Scientists actually do know everything about the universe.

[Ben Dhyan]

While The Universe is none other than Brahman itself, The Universe comes and goes, while Brahman does not come and go.

If, as I have stated, non-material Being is manifesting itself as material Existence, then both are one and the same, with 'material' Existence being the illusion, and non-material Being the Reality. So looking at it this way, non-duality is preserved.

You are treating the universe as separate from Brahman...Brahman is the universe...'uni' of universe means one....non-dual.... in dualistic speak...it is the underlying unity of the manifest and unmanifested unverse..

 

[Ben Dhyan]

So are you claiming that by a shift in perception we CAN see all the vast unknown in the universe? Yes or no.

No!

 

[Rick O'Shez]

No!

So what exactly ARE you claiming.

PLEASE use plain English, not word salad full of deepity buzz words.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The non-dual reality can not be known or described because human language is dualistic.... It is a self evident truth....perhaps not for you?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The non-dual reality can not be known or described because human language is dualistic.... It is a self evident truth....perhaps not for you?

I asked for a plain English explanation of what you are claiming. Is that too much to ask?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I asked for a plain English explanation of what you are claiming. Is that too much to ask?

What was wrong with what I said.......non-dual is an indivisible one.... There is nothing that can be said about it other than saying it can not be subdivided without creating duality/maya...

 

[Rick O'Shez]

What was wrong with what I said.......non-dual is an indivisible one.... There is nothing that can be said about it other than saying it can not be subdivided without creating duality/maya...

This is like a sort of garbled version of Hindu belief. Oh well.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

This is like a sort of garbled version of Hindu belief. Oh well.

The point is....do you understand it?

 

[godnotgod]

You are treating the universe as separate from Brahman...Brahman is the universe...'uni' of universe means one....non-dual.... in dualistic speak...it is the underlying unity of the manifest and unmanifested unverse..

No. I said they are one and the same. Brahman is manifesting ITSELF AS the Universe, in the same way that gold chain is still pure gold. The illusion that is the world is none other than Brahman. While they are indeed one and the same, however, the world, put on by Brahman, comes and goes, while Brahman ITSELF does not. There is only Brahman.

 

[godnotgod]

The point is....do you understand it?

No, he's still in the realm of The Great Garbling and Muddling.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No. I said they are one and the same. Brahman is manifesting ITSELF AS the Universe, in the same way that gold chain is still pure gold. The illusion that is the world is none other than Brahman. While they are indeed one and the same, however, the world, put on by Brahman, comes and goes, while Brahman ITSELF does not. There is only Brahman.

I understand this in the context of the eternal beginnings and ending of all finite universal manifested creations.....but for all universal manifested creations simultaneously? ....I have read this in Theosophical teachings...it is possible one supposes..

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The point is....do you understand it?

I understand it as a religious belief. Do I find it convincing? No, not really.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I understand it as a religious belief. Do I find it convincing? No, not really.

That's fine...we can still be buddies...

 

[godnotgod]

I understand this in the context of the eternal beginnings and ending of all finite universal manifested creations.....but for all universal manifested creations simultaneously? ....I have read this in Theosophical teachings...it is possible one supposes..

Can you clarify your response a bit more?

 

[godnotgod]

I understand it as a religious belief. Do I find it convincing? No, not really.

What the prisoners in Plato's Cave said to the one escaped prisoner who went topside to see the Sun.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Can you clarify your response a bit more?

All finite things exist as transient manifestations in the universe....from galaxies, to stars, planets, and the rest of the kingdoms of nature...and are thus each subject to cycles of manifestation and dissolution.. This is what I normally speak of....however you appear to be talking about the dissolution of the universe as a whole...in that there is a total absence of manifested anything........and all there then exists... is the pure essence of existence...until the next cycle...

 

[Rick O'Shez]

What the prisoners in Plato's Cave said to the one escaped prisoner who went topside to see the Sun.

 

[godnotgod]

All finite things exist as transient manifestations in the universe....from galaxies, to stars, planets, and the rest of the kingdoms of nature...and are thus each subject to cycles of manifestation and dissolution.. This is what I normally speak of....however you appear to be talking about the dissolution of the universe as a whole...in that there is a total absence of manifested anything........and all there then exists... is the pure essence of existence...until the next cycle...

Yes indeed. Now you see it...now you don't.

In the same sense that a whirlpool is not a thing, but the action of whirling water, The Universe is not a collection of things, but an action. You and I and all 'things' are merely a total activity of the entire Universe. This activity we call 'The Universe', is not comprised of solid material, as we once thought. We now know that all of the mass of the atom is a result of fluctuations in the Quantum and Higgs Fields, resulting in virtual mass. These extremely rapid fluctuations 'create' and 're-create' this virtual reality many times per second, providing the illusion of solidity. But it's all a dream, and when Awakening occurs from this dream of maya, there is a long period of non-manifestation, of Pure Being. And then the cycle of Being-Existence-Being begins all over again.

So there is no such 'dissolution of the universe', but only the dissolution of the dream of maya. However, Pure Being is always present through both manifested and non-manifested states. The Universe comes and goes, but unchanging Pure Being does not come and go.

 

[godnotgod]

What the escaped prisoner who saw the Sun did in response.

 

[Parsimony]

A 'finite point in the past' indicates that it occurred in Time and Space, which, according to the theory, did not come into play until the Big Bang occurred. Therefore, the BB must have occurred in No-Space/Time.

I've seen the Big Bang referred to in two ways: (1) the sudden expansion of our universe very early after it began (inflation) or (2) the the very moment that the universe came into being. In the first case, time already existed. In the second case, the Big Bang was the very first moment of time.

There must be something to define the Universe as 'finite'. What is it?

By "finite" I mean a finite amount of time has elapsed since the Big Bang.

But a racetrack has an edge..and so does a sphere....so as analogies they fall short....please describe the shape of this finite universe?

They are, in fact, only analogies because we can't perceive four-dimensional shapes. For a more proper understanding of the racetrack analogy, we can imagine that the universe is an infinitely-thin ring and any one-dimensional being living in that ring can only move in two directions: forward and backward. Those are the only two directions that they can perceive or even understand. In a sense, they are living in the edge of their own ring universe. The only directions they can move in will eventually bring them back to their starting point (if we ignore that others will invariably get in their way, since you can't go "around" things in such a universe).

The sphere (or balloon) analogy is the more common one seen in cosmology. The analogy is made by thinking of two-dimensional beings that live embedded in the surface of an expanding balloon, which represents their own two-dimensional space. They can move up, down, left and right and perceive these directions but they can't move "in" or "out" of the balloon's surface because their space is only two-dimensional, not three-dimensional like ours. Like with the ring analogy, they are sort of living inside the edge of their own universe.

Yes...I must admit I find it difficult to imagine how their flat universe could be eternal and infinite and yet consistent with the theoretical big bang beginning? But in any event, according to my understanding, there could not have been a beginning to the universe as logic defies a miraculous creation from nothing...and besides, there is no evidence that nothing could ever exist...

Nothing cannot exist, of course, as that would be a self-contradiction. That doesn't mean that time goes back forever, though. Nothing can come before time without also being an oxymoron, so questions like "what was there 25 seconds before the beginning of time?" are as nonsensical as "what does a piece of aluminum smaller than an aluminum atom look like"? This will be true regardless of how the universe came into being.