Tag: advaita-vedanta
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What Is An I-thought In Ramana Maharshi’s Teaching?
The I-thought (aham vritti) is not at all easy to understand experientially–until you get it. To come to this experiential understanding, let’s move in a stepwise fashion: 1.) To begin with, a thought appears. That thought, which is indeed an arising, could be: “I am sitting here” or “I don’t like John” or “What a fine…
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Externalized Attention Vs. The Inward-facing Path
Attention Let’s say, for now, that attention can be either “externalized” or “internalized.” By “attention,” I mean awareness in the mode of witnessing. Then “externalized attention” will refer to witnessing objects while being engrossed by and therefore “lost in” them. By contrast, “internalized attention” will, in actuality, refer to the dissolution of witnessing as it…
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The Illusory Appearance Of Ignorance
The direct path teaching of Advaita Vedanta states very clearly that only awareness exists and thus that you are, and have never been anything other than, awareness. For most, the statement above doesn’t “ring true,” and so the teaching also needs to provide an account of the illusory appearance of ignorance, of “not getting it.”…
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There Are No Actual Problems, Only Imagined Ones
The Main Argument The pith of the awareness teaching of Advaita Vedanta could be put thus: “There are no actual problems, only imagined ones.” The argument can be laid out very neatly; it will take quite some time, however, to verify that it’s true in one’s own experience. 1. A problem only arises in and…
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The Veiling Of The Self Never Actually Happened
One’s true nature is consciousness, the supreme. When the mind is extinguished in the Self, the [three] saktis, beginning with inch, which are said to exist, will completely cease, being [known to be] an unreal superimposition upon the perfectly pure consciousness that is one’s true nature. —Muruganar, “Verse 42,” Guru Vachaka Kovai, p. 24 One…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 