking state accounts for the variety in the dream. Let us even grant
>> >that the waking - state is unreal visavis the absolute -state of
>> >advaita. What accounts for the variety seen in the waking state?
>> >Even accepting the alleged unreality of dream-objects, we can account
>> >for its variety invoking the variety seen in the waking-state.
>> >However we cannot invoke anything to explain away the variety in the
>> >waking state, because their is no variety in the absolute state of
>> >the advaitic brahman which is "akhanda", "nirguna",etc. Even if the
>> >advaitic stand-point of unreality of this world is accepted, the
>> >variety in the waking-state cannot be explained in their own
>> >frame-work. Thus using the method of "reductio-ad-absurdum" ,we
>> >see that the entire edifice on which advaita is built crumbles.
>> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >Conclusion: the world is real. Jeeva can never be the same as
>> >Brahman.
>>
>>      However, just because I see an intense movie during the waking state
>> and then dream about that movie at night, it still doesn't mean that the
>> movie is "real" or that the characters and action really, in fact, occurred.
>
>Of course it occurred.  Movies are made at tremendous cost, etc.; they
>don't happen by themselves.

         But the "characters" on the screen that triggered an emotional
response were only flickering lights.
        The reality supporting the illusion was still only the unbroken screen.


>>      The variety of dream-objects manifesting as part of the dream was,
>> seemingly, only triggered by the illusory variety of objects that appeared
>> as the movie on the screen.
>
>... which in turn was "triggered" by what?

            Obviously, the analogy has its limitations.

>>      But didn't the screen, itself, still remain seamless, undivided, and
>> whole?
>
>... and different from oneself as well?

     No, not different.  The perceiver and the perceived are one and the same.


                                  With Blessings,

                                          Chuck Hillig



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