Weakening attachments is most of the ball game in the spiritual search. Attachments prop up the illusion of mind; seeking peace through concentration weakens them. But while the peace of concentration can be attained in different ways, there are special advantages to surrender and self-inquiry.
The ladder and the key: the relationships between religion and spirituality
What is the relationship between religion and spirituality? Religion contains a powerful spiritual element insofar as its techniques perform two tasks: quiet the mind, and aid the discernment between temporary and eternal. The seeker should see religion and spiritual as a single ladder, and climb to whatever point they can, and practice there. Or they can see it as a key, and trace its curve to whatever point they are able and insert it there. The idea is to cultivate concentration and discernment by any means possible.
Akilesh comments on Ramana Maharshi's Guru Vachaka Kovai Day 3/4
Akilesh comments on Ramana Maharshi's Guru Vachaka Kovai Day 1/4
Akilesh comments on selected verses from Ramana Maharshi's Guru Vachaka Kovai, one of the most definitive statements of his views on spirituality.
What is the real nature of thought in nonduality? It's like the Stroop Test.
The Stroop Test in psychology is a test that shows different facets of an experience can each interfere with the processing of the other. I actually stated it slightly wrong in the video: I said that it was about reading a word like "red" when it was written in a color like blue or yellow. Actually it is about identifying the color of that word despite the fact that it reads "red." But anyhow, these are simply flip sides of a coin.
The point in either case is that the nondual view of thought is to recognize it as being like a piece of abstract art, like being color, like being like the play of light... not inherently meaningful. But the difficulty is that thought seems to REFER to things, seems to be telling a story. So the sensation quality of thought is hard to perceive, because the mind is directed to what the thought is talking about.
Surrender and inquiry are in a way about recognizing this sensation quality of thought... and that even the "referential meaning" of it -- what the thought is talking about -- is merely part of this sensation. This sensation is the expression of the Self.
Response to Rupert Spira's video "How Can Consciousness Have Multiple Experiences at Once?"
Someone asks Rupert Spira how there can be multiple experiences or points of view in what is supposedly one consciousness. This video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoT_J... .
Spira responds with a series of metaphors. In this video, I argue that these metaphors are not really very good answers to the question posed. I suggest that this kind of explanation to this sort of question misunderstands the real nature of the mind, of advaita and nonduality, and of the mystery of consciousness. If there are questions, there are no answers. If there are questions, there is a questioner. But is there a questioner?
Self-inquiry and surrender are compatible with other tasks because you are not the doer
Self-inquiry and surrender seem incompatible with other tasks -- how can you concentrate on two things at once? In fact, however, you do not even concentrate on one thing... that is all part of the egoic illusion, which believes itself to be separate and independent. Self-inquiry and surrender appear to be effortful activities, but in fact simply describe the fact of the Self in its eternal status as subject, as turning away from objects.
Enlightenment is an infinite series of insights that there is no enlightenment
Enlightenment is a contradictory idea because it stands on the border of thought and non-thought. It is the exit from thought, but in that exit from thought there is the recognition that the very idea of 'exit' was itself a thought, and thus that there was never any exit, because there was never any entrance. The insight destroys itself. And yet enlightenment can also be viewed usefully as a series of these very recognitions. The mental habits that chain one in thought, to the belief that one is a doing, experiencing, decision-making person... one attempts to light these on fire through self-inquiry and surrender. When in fact the habits are 'dry enough' -- meaning weak enough -- to 'catch fire' once and for all, they result in enlightenments so continuous they cannot be called enlightenments at all.
Trompe l'oeil, the nature of illusion, and enlightenment
Trompe l'oeil refers to a technique in painting that is used to make it seem truly 3D. It's an illusion. The illusion of the I experiencing the world is like that. You might think of it as a series of I-other thoughts, each of which is a painting like that. Self-inquiry and surrender are meant to recognize these illusionary pictures for what they. But the recognition -- or the failure to recognize -- it itself another trompe l'oeil. The illusions are nested, creating an infinite series. One cannot exit them through recognizing them one by one, but, through this series of recognitions, gains the faith that they are ALL illusory, and by that has faith enough to let go into what is continuously beneath all the illusions, what is continuous in their very changes and recognitions.
How do self inquiry and surrender lead to final enlightenment?
How self-inquiry and surrender lead to final enlightenment is a very tricky topic, since it can be considered from three perspectives, all of which are incomplete. The first perspective is the gradualist perspective, which views the egoic illusion as a set of mental habits. Their eventual thinning out is enlightenment. Then there is the insight perspective, which says that knowledge suddenly destroys all ignorance. Finally, there is the absolute perspective, in which there is no ignorance, egoic illusion, or enlightenment. Self-inquiry and surrender can be viewed from any of these perspectives, and these perspectives themselves link together and go beyond themselves. In the end, considering what enlightenment is is itself a portal hole into something beyond thought.