mitra
Member
Money belong Satva guna. Me like satva guna.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
The doer - Gunas or Atman?
- Thread starter Onkara
- Start date
Money belong Satva guna. Me like satva guna.
Willowmina
On a journey to the ocean
What is satva guna?
mitra
Member
Willowmina
On a journey to the ocean
first pay and then me tell you. you want my bank account?
Spirituality and money don't mix well from my experience...and as for bank account...no thanks...have enough trouble balancing mine own
I understand the state of no-mind to be more than a state of nothingness. Thank you for your excellent insight, Wannabe, I agree.
Zenzero, Joea and friends were kind enough to share more of their understanding at the end of this thread http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/dharmic-religions-dir/93701-how-stop-all-thoughts-good.html from a request to go into the no-mind in an earlier post in this thread. Should that be useful for Mitra or others to read too
Mitra asks about worship, perhaps others would like to respond on that.
Willowmina
On a journey to the ocean
The mind would be afraid, as was Hal...that the Universe goes on without its input or control.
"resistance is futile, you will be assimilated' ....how threatening those words to the ego and yet we all seek...home.
Last edited:
Hi Mitra
It isn't always necessary to drop the mind. As Joea and Wannabe pointed out in different posts, it can happen of it's own accord. Our friends Zenzero, BenD, Joea and others have excellent insight into this. More than I am able.
Worship is one way to still the mind, it is in activity that we become aware of that which does not change. That which does not change is the witnessing soul, the atman, consciousness.
Like a spinning wheel, the faster it spins the more we notice the hub, the nut in the centre, which is still and central to all the activity. The hub keeps the spinning wheel in line. Through worship, meditation and other practices we come to distinguish that we are that hub, that still witnessing being.
From a bhakti perspective. Worship is love. Love for one's Self (atman) or love for God (with or without form) will help us to gain the grace to know that we are divine from a Vedantin perspective of life. This is itself liberating and eternal.
Onkarah.
Last edited:
Willowmina
On a journey to the ocean
I believe this is where the big battle comes in between consciousness and ego and letting go. More meditation needed :yes:This is a great analogy and insightful, Willowmina.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
The doer - Gunas or Atman?
Is not Atman beyond duality? And does not the concept of a doer imply doing which in turn implies that something is done, all of which is derived from the anthropomorphic dualistic perspective on perceived reality.
Atman is the root of (immanent in) all things and yet is simultaneously transcendent to all things.
IOW, Atman is beyond the minds conceptually perceived complementary opposite principles of doer and no doer, i.e. rajas and tamas gunas (activity and inertia).
Is not Atman beyond duality? And does not the concept of a doer imply doing which in turn implies that something is done, all of which is derived from the anthropomorphic dualistic perspective on perceived reality.
Atman is the root of (immanent in) all things and yet is simultaneously transcendent to all things.
IOW, Atman is beyond the minds conceptually perceived complementary opposite principles of doer and no doer, i.e. rajas and tamas gunas (activity and inertia).
Thanks Ben!
useful input.
Ben and all,
Even this post is not done by me.
This is the hardest principle to grasp, as "I" am so sure that I am the doer. I am after all seeing my movements, feeling the body, sensing the environment. Someone might say that that doing is the illusion, however is calling it "an illusion" really helpful? Yes, if it makes us question our actions, but no, because we already question our actions don't we? We regret not having taken the opportunity or having said what we said, when we didn't mean it. We are always analysing our actions already, as the doer!
All of these actions happen through us and to us and we spend so much time justifying them and analysing them. Often they are too much for some people and they might turn to drink or other distractions to try to forget them. Wouldn't the realisation that we are not the doer be so much more liberating than a bottle of wine?
The challenge is that the sense of being the doer is so strong that the regret, the hope, the memories we have make us completely sure that we need to do something or should have done something. In other words, the doer cannot be doubted as doing never stops.
The gunas explain this as being a continous flow. Others say it is nature or God, fine. It is through the explanation that we can put the mind at rest. But after the mind rests, there is still doing and living with that doing yet not being the doer is something I would like to explore with you if you are interested and you have any input...
useful input.
Ben and all,
Even this post is not done by me.
This is the hardest principle to grasp, as "I" am so sure that I am the doer. I am after all seeing my movements, feeling the body, sensing the environment. Someone might say that that doing is the illusion, however is calling it "an illusion" really helpful? Yes, if it makes us question our actions, but no, because we already question our actions don't we? We regret not having taken the opportunity or having said what we said, when we didn't mean it. We are always analysing our actions already, as the doer!
All of these actions happen through us and to us and we spend so much time justifying them and analysing them. Often they are too much for some people and they might turn to drink or other distractions to try to forget them. Wouldn't the realisation that we are not the doer be so much more liberating than a bottle of wine?
The challenge is that the sense of being the doer is so strong that the regret, the hope, the memories we have make us completely sure that we need to do something or should have done something. In other words, the doer cannot be doubted as doing never stops.
The gunas explain this as being a continous flow. Others say it is nature or God, fine. It is through the explanation that we can put the mind at rest. But after the mind rests, there is still doing and living with that doing yet not being the doer is something I would like to explore with you if you are interested and you have any input...
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Thanks Ben!
useful input.
Ben and all,
Even this post is not done by me.
This is the hardest principle to grasp, as "I" am so sure that I am the doer. I am after all seeing my movements, feeling the body, sensing the environment. Someone might say that that doing is the illusion, however is calling it "an illusion" really helpful? Yes, if it makes us question our actions, but no, because we already question our actions don't we? We regret not having taken the opportunity or having said what we said, when we didn't mean it. We are always analysing our actions already, as the doer!
All of these actions happen through us and to us and we spend so much time justifying them and analysing them. Often they are too much for some people and they might turn to drink or other distractions to try to forget them. Wouldn't the realisation that we are not the doer be so much more liberating than a bottle of wine?
The challenge is that the sense of being the doer is so strong that the regret, the hope, the memories we have make us completely sure that we need to do something or should have done something. In other words, the doer cannot be doubted as doing never stops.
The gunas explain this as being a continous flow. Others say it is nature or God, fine. It is through the explanation that we can put the mind at rest. But after the mind rests, there is still doing and living with that doing yet not being the doer is something I would like to explore with you if you are interested and you have any input...
Hi Onkarah, my personal present understanding is that if there is doing, then there is a doer, it's a case of logic that can't be ignored with respect to conceptual reality. However why not consider the possibility of a state of such elevated cosmic awareness and understanding that there is no desire for the fruits of any doing at the material level, to just 'retire' in the eternal bliss of just 'watching' evolution unfold knowing that cosmic omnipresent omniscience is always active to ensure enlightenment to all 'fragments' of consciousness that presently perceives itself to be separate from the indivisible whole. (That's not to say that there aren't Celestial duties with times scales unimaginable to attend to but that's another subject, our present goal is graduate from the human condition.
)Glory and riches, prominence and position, fame and profit, personal appearance and style, beauty and cleverness, excitement and memory, hatred and desire, pleasure and anger, sadness and joy, rejection and acceptance, receiving and giving, knowledge and ability, ...when these conceptual desires no longer disturb your heart, then you will be correct. Being correct, you are calm. Being calm, you are clear. Being clear, you are empty. Emptiness,... the state of doing nothing in which everything get's done. - Taoist saying.
zenzero
Its only a Label
Friends,
Am yet to understand that when was it [time] that one has been cut off from the *whole*.
When one is part of the whole, what ever one does, is not the person but it is the extension of that whole which uses the individual as a medium to carry out its [whole/existence/etc] work.
Personal understanding is that it too is not doing anything; it is only the perception of human minds that perceives that someone is doing something which is the illusion/maya.
Love & rgds
Am yet to understand that when was it [time] that one has been cut off from the *whole*.
When one is part of the whole, what ever one does, is not the person but it is the extension of that whole which uses the individual as a medium to carry out its [whole/existence/etc] work.
Personal understanding is that it too is not doing anything; it is only the perception of human minds that perceives that someone is doing something which is the illusion/maya.
Love & rgds
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Good points zenzero, "that one that has been cut off from the *whole*" is not really cut off at all but has not realized yet as an evolving *God* to be, what and who it really is. The [time] it was cut off was the moment the mind perceived itself to exist as an independent entity relative to the omnipresent omniscient cosmic MIND, i.e. a dualistic perception of reality.
And yes, all that transpires after this is 'dancing' to the tune of cosmic karma which is the ongoing eternal cosmic harmonization process until liberation in the form of reintegration/union/enlightenment/etc..
Wonderful posts Bend and Zenzero.
It appears both the doing and the doer appear in the mind's eye, as you say as a logical duality. It is here, in the mind, that the play of duality is staged.
A mistake I have found is to believe that there is something e.g. Nature, maya, mind, consciousness or what ever which can be distinguished and separated out as being my true identity. It is realised that this is a mere impression. If clung to we begin to search for the source once more as if it were a tangible phenomena within the phenomena itself.
It appears both the doing and the doer appear in the mind's eye, as you say as a logical duality. It is here, in the mind, that the play of duality is staged.
A mistake I have found is to believe that there is something e.g. Nature, maya, mind, consciousness or what ever which can be distinguished and separated out as being my true identity. It is realised that this is a mere impression. If clung to we begin to search for the source once more as if it were a tangible phenomena within the phenomena itself.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Yes Onkarah, that's it,... it is only necessary to awake to the One Mind,...there is nothing whatsoever to attain.
The omnipresent omniscience which is the source of all consciousness is the only MIND that exists. But most people are not awake to it and only regard their thoughts and perceptions as mind and therefore are not aware of the REAL MIND. Now it is true that the REAL MIND is expressed in these thoughts and perceptions, but it doesn't create them directly, that is done by the dualistic mind. However it can't be said either that it is separate from them for the ONE MIND is everything.
It is when people start thinking about these secondary mind aspects that they cut themselves off from the ONE MIND. If people could still their mind and cease conceptual thinking, then the glory of the REAL is all there is.
So..the irony is that using the mind to seek for the truth results in being cut off from truth, for the truth is the MIND and using the mind to find the MIND of which it is an integral 'part' ensures IT will never be found in all eternity.
Last edited:
So when the Real Mind is known then this is referred to as "waking up".
And with it the bliss, which comes with being. What is remarkable is even this bliss I experience is not my own
Wonderful Ben, thank you.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
So when the Real Mind is known then this is referred to as "waking up".
And with it the bliss, which comes with being. What is remarkable is even this bliss I experience is not my own
That's correct Onkarah, if the dualistic mind is to be permanently transcended, it needs to be fully understood that the truly *awake* state is not for it to experience.
(And this is what the ego mind rejects until practically all its erroneous conceptions are corrected through the immutable workings of karma/reincarnation.)
zenzero
Its only a Label
Friends,
Since we agree that there is no separation as such except that the mind which brings in THOUGHTS cuts one from that oneness and here is the best part that when one is conscious of this mind and its thoughts then one is just another medium around which the whole play/maya is played out.
There is daylight on one side [when the mind is still] and the dark night on the other [when all thoughts are conscious thoughts] both as two parts of the same energy/phenomenon. Here one is one with TAO/balance!
Love & rgds
Since we agree that there is no separation as such except that the mind which brings in THOUGHTS cuts one from that oneness and here is the best part that when one is conscious of this mind and its thoughts then one is just another medium around which the whole play/maya is played out.
There is daylight on one side [when the mind is still] and the dark night on the other [when all thoughts are conscious thoughts] both as two parts of the same energy/phenomenon. Here one is one with TAO/balance!
Love & rgds
Willowmina
On a journey to the ocean
However why not consider the possibility of a state of such elevated cosmic awareness and understanding that there is no desire for the fruits of any doing at the material level, to just 'retire' in the eternal bliss of just 'watching' evolution unfold knowing that cosmic omnipresent omniscience is always active to ensure enlightenment to all 'fragments' of consciousness that presently perceives itself to be separate from the indivisible whole. (That's not to say that there aren't Celestial duties with times scales unimaginable to attend to but that's another subject, our present goal is graduate from the human condition.
Glory and riches, prominence and position, fame and profit, personal appearance and style, beauty and cleverness, excitement and memory, hatred and desire, pleasure and anger, sadness and joy, rejection and acceptance, receiving and giving, knowledge and ability, ...when these conceptual desires no longer disturb your heart, then you will be correct. Being correct, you are calm. Being calm, you are clear. Being clear, you are empty. Emptiness,... the state of doing nothing in which everything get's done. - Taoist saying.
'to just 'retire' in the eternal bliss of just 'watching' evolution unfold knowing that cosmic omnipresent omniscience is always active to ensure enlightenment to all 'fragments' of consciousness that presently perceives itself to be separate from the indivisible whole.' Hmmmmm....I like it :yes: