Dave Oshana's Total Happiness Teachings: advaita?

01-08-2001, 07:45 PM

jabba wrote:
>
> I wonder though what qualifications one has to have to be an
> advaitist. Does Realisation make one unavoidably an advaitist or is
> being an advaitist about certain core beliefs?
>
> Or is as Advaita just a tool and not a set philosophy?

dear jabba-

the following may prove to be the best or worst advice
you will ever receive...or something in between. if it's
the worst, then just regard it as you would some eerie
[maybe interesting] artifact in a natural history museum.

i studied advaita for over 35 years--and incidentally have
the top-ranked website in "advaita vedanta" [according to
popularity anyway]--and i can tell you that, in the final
analysis, i discovered that i not only don't know what
advaita is, i don't know what *anything* is anymore!

i've never been in such physical pain (due to having been
in a car accident and dealing now with 8 herniated discs);
never been so poor (due to so many who've ripped me off
for what amounted to my entire life savings, rendering me
thus in the red to the tune of 23k and counting...where i
watch my 15 y/o son living in a crack ghetto, and my wife
due to her former marriage having to be with her kids
3,000 miles away from me, and other interesting stuff).
in fact, my life in this world has always been, is, and
will likely continue to be, a tragic comedy of the most
ridiculous proportions! karma? yes on one hand and who
the heck knows on the other! **and yet!: i never loved
people or my life in this world more than i do now.**
....courtesy advaita vedanta.

so, *what it is* about advaita (or any non-dual conceptual
approach), can't be put into words. in fact, if it can be
put into words, there's no real recognition of experience
in the Heart as yet. there's definitely experience in the
Heart...always was, is, and will be.. but it's yet to be
*recognized*. and who or what it is that recognizes this
experience is as much of a mystery as the experience itself!
don't let anyone kid you! :-)

now if this totally confused you. good! now rest in that
magnificent confusion and allow it to dismantle the colossal
reign of the ego-Mind-that-needs-to-know-and-control as much
as possible. this is the first step [or if you're ready,
the quantum leap itself] toward moksha (being the Liberation
or Release from the clutches of the tyrannical ego-Mind thief
of your otherwise innate *natural* bliss).

this is beautifully reinforced by what dennis mentioned in
his closing thoughts today on the thread "free will vs fate,"
when he said: "But certainly, I (my true nature) am *not*
what the mind conceives. The truth is far beyond the ability
of the mind."

peace peace peace in OM.

namaste,
frank

01-08-2001, 09:51 PM

I have just reviewed a very interesting collection of articles on
awakening by Dave Oshana at his email archive site called:

www.egroups.com/group/oshana.

Dave has said that probably the closest Tradition to the Realisation
that he teaches from is Advaita.

I wonder though what qualifications one has to have to be an
advaitist. Does Realisation make one unavoidably an advaitist or is
being an advaitist about certain core beliefs?

Or is as Advaita just a tool and not a set philosophy?

best wishes

jabba