Shankara on jiva and Brahman (was Re: Unreality of the world..)

[Allan Curry]

Kartik writes:

>
>As Kant makes it all too clear, the noumenon -- the thing-in-itself -- *cannot*
>be known (at least not by the five senses and reason). Therefore advaita's
>claim that the noumenal world is Brahman, which is one with the individual
>>Self, *must* rely on scripture.
>

        I'll agree with that.

>Nietzsche is very much anti-advaitic, if there is some such thing. According
>to him, the "weak" people, fearing the "strength of the strong" have fabricated
>"religion" which teaches humility, because the strong, if free from religious
>scruples, would assert themselves and rule over the weak.
>
>This is in stark contrast to Ramana Maharshi, who says that "Men want to
>conquer others because they know that they can never really conquer
>themselves."
>

I didn't say that Nietzsche was a nice person, or an authority on anything.
I agree with him that "fine feelings are not arguments", that's all.
Actually, he wasn't talking about religion in general, he said it was the
Jewish/Christian religion in particular that does what you describe above.
I don't recall him talking about Vedanta, if much was even known about it
in Europe during the time he lived.

>No disrespect here, but if you have attained the *non-dual* awareness state,
>there should be no universe apart from yourself. There ought to be no doubts
>and nothing unclear! To one who has solved the problem of the Self, there are
>no problems left to be solved; no questions requiring answers.
>

Non-dual awareness has occured (or seemed to) many times. When it occurs
there seems to be nothing to doubt and no one to doubt it. As I said in
another post, the view from being non-dual awareness reveals no other of
any kind, but that does not prove that there is no other. It may just seem
that way.

I never feel seperate from the universe but as the magnetic field is one
thing and the steel another, the fact of their non-seperateness does not
establish their identity. Does it?

best to all,

Allan Curry

P.S.

Cameron asks:

>My question to you would be: who is it who experienced this "state"?

There seems to be only awareness in that state, there seems to be no one
having that awareness and no object of that awareness. Why do you ask?