/lit/ - Literature

>>18578670
>taking loosely paraphrased arguments as detailed in a random Quora post as the arguments against which you are defending instead of citing the actual written sentences by any actual Advaitin philosopher or any statement from any book about Advaita by an expert
cringe

> It just states that consciousness is impermanent, ever changing, and interdependent and so cannot be a "Self".
There is no evidence of this, change can only be predicated of things that appear *to* consciousness, interdependence can only be predicated of things that appear *within* consciousness. There is no empirical evidence that can be adduced of consciousness being dependent on anything else because it invariably reveals itself as well as the contents or present status of the mind, and this fact never changes. In every instance of knowledge, there is the pure light of awareness that shines invariably, and the changing contents that appear within it and are illuminated by it.

This awareness is completely partless, formless, undivided and cannot be reduced down to its constituents because its not comprised of separate constituents. In order to say that consciousness is changing, one has to observe some fact of the mind, and say "this is consciousness and I am observing a change in it, therefore consciousness is changing", but this argument always fails, because anything and its change which is identified in this way is not consciousness but is always a non-conscious thing which is being presented to consciousness as its object. The very fact that one is aware of that change shows that it's something different from that which registers it. This shows that consciousness cannot be found to be changing in any way, any attempt to show it's changing fail.

And we have positive confirmation that it's unchanging because of how our conscious experience is always one smooth and uninterrupted continuum from moment to moment, the same luminous presence remains in-between thoughts and in-between sensory perceptions which is what allows us to witness their arising and falling. If it wasn't the same from moment to moment we wouldn't be able to observe the arising and falling of specific thoughts and sensory perceptions because this observation requires the same presence be there when they arise, when they are illumined by awareness, and when they dissipate. Memory alone without a persisting observer cannot explain this because this process is too fast and always going-on for to us to consult our memory every single time we have a change of thought or sensory perception. These happen so fast and constantly that to rely on memory to recognize change would require us to do nothing but constantly spend our time remembering which isn't how we experience the mind.