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This is an email that i just wrote for someone. I found it very fun to write about so I'm deciding to post it here too.
It's a response to someone who wants philosophy asking me what I read.
For the reading material I recommend "I Am that". It's a recorded conversation between a bunch of people from a lot of different places with a famous Yogi (enlightened non-dualist). It's very dense but if you read it well and a few times it guaranteed WILL change your life for the better.
You have to be a pretty introspective\philosophical person to "get" it though. i have attempted describing it to some people and its like speaking to a wall. I'm pretty confident in you though judging by your blog\writing.
Also its important to understand that all of the religious phrases in there are analogies\metaphors. God = the universe\everything that is\isn't.
It's also important to have a good understanding of language of human paradox and ideas. The way we think and the way our language is set up makes us constantly contradict ourselves simply because no thinking machine can comprehend "everything" just like we cannot actually comprehend the number 1 billion.
Our way of thought is just a system of paradoxes created and used to explain the incomprehensible.
I will attempt to explain the universe to you as a diagram
Imagine a beam of light being projected through a film, to show up as an image on a screen:
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--light ray--the film--modified light ray--screen--
The ray of light is everything that is or isn't. Simply everything. The world.
The film is the human mind. The machine that we use to filter the ray of light and create an image\perception.
The screen that holds this resulting projection is the Personal World. Life as you perceive it. Life out of context. Life full of suffering and of joy. The constant tennis match between pain and pleasure.
Why isn't the screen true to the ray of light passing through? The human mind is always contradicting itself, it can't comprehend the whole so it looks at details.
Once you understand that you cannot trust your own mind or opinion at all it frees you in a way. I became even more introspective. Studying the prison I had built around myself.
I could go on forever but it would be redundant if you read the book. I hope this babble brings some interesting brainstorm material for you as you read.
You can google "i am that" and the first result will be a free online book.
I hope you take this seriously and actually read the book, i accidentally put a lot of effort into writing this. whatever it was fun.
peace
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You are delving into the pretty established Buddhist understanding of existence.
The 'self' does not exist in a traditional sense. The term "I" is only true in a convenient sense, that there is a certain individuality to each's experience, but not in the sense that there is any "you"-ness to who "you" are.
We all know what a river is, but there is no "river"-ness to it. Such is human existence. There is nothing eternal or unchanging about the river, it continues to run, but it is impermanent and dynamic.
Eternalists say that the self/soul is infinite and they are wrong, for we can look around and see that every day we are in a flux of what makes us who we are.
Nihilists say that the self/soul is nothing and they are wrong too, for we can look around and see that things exist unto themselves.
Each person is the sum of their karmic trajectory, their causes, conditions, and all of those around them. That is the essential understanding to moving forward with the non-dualism of our existence. To try and skip ahead and discuss how we perceive life is challenging without first accepting that there is no 'self' and there is not "no self".
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Thanks Sleight  I'm interested in getting a little community thread for this type of discussion. I know at least a few TLers that are into non-dualism.
I'm happy about the word "flux" that you gave me. I've been looking for that forever 
edit: i really like talking and discussing this stuff with people because in a way we are practicing it. its like meditative introspection with more minds and experiences to work with\analyze.
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I think that the things philosophy talks about aren't meant to be talked about. It is very interesting, but it seems in general those who knew the most of what these things speak about , spoke the least about them, likely because they knew words fail the human experience.
I encourage you to do what you like though!
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I just got around to reading Plato. Specifically, his dialogue on the nature of knowledge. I highly recommend it. (Theaetetus)
There's also the shadows in a cave analogy. Plato says, yes, there is some river-ness to a river; in fact, that is what we must seek to define about the river.
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China26351 Posts
The river thing is an idiom Heraclitus used.
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On August 31 2010 07:32 ella_guru wrote:
I think that the things philosophy talks about aren't meant to be talked about. It is very interesting, but it seems in general those who knew the most of what these things speak about , spoke the least about them, likely because they knew words fail the human experience.
I encourage you to do what you like though!
There are only a few questions the Buddha would not answer, for they are unable to be explained without creating misunderstanding. This is not one of them and quite essential to Right View.
I just got around to reading Plato. Specifically, his dialogue on the nature of knowledge. I highly recommend it. (Theaetetus)
There's also the shadows in a cave analogy. Plato says, yes, there is some river-ness to a river; in fact, that is what we must seek to define about the river.
Plato is clearly in exact opposition. It is a classic sutra, where the monk Nagasena and the Greek King Milinda have a open debate and we can show that there can be no innate essence to anything. Plato's ideas are weak and fall quite clearly in a rationale debate on the issue. The whole notion of things existing beyond the mind's notion is quite ludicrous philosophically and even the most basic of today's science answers the whole debate quickly.
For sake of argument, I will just answer you as Nagasena did the Greek King, long before Plato was even a gleam in his ancestor's eye.
"Does the carriage make a chariot? Do the wheels make a chariot? Does having just a carriage, axle, wheels, flag, and so forth make a chariot? Is it only a chariot in certain combination of carriage, axles, wheels, flag, and so forth? What is it then without the flag? Without the reins? Clearly, the chariot is only a name which we have given to an idea, a representation of something for sake of convenience. Who are you so afraid of that you lie, Great King, for clearly there is no thing innately a chariot which can be found here."
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On August 31 2010 10:51 Sleight wrote:Show nested quote +On August 31 2010 07:32 ella_guru wrote:
I think that the things philosophy talks about aren't meant to be talked about. It is very interesting, but it seems in general those who knew the most of what these things speak about , spoke the least about them, likely because they knew words fail the human experience.
I encourage you to do what you like though! There are only a few questions the Buddha would not answer, for they are unable to be explained without creating misunderstanding. This is not one of them and quite essential to Right View. Show nested quote +I just got around to reading Plato. Specifically, his dialogue on the nature of knowledge. I highly recommend it. (Theaetetus)
There's also the shadows in a cave analogy. Plato says, yes, there is some river-ness to a river; in fact, that is what we must seek to define about the river. Plato is clearly in exact opposition. It is a classic sutra, where the monk Nagasena and the Greek King Milinda have a open debate and we can show that there can be no innate essence to anything. Plato's ideas are weak and fall quite clearly in a rationale debate on the issue. The whole notion of things existing beyond the mind's notion is quite ludicrous philosophically and even the most basic of today's science answers the whole debate quickly. For sake of argument, I will just answer you as Nagasena did the Greek King, long before Plato was even a gleam in his ancestor's eye. "Does the carriage make a chariot? Do the wheels make a chariot? Does having just a carriage, axle, wheels, flag, and so forth make a chariot? Is it only a chariot in certain combination of carriage, axles, wheels, flag, and so forth? What is it then without the flag? Without the reins? Clearly, the chariot is only a name which we have given to an idea, a representation of something for sake of convenience. Who are you so afraid of that you lie, Great King, for clearly there is no thing innately a chariot which can be found here."
Already we deviate from the truth!
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this is why ghosts exist.-
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EPT
