Is non-duality a philosophy?

swarm, i can point to a mitocondria in a cell but its still part of that cell. The cell couldnt servive without the mitocondria nor could the mitocondria servive without the cell so are they seperate or are they the same?

 

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if they weren't separate, a mitochondria would be a cell

(PS - for god's sake invest in a spell checker)

 

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so a molicule doesnt exist because its made up of atoms?
what about an atom because its made up of subatomic particals?

just because something can be broken down or discribed in parts doesnt invalidate it as a whole

 

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if its not in a form to be established as a molecule, no.

kind of like the difference or separation between a cotton bale and a cotton t-shirt is that you cannot wear a cotton bale

 

in this case mind is a FEELING, ie mind is what it feels like to be a human body (brain included)

 

compared to what?
a brain not included?
:m:

 

if a brain wasnt included there would be no mind correct, also if a heart wasnt included there would be no mind, same with any organ except the MAYBE the apendix

 

like maybe one day science will be able to back up your claims?

 

even if you could remove someones brain and transplant it into someone else (or a jar) they would still be a different person. Of course that can be taken to the logical conclusion that we are all new people every second because our "mind" is made up of the sum of our experiances.

This can be most conclusivly deminstrated if you look at amnisa pts who dont regain there memories. They start out again as a clean slate (almost anyway, they do tend to retain there likes and dislikes) and a new person emerges as they gather new experiances

 

Asguard, don't you see that everything in your experiencing, which is always and ever present, you turn into an experience by naming and dividing with the mind. As Light Mystic said, things can be divided in anyway the mind has skills to divide it. But, just because the mind divides it, does it mean that is in fact separate? The mind is a tool that can only divide. That is the nature of the mind.

You say that if a patient had amnesia then every moment would be fresh and new - that all the mind is is a collection of memories - is this all you are? - a collection of memories? Funny that you should bring up this point because that is what they say in non-duality (check out urbangurucafe.com - one of Bob Adamson's podcasts), that every moment is in fact fresh and new. Where are the thoughts that you had yesterday and if you are a thought of the mind, then which thought are you.

See how it is that the mind separates just by the fact that the separation is arbitrary. The fact that the body can be divided into cells and then into cellular parts such as a mitochondria and then further into molecules and subatomic particles and finally to waves. Just because the mind thinks 'separation' does this mean that things are separate.

If you are pointing at someone then there is the experiencing of your pointing at me - but if you are not thinking that we are separate, then don't I appear in your experiencing just as you appear. Do you not notice your body as you notice mine - is it all not the same thing. It is only in describing things that the separation seemingly appears. And yes, this describing is so automatic that we assume it is reality. But is it?

 

onemoment, you are suggesting a GLOBAL monoisum which i wont argue against, to be truthful im not sure free will exists, that quantum mechanics hasnt planned our life from the start

 

And you pointing out that you are separate from that.

Like I said: not inherently one, not inherently separate.

 

Swarm your last sentence;

says nothing at all. Is that meant to point someone to reality - it is very confusingly put. Do you know reality yourself?

 

I thought a philosophy was a way of thinking, maybe method of thinking even. Wouldn't a non-dualistic mode of thought require one to think in anything but twos?

 

Mr Hamtastic, is it possible to think in anything other than twos? That is the nature of thought - it divides things by naming them.

So, if non-duality is pointing to the oneness of reality, then it is only without thought that we can come to see this reality thus my contention that non-duality is not a philosophy.

Sure, thinking and talking are 'part' of the oneness but we need to see that the oneness being pointed to is that knowing of everything - that knowing is not separate. It is thought and naming that makes it appear so.

 

Ohhhh. So if you don't think you know everything. Kind of like schroedinger's cat, right?

 

As Mr Hamastic indicates, radical monism becomes highly problematic when one can not distinguish between the absolute and one's self ... namely that if the final last word about the absolute is that it is one and that I am part of it in an ineffable, indistinguishable manner ... then that must mean "I am the absolute" ....... and this only leaves the question, how the hell did the absolute enter in to a medium where they weren't aware that they were the absolute .....(which is why many many philosophers declare that, yes, we are part of the absolute, but not in an ineffable, indistinguishable manner, etc etc)

 

Lightgigantic: It is when we are caught up in trying to understand things, instead of looking from our direct experience what reality is, that we miss the oneness.

There are no parts to this oneness. If there is a part then we are still identifying with the thoughts that are arising of a separate me.

If people are still philosophizing about non-duality then they are not looking at what is being pointed to.

Non-duality is not spirituality, it is not a thought system of any sort - what it is telling us it that we are all ready that - and THAT is unchanging. What in us never changes? Our body certainly does and so do the thoughts that arise. That which never changes is the knowing of everything that arises - that is irrefutable and it is ineffable, indistinguishable, unknowable. You know that you are - more correctly - the knowing is there always and it is the same knowing that has always been there - everything that appears appears in it - and that knowing is not separate or broken up in any way. It is continuous.

Any distinction between the absolute and one's self, as you put it, is only in the thought. The distinction is arbitary and dependant on conditioning. Does thought though mean there is a definite separation? Isn't it only thought that seemingly separates because we have all agreed to categorise all life matter with words? And, is the word ever the actual?

In the indigenous Australian population, there is no word for time. Could that not mean, therefore, that time cannot exist for them given that they do not have a word for it? Could time be merely a mind construct and not a reality? The reason I raise this point is to show that we assume separation just because we have a word for something, but these words are abitrary and created. It is like we have a universal agreement about words - we agree to call stuff this and that - but does that mean just because we agree to name something that the word is capturing the actuality of what really is?

Non-duality is not a philosophy. Look and see what is when words are not being used to describe, look for yourself instead of assuming the truth of the reality we all describe.

 

onemoment of course it doesnt.

They may have no word for time but they still arive at set "times" to work

Futher more isnt a little arogent to claim that NONE of the whatever number languages the different aborigional tribes speak there is not one for time?

 

Asguard, all I am trying to point out to you is that we assume that just because we name something, that is what it is. The reason I bring up the fact that there is no word for 'time' in some cultures is to show that it is a cultural agreement that we decide to make that lead us to see things in one way and not another.

Quantum physics point to there being no time - did you know that? Scarey, isn't it, that we are constructing a reality with words and are agreeing with words that it is what reality is with words that we have agreed to use. What truth do any words have? Can't you see that if you do not have the word, things are just as they are.

So how are things really, if we do not use words to make us feel safe and assured that we understand reality?