message to my friends

[Greg Goode]

At 01:24 PM 8/14/98 -0400, Prashant Sharma wrote:
>On Fri, 14 Aug 1998, Greg Goode wrote:
>
>>
>> Jumping in here.  Picking up on your ideas that only one philosophy can get
>> you "there," and that another philosophy will take you somewhere else.  One
>> of the things that all non-dual philosophies are in agreement about (though
>> with different words) is this: there are no two "theres" for there to be.
>> So how can any of these philosophies take you to any *other* place?
>>
>> --Greg
>>
>        This is true only of the non-dual philosophies though. But even
>here there are differences in the description of the final state. If you
>insist that the final state is undescribable hence the difference in
>words used to talk about it, then isn't there as much justification in
>calling the state as unique and different as there is of calling it the
same for
>everyone?
>
>Prashant.


I see better now what you mean by the relationship between the words and
the state, the possiblility that different non-dual philosophies are
talking about really different things.

But that which is the subject of non-dual philosophies is not a state.  It
is That reality, than which there is no other.  There can't be two of
these.  If what the non-dual philosophies talk about WERE a state, then it
would have to be a state of something else.  Like a mental, epistemological
or psychological state; or a state of being or a state of realization, etc.
 In this case, they would be talking about dual realities, not non-dual
Reality:  they'd be talking about both the state itself, and the entity or
characteristic whose state that is.

Now the above applies mostly to what is the *main subject* of the non-dual
philosophies.  But then they also talk about the relative level, and often
descend to the everyday, in order to discuss the characteristics of a
person who has achieved/attained/realized the Reality.  HERE is where I've
seen a lot of disagreement.  Various philosophies emphasize various kinds
of samadhi, siddhis, lack/disregard of siddhis, love, service, seeing the
world, not seeing any objects at all, performing only ethical conduct,
being beyond doing/nondoing, etc. etc. etc.

--Greg