Hello everybody!
I am new to this forum and I am very happy to be here. I hope talking to people here will help me to get a better picture of my own path.
I have been practicing Christianity, Atheïsm, Zazen, Vajra Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Vipassana, Daoist and Vedic Yoga and Bhakti Yoga troughout my live as i am a number one seeker
The main question that arises in my mind these days is:
Achintya Bheda Abheda vs Advaita
To me Achintya Bheda Abheda, Advaita, Sunyata and Tantra make the most sense, based on my own meditation experience, enlightenment and bliss experience as well as my conceptual contemplations
Pure philosophically speaking I adhere more to Achintya Bheda Abheda then to the concepts of non-duality or duality because it encompasses the other and makes no distinction between them, which to me feels the most 'truthful'. it seems logical to me that the totality of existence goes beyond paradox and in my experience the real/unreal question is not essential: consciousness and form seem to be one undividable experience yet still variety cannot be denied, it is also experienced. If existence would be purely non-dual then there would be no object of experience, there would be nothing, even not the experience of 'something'. on the other hand it is clear nothing exists independently, except maybe consciousness, which is not an object...
So so far I follow Sri Chaitanya completely, but...
I do not follow him in his seeming fanaticism, and certainly not in the clear fanaticism of his successors of the Gaudiya Vaishnava sampredaya. also the uncritical handling of the scriptures i do not follow, because to me God manifests in each and every moment, not in the mere letters, written down by human individuals. and to me god's message could alter within every second, because the experience of time only exists within the mind and god should be the absolute doer, otherwise the concept of god does not have any reason to exist.
So to me scriptures can be of help, but cannot be regarded as absolute truth. So i really do not understand why somebody as intelligent as Sri Chaitanya would put so much emphasis on sutra's, chapters, canto's and what more.
I mean i got off Catholicism for that - i have seen so many people who know the bible at heart but who seem to have no love in their hearts at all. no, scriptures do not mean much for me. It is experience i believe in.
So I really love Lord Krishna and his bhakti and I realy like kirtan and bhajan and i really agree with Achintya Bheda Abheda in it's essence. But I have a strong resistance against the whole Prabhupada - ISCKON - fundamentalism. I mean i see much more love in the eyes of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Ramana Krishna, Buddha, Padmasambhava etc... although philosophically I cannot agree with non-dualism as presented by them. The whole meaning of bhakti becomes abstract or artificial when you follow their reasoning and that does not correspond to the relationship i experience with krishna/god, which was always strongly present in my life.
So either i do not understand advaita correctly, or I have to follow and live a new kind of Achintya Bheda Abheda and challenge the Gaudiya Vaishnava Sampredaya in their fanaticism and stubborn emphasis on texts and their trying to finding proof in scriptures for every manifestation in stead of just experience and inquire the essence of live trough that...
I tend to go for the latter possibility as this is most inline with my heart and insight at this point in my life...
Hopefully some people can give me delightful answers, which make my path more clear and decisive!
Please do not use scriptures as proof, because one can find a scripture somewhere to proof anything. a scripture in itself is not a logical proof, only the meaning of a scripture can be a logical proof.
Otherwise, my cookingbooks could proof that pancakes are always made with milk and can only be made with milk, which is not true because i clearly make them with water often... but that does not mean i cannot use it.
to me these are the most simplistic ways of trying to proof a viewpoint, i really do not feel much respect for that kind of truth-seeking, which is no truthseeking at all, it is just being attached to safety and a false sense of certainty and to me dharma in the contrary is all about letting go of safety and jump into real life, without any reservations whatsoever
Thank you!
Shanti
Ananda
