NMT (No-Me Teaching) new series 71:
Some Ramana Maharshi quotes:
He, who by questing inward for the Knower, has destroyed the ego & transcended so-called knowledge abides as the Self. He alone is a true knower, not one who has not seen the Self & therefore has an Ego still.
From your true being as Awareness alienated & deluded do not pursue appearances, deeming them as real. They are false, since disappear they must. But your own being as Awareness is real & cannot cease to be.
The World appears distinctly only in Wakefulness & Dream with concepts filled. In concept—free, all empty Deep Dreamless Sleep, one sees no World; so then conceptual is the World’s whole.
The Mind bewildered which mistakes the Body for oneself conceives the transient World of names & forms, makes it seem real & lovable, & promptly entraps one in the strong, illusive Bondage of Desire.
The empirical World of jostling names & forms is false & has no real existence in bright, full Awareness. Like a ring of fire formed in the dark when one whirls fast a glowing joss-stick, ’tis an illusion, Mind-created.
Seen in the light of Self-experience, all this phenomenal World is mere appearance, like the Sky’s deep blueness. What the deluded, body-bound Ego perceives “out there” is Mind-created, nothing more.
Fine-Tuned Universe 51:
[In the unreal reflection called the “Universe”, a product of an unreal Mind, even there, Infinite Intelligence is evident and inspiring.]
Believers in a Creator would, of course, see this as the work of creation, although they might also want to emphasize that it was not as a Cosmic explanation that they came to belief in God in the first place. So the 2 sides of this dialectic are not in strict contradiction with each other, although under certain circumstances they are still in competition.
If the phenomenon of Fine-Tuning can be assumed to be real, does the ability of the theistic position to handle it so neatly count as confirmatory evidence for that position ? Here religious believers should tread very warily. The assumption above has been that belief in a Creator is for many a given, in need of no further confirmation. For them, the Many-Universe extrapolation is simply redundant. But if the 2 Anthropic alternatives were to be regarded as rivals, each in search of confirmation, the Epistemic (truth–establishing) situation would change. The independent plausibility of the many-universe response, however that may be assessed, could limit the confirmatory force of Fine-Tuning for belief in a Creator. And, of course, one would have to keep in mind the other 2 possible responses to Fine-Tuning, both quite difficult to evaluate in practice. The apparent Fine-Tuning might not be significant to begin with if either of these 2 were to be correct. Yet it is quite striking that some notable Physicists take it seriously enough to warrant their calling into existence an Infinity of Universes co-existent with ours.
Still, the Epistemic (truth–establishing) situation is so difficult to assess that it is clearly premature to make Fine-Tuning the key to a new Natural Theology. It seems best then, for the moment, at least, to fall back on the weaker notion of consonance. Fine-Tuning is quite evidently consonant with belief in a Creator. To some, this conclusion might appear too weak: if Theistic belief explains Fine-Tuning, they might argue, this should count Epistemically in its favor. Strictly speaking this is true (assuming of course that Fine-Tuning is in fact the case.) However, the Epistemic issues surrounding the Fine-Tuning argument are so intricate & so difficult to assess that making Fine-Tuning an independent motive for Theistic belief may invite more trouble for its proponents than it is worth.
The Fine-Tuning debate has directed the attention of Physicists to issues of an unfamiliar sort. This of itself has been a major contribution. How much weight, for example, should Cosmologists give to the Principle of Indifference ? That is, how serious a problem would it be to leave a constraint on critical Cosmic conditions unexplained ?
Suppose that some future theory were to explain why the fundamental constants of Nature have the values they do, would this eliminate Fine-Tuning ? On the assumption that the Universe had a beginning in Time, would the transition from nothing to an inconceivably energetic beginning be subject in principle to explanation in terms of physical theory ? On the assumption that the Universe did not have a temporal beginning, is the demand for explanation of why it should exist in the first place still a legitimate one ? If the choice were to be between the 2 Anthropic alternatives, there being no evidence for the Many-Universe one other than Fine-Tuning, on what basis would one presume to make the choice ?
Questions like these do not fall into any of the categories to which we are accustomed. Yet they are real questions, ones that insistently pose themselves as we explore the boundary-lands of contemporary cosmology. They are quite surely not going to go away, so we had best give serious thought as to how they should be approached.
Some more selected verses from the Ramana Maharshi disciple Master Nome:
The Truth regarding the Self is that it is of the nature of Being-Consciousness-Bliss, & there is nothing other than the Self. The Self is 1-w/o-a-2nd, without anything other. In the Ribhu Gita, experience is described as composed of 5 parts: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, Name & Form. The same Gita says that the first 3 pertain to Reality, & the last 2 pertain to utter Illusion. The Reality is Being-Consciousness Bliss, while that which is Illusion is Name & Form. Illusion signifies something actually nonexistent, something that is not.
What is meant by Name & Form ? Form refers to everything perceived through the Senses. Name refers to all that is Formulated in ideas, anything of a mental character.
To those who are wisely meditating & thus recognizing that the World exists only in the Mind & nowhere else, we often say that the Truth is Formless. This statement pertains to both Name & Form. Everything perceivable & conceivable is not the Self & so such is not the actual Truth.
Being-Consciousness-Bliss is said to he Truth. Being is non-objective. It has no Form, is qualityless & attributeless, & That which ever is. The Self, Being is Consciousness but not mere thought-Form & not mere sensation. The Self is Bliss but not a mere mode of Mind or emotion, not something that depends on an outer cause or set of conditions, & not something that happens in Time. The Self is Bliss that is that is simultaneous & identical with Being, which the ever-present Consciousness.
[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 