NMT (No-Me Teaching) new series 69:
Some Ramana Maharshi quotes:
Even the knowledge sense-perceived of the world without has for its ground the Self above. To search for knowledge somewhere else apart from That is but to grasp the shadow, not the substance.
Whatever notion may arise, never to let it live or grow, but to turn it that very instant, firm &stern, back to its source &merge it there, this is robust, intense detachment.
The knowledge that ignores the Self, the knower, & holds as true the field perceived, is but illusive folly. No matter how much one has learned, true knowledge is the merging of all indicative knowledge in awareness of the Self.
The one true light there is, is pure Awareness. Other kinds of knowledge clinging to it & claiming to be real are ego-born conceptual clouds. To trust them is sheer folly.
All other kinds of knowledge are base, trivial. The only true & perfect knowledge is the stillness of pure awareness. The many differences perceived in the Self whose nature is awareness are wrong attributions & not real at all.
What sort of knowledge is this wretched bodily–mental knowledge of objects ? Would those who long for pure awareness hanker after this ? To know pure awareness is true wisdom. All other knowledge is mere folly.
What if one knows the subtle secret of manifold inscrutable mysteries ? Until one knows the awareness which reveals all other knowledge, does one know the Truth ?
Fine-Tuned Universe 49:
[In the unreal reflection called the “Universe”, a product of an unreal Mind, even there, Infinite Intelligence is evident and inspiring.]
The 2 Anthropic responses are, of course, the ones that have caught people’s attention. Both involve ontological assertions that far transcend the observable Universe. Both make essential reference to the human factor. Both draw implicitly or explicitly on the weak Anthropic Principle: human questioners like us are bound, of necessity, to find themselves in a universe that satisfies whatever cosmic conditions are required for life to be able to develop in at least one region within it. As these questioners regard their universe, they will inevitably discover it to be able to satisfy these conditions. This response of itself does not, of course, relieve the puzzlement occasioned by the discovery of fine-tuning. The original question still has to be faced: is the fact that our universe is fine-tuned in regard to a particular parameter, & thus life hospitable, significant or not ? Is it no more than chance, a piece of good luck for us, a quirk in our current physical theories? At this point the 2 Anthropic responses diverge.
Many-Universe postulate: The 1st of these (the “scientific” one) in its strongest form postulates a vast ensemble of existent universes featuring a wide distribution of values of the relevant parameter. This response has a quite complex structure, a point that can easily be missed. Some philosopher–critics have charged that although the Many-Universe hypothesis would give reason to believe that some universe would be life hospitable, it would of itself give no reason to suppose that that Universe would be ours, in all its particularity. Hence, the hypothesis does not explain why this Universe turns out to be fine-tuned, and the fact that our Universe is Fine-Tuned thus fails to support the hypothesis.
One need not enter into contested issues about individuation to see what is wrong with this argument. Nor does one need to call on Bayesian reasoning to be convinced that the many-universe hypothesis does not, of itself, explain why.
At the end of his analysis, White concludes: “Postulate as many other universes as you wish, they do not make it any more likely that ours should be life-permitting, or that we should be here. So our good fortune to exist in a life-permitting universe gives us no reason to suppose that there are many universes” [emphasis added]. For a critique, this universe in its particularity rather than another is fine-tuned for life. Rather, one has to call on a second, additional strand of argument along Anthropic lines to show how the Many-Universe response as a whole works. That we should live in a Life-hospitable Universe rather than elsewhere obviously requires no explanation: it is a necessary truth. In the Many-Universe line of argument, what does require explanation is that there should be a Universe of this general kind available. And this the Many-Universe hypothesis secures. Our existence ensures the existence of some Life-hospitable Universe & thus supports that hypothesis, which has such a Universe as its consequence. This attack on the logic of the many-universe response fails.
However, the Multi-Verse version of the postulate is still not much more than a fascinating, but highly speculative, Mathematical exercise at this point. It faces many testing challenges. Is the notion of an infinitely realized domain of existent Universes even coherent ? This issue has been debated since Aristotle’s time & it is still not resolved. Doesn’t making the Multi-Verse eternal simply serve to evade the normal scientific question of how it was itself generated ? How is one to ensure that the “bubble” Universes brought about by the unending series of Inflation events exhibit law-like behavior of any sort, let alone the probabilistic distribution of such behaviors that the Fine-Tuning argument requires ? If the notion of a Multi-Verse is prompted primarily by the need to explain Cosmic Fine-Tuning, does it not itself pose numerous demands for explanation in its own right ?
A Many-Universe theory involving only a single Inflation event would seem more accessible to scientific test at least. But even there, many issues remain unresolved. Do scalar fields exist ? How is one to set up and validate a distribution function over the Ensemble of Universes ? A generating process would have to be specified, but how is this process itself to be explained ? That is, why this process rather than some other one ? And might there not be some special conditions required to initiate the sort of inflation under consideration, leaving open the possibility that an element of Fine-Tuning might find its way back into the process that was supposed to banish it once & for all ?
Further, the invocation of a Many-Universe solution does not of itself necessarily lay Fine-Tuning to rest: every time Fine-Tuning makes its appearance, the argument seems to be carried a level higher in order to rescue the Principle of Indifference.
But this introduction of a higher-level Ensemble, if it can be made specific enough, seems in practice itself to involve a further round of Fine-Tuning, & so the dialectic continues, at each level becoming more ontologically extravagant.
Barrow & Tipler point out that if the notion of an infinitely realized Universe were to be allowed, the original grounds for postulating Inflation would no longer hold good. Why not argue instead that in a chaotically random infinite Universe “there must exist a large, virtually homogeneous, & isotropic region, expanding sufficiently close to flatness . . . so that after 15 Billion years it looks like our Universe ?”
Some more selected verses from the Ramana Maharshi disciple Master Nome:
No allure, no desire from externals, rather unstoppable, constant inner urge for unlimited happiness. Happiness comprehended in wisdom is always of the Self, never to be superimposed as dependent on momentary externals.
Undefined, without delusion, unlimited subjective happiness grows as ego diminishes by seeing ego supporting ideas to be unreal. Free of misidentification with form is free of suffering & limitation. Unending, intense Bliss erases all memory of sorrow imagined from unreal events & superimposed sense forms. Happiness is not a sensation. Discriminate ever more finely between Knower & known (world, body, mind, ego).
The descriptions of the Self & the negation of attributes & limited definition of the Self, such as that it is bodiless, non-sensory, without prana, free from thought, etc., would be meaningless if they referred to some sort of other Self different from the aspirant’s own true Self. There are not two selves in the same one being. There is one Self, & when known as it is, it is infinite & eternal, not a being, but just Being.
To realize this, Knowledge of oneself as the Self free from the body & such, must become as certain & steady as the belief of a human being that he is a human being, which a human being does not doubt on any occasion. When that human determines by Self-Knowledge what, in Truth, that human being is, Absolute Being is known, & if this without doubt & without wavering one has thus known what needs to be known, has experienced what needs to be experienced, & has realized what needs to be experienced.
Calculus for Yogis, part 13:
When casting the image of a Point, the point of intersection of the Radius line & the Circumference of the unit Circle, the image of that Point revolving CCW counter-clock-wise from the right-most place that would be East on a compass, or Angle 0 on the positive X-axis, we mentioned that the shadows, sideways or vertically, would exhibit Simple Harmonic Motion, SHM. We want to use the partial introduction of Cosines & Sines, Derivatives & Integrals, to look at this SHM, Simple Harmonic Motion.
Newton’s 2nd Law for Force. F, can be put in terms of Acceleration, a which the Time Derivative of Velocity, v:
F = m a = m d v/ d t
whereas Velocity, v is itself the Time Derivative of Distance, Displacement:
v = d v/ d t = d x/ d t
so that putting Force. F, in terms of Displacement, which is the “2nd order” Time Derivative of Displacement [Derivative of the Derivative]:
F = m a = m d v/ d t = = m d2 x/ d t2
The Spring, with Spring stiffness or Constant k, characteristically has a (negative) restoring Force. F given by:
– k x = F = m a = m d2 x/ d t2
– k / m x = d2 x/ d t2
The Exponential Function had a 1st Derivative equal to itself, or proportional to itself if other constants were involved. But fir SHM, it is the 2nd Derivative of x that is proportional to x . This SHM characteristic is fulfilled then, not by the Exponential, but by a trigonometric function, Sine or Cosine. So making this substitution for F we get:
x (t) = A cos (ω t + φ) , for A – amplitude, ω – angular frequency, φ – phase shift
[This could be put in terms of Sine, with appropriate phase shift φ since Cos & Sin have a phase shift of π /2 = 90o]
To take the 1st Derivative we use the above mentioned Chain Rule for Cos of a function. that function being, d y/ d t = (d y/ d x) ( d x/ d t) = [ – A sin (ω t + φ)] [d x (ω t + φ) / d t ]since: d cos / d t = – sin & for constant ω & φ, d x (ω t + φ) / d t = ω
d cos (ω t + φ) / d t = – A sin (ω t + φ) d (ω t + φ) / d t
= – A ω sin (ω t + φ)
Taking the 2nd Derivative, with: d sin / d t = cos
d2 x/ d t2 = d2 [A cos (ω t + φ)] / d t2 = d [– A ω sin (ω t + φ)] / d t
= – A ω2 cos (ω t + φ) = – ω2 x (t)
[Incidentally, comparing to the above: – k / m x = – ω2 x & k = m ω2 , which describes ωo the “natural resonance” frequency of whatever be the “harmonic oscillator”, Driven by Force (a shove or tug of a spring instead of a stretch & just letting go) another transient frequency would settle back to ωo. The forgoing describes a frictionless system. With Friction, the system slows down & stops.]
For short swings of a weight on a nearly “massless” String, a Pendulum, the same SHM equations apply with the substitution for the above (k / m) being (g / l) for g the acceleration of Earth-surface Gravity & l the length of the String. For a twisting Torsional Pendulum, the parallel is even closer with Spring Constant k becoming the Torsion Constant; & mass m becoming a Moment of Inertia I. The exact same terms extend the description to a Pendulum whose String has mass, or object suspended from a point, floating, or otherwise “rocking” object. Hence the some of the Physics of “vibes”.
If we go back to: – k / m x = d2 x/ d t2 describing SHM Acceleration, the 2nd Derivative, for Friction which depends on Velocity, we add a 1st Derivative with a frictional Damping Coefficient b.
– k x – b d x/ d t = m d2 x/ d t2
The transient frequency would settle back to ωo. The forgoing describes a frictionless system. With Friction, the system slows down & stops.
The above themes & 1600 pages more are freely available as perused or downloaded PDF’s, the sole occupants of a Public Microsoft Skydrive “Public Folder” accessible through:
http://jstiga.wixsite.com/nonduality/
or with Caps-sensitive:
Duplicates (but with graphics) have been available on:
http://www.blogger.com as “Being-as-Consciousness, Non-Duality – new & final version” with link:
http://being-as-consciousness.blogspot.com/
[But from now on, they will be different & still usually daily.]
“There is no Creation, no Destruction, no Bondage, no longing to be freed from Bondage, no striving for Liberation, nor anyone who has attained Liberation. Know that this to be Ultimate Truth.” – the “no creation” school of Gaudapada, Shankara, Ramana, Nome – Ajata Vada
for very succinct summary of the teaching & practice, see: www.ajatavada.com/
Nonduality and Science 