[HarshaSatsangh - Ramana Guru] Re: Life is suffering / World and its sufferings

Hallo Barney,
If you are still here, let me see if I can shed a little light on
the matter.
The sleep analogy is not unique to Ramana, its an old way of talking
in Jnana yoga circles. You�fll find it used a lot in the Yoga
Vasishta for example.

To understand it, you have to look at sleep, waking from a vedantic
rather than western angle. In Vedanta the Self is called the Fourth.
Its said: there are the three relative states of consciousness of
Waking, Dreaming Sleeping. While these states are constantly
shifting and arising and ceasing in cycles everyday there is a
�gfourth�h absolute state of conscious which is the self awareness
that witnesses the three relative states. Sleep is defined as the
state of least awareness, yet where the mind is almost entirely
dormant. Therefore it�fs a state of low awareness but tremendous
stillness. Waking is defined as the most aware of the three states
but is also the state most dominated by activity and thus the mind
(and therefore the ego) is in the state of greatest activity. In the
fourth state we know the pure awareness of the Self, a �gstate�h of
awareness uncovered by the activity of the mind. The cognition of
that pure awareness renders the mind entirely quiescent. Thus the
mind is as if asleep while the awareness is established in its own
wakefulness.

When one contacts this pure awareness repeatedly it gradually
becomes more accessible in and out of formal meditation. When a
person while in activity finds that the mind remains entirely
quiescent and he or she is firmly established in Self awareness,
that person is said to be asleep while awake. If the mind�fs
impressions subside completely then the world which the mind
formally projected outwards as a real, separate entity subsides with
it and the practitioner experiences all objects to be of the same
nature of existence-awareness. It is said in the language of Vedanta
that the world no longer exists for that person.

Is this at all a helpful hint for you?

Try not to blow a gasket in any case, it sounds painful

N

I believe Barney has quit the group. We wish him well.
Harsha

Narayana wrote:

>
> Hallo Barney,
> If you are still here, let me see if I can shed a little light on
> the matter.
>

its great to hear from you


for all those humans who live in illusions life is misery because
death is the end and
all joy and happiness is accompanied by the natural contrary

having discovered this truth is in the humble opinion of michael one of the great deeds of "Buddha"


in deep respect and love in GD


yours sincerely


michael

Wim Borsboom wrote:
Life is suffering???I hope nobody thinks that such a suggestion came
from the Buddha!No realized enlightened being can ever have said
that, not even - andespecially not - the Buddha!The Buddha came with
a few "bang on" statements, but that "life issuffering" was not one
of them. Many of his commentators may have putit that way, just as
much as they called his statements - according tothe parlance of
those days - The Four Noble Truths. Noble Truths?Instead of the words
'exalted or noble truth' - 'ariya sacca' - theBuddha may have just
simply used the word 'sacca' which stands for'expressing a clear
observation', 'a saying containing an obvioustruth' and even a
'stating a fact'. 'Sacca' (pronounced as `satcha')is comparable to
Jesus saying "Verily, verily, I say unto you......"We have a similar
expression, when one
agrees with something and says"I say!!!" or "That's a fact!!"There are
modern scholars who suggest that it is not certain that theBuddha
actually used the word sacca when he listed his 4 mostimportant
observations. Anyway sacca points to a clear evidential thing... e.g.
the evidenceof humans suffering 'dukkha' (usually translated as
'suffering'). The Buddha listed the following facts:Fact 1. Suffering
exists! (When we trace the history of human suffering we can
see why and when it arose from conditional conditioning.) Fact
2. Suffering has an origin! (When we trace conditionality, we
see how the installation of fear and desire keeps the
existence of suffering arising again and again.)Fact 3.
Suffering can cease!
(What has at one point been started can also be stopped.
When we understand the dynamics of the origination and the
continuation of suffering, suffering will cease.)Fact 4. There is a
way to return to our original free state of being human.
(We can reclaim our innate freedom. E.g. by following the
eight-fold path.)The Buddha saw what he saw... but he saw nothing
especially noble oreclectic in his discoveries. In fact, he wanted
his listeners tobecome as quickly as possible aware of sacca number 3
and 4, insteadof dwelling overly long on number 1 and 2. There is a
problem with the usual translations of some Pali words -the language
in which the Buddha's teachings have come
to us.The Pali 'dukkha' is usually translated as 'suffering', and
aseveryone has his or her own personal connotations around that word,
itwould be good to find out what the original meaning of dukkha is.
'Du'means 'difficult' and 'kha' means 'to endure', so dukkha simply
pointsto something that one has difficulty with enduring, e.g.
life.But that does not mean that 'life per se' IS hard to endure, it
meansthat people can have - or tend to have - difficulty with it.
Humanscan have a hard time enduring life. A specific type of human
`indirect conditional conditioning' (asdistinct from `direct natural
conditioning') is the reason for that. Indirect conditional
conditioning was invented about 11,000 years agowhen it started the
transition from the hunter-gather society to theagricultural one and
had some great bona fide evolutionary reasons,but it came with some
adverse side-effects... unfortunately most of usare now suffering
from those `mala fide' side-effects. It is important to see the
difference in emphasis between the Buddha'sview on life and the
common commentators' view. Life is notsuffering, but humans have
been led to suffer life. Hardship is notintrinsic to life, but it
became ALMOST intrinsic to humans who forsome reason (the adverse
side-effects of indirect conditionalconditioning) at some point lost
their original freedom to accept lifeas it came. This is not the
popular understanding of suffering in the more commonBuddhist
context, even some modern Buddhists and some very eruditecontemporary
Western commentators maintain that `at best' suffering isa thread that
runs through the fabric of the universe, or `at worst'that suffering
is the thread that the whole fabric of the universe isspun of. Well,
they may think that... but ... sacca!... that is not what theBuddha
saw.If he would have seen that, he would have
quickly advised everyone tocall it quits, rather then urging his
followers to work diligently onclaiming or reclaiming their freedom.
(His last words.) The Buddhaactually did not put much emphasis on
exiting this plane of being,just as little as he addressed the idea
of god or afterlife. It is notfor nothing that for a bodhisattva
nirvana can wait. A bodhisattva isactually not even interested in any
discussion of nirvana, especiallywhen it is understood as some
other-worldly nirvana..."Nirvana is Samsara properly understood."
(cerosoul)Oh gosh, the commentators really botched it up...So the
Buddha saw suffering as coming from some inadvertent
humanconditioning, brought about by a conditioned `problematique'
toaccepts life AS IS, thus leading anyone affected to wish life to
bedifferent from the way it is here and now. (Ah, so good for
themaneuverings of politics as well as consumerism.)The Buddha
traced suffering very quickly back to the illusive gamesthat humans
play, and truly... sacca!.., illusion plays strongly inthe "If...,
then..." conditionalities of the usual way human dealwith each
other. You see, indirect conditional conditioning is notvery reliable
when applied in human nature, it works better in theworld of nature
where it is more a "When.., then..." rather than an"If..,
then...)Acca! Accepting life as is, returns us to bliss, not
accepting lifeleads us astray - via desire and illusion - to
suffering.Wimhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/HarshaSatsangh/joinHarshaSatsangh
Magazine and Website is athttp://www.harshasatsangh.com"Love itself is
the actual form of God."Sri RamanaIn "Letters from Sri Ramanasramam"
by Suri
Nagamma
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