/lit/ - Literature

Differences between the two doctrines usually result from the fact that Plotinus is using the Platonic three-leveled ontology and the Vedanta is using the older Parmenidean-Upanisadic two-leveled model. The act of primal intellection is Plotinus’s description of a mind which has realized its identity with the intermediate realm of Universal Mind, not with the ultimate One, whereas Yajnavalkya and Sankara are speaking of oneness with brahman, the ultimate One. Plotinus is of two minds about this. In one mood he says that Mind is the highest element in our nature (I.1.8) and warns against the attempt to ascend beyond the infinite splendor of this realm of eternal Ideas (Treatise Against the Gnostics). Often, however, he expresses another mood about it. Once he calls the soul “hyperontic,” or beyond being, a description that applies only to the One (Enn. VI.9.7). Again, he calls the soul explicitly “hypernoetic” or beyond mind (IV.8.1). Once he states that the soul “lays aside all the shape it has taken, even to the Intellectual shape that has informed it [i.e., Mind] … so that it may be alone with the alone” (VI.7.34).

This state Plotinus describes from his own experience not as a unity-in-duality, like the oneness with Mind, but as an absolute unity. “It was not a vision compassed,” he says, “but a unity apprehended. The man formed by this mingling with the Supreme … is become the Unity, nothing within him or without inducing any diversity” (Enn. VI.9.n).The system of telescoping emanations does not make any sense without this element. As Plotinus says of the principle of regression, “All things return to the One” (V.2.1). “There is no longer a duality,” he says of his own experience, “but two in one; for so long as the presence holds, all distinction fades” (VI.7.34). As an Upanisad said, “all distinctions of being and knowing vanish.”

Plotinus repeatedly refers to the One as the First or Supreme Self (autos) (VI.8.14;V.1.1). The Upanisads, of course, use the same terminology when saying the brahman is the atman, or self, of all. The point is that the One is characterized by utter simplicity. It is nonrelational, simply itself, self-identical, self-defining, itself as itself and nothing more, nothing added on to a nature which is pure and simple self-sameness. This idea is contradictory inherently in terms of ordinary thinking. To be self-same one must have some quality or other to be the same as; the One is declared to have no qualities except self-sameness, to be, as it were, a blank or void of self-sameness. The One, says Plotinus, is “cause of itself; for itself and of itself, It is what It is, the first self, transcendently the Self” (VI.8.14). Similarly in the Upanisads: “That which is the subtle essence, this whole world has for its self. That is the true. That is the self” (CU VI.10.4). The concept of the ultimate as pure selfhood or self-identity provides a way to know the self, namely the kind of immediate present intuition with which we know ourselves rather than our objects. “When one beholds the First Principle,” Plotinus says, “one does not behold it as different from one’s self, but as one with one’s self” (VI.9.10). Similarly, in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad: “Whoever worships another divinity (than his self), thinking that he is one and (Brahman) another, he knows not” (I.4.10).

The two traditions are in agreement about this on every point. Plotinus, for example, emphasizes that in that state “reasoning is in abeyance and all intellect” (VI.9.11). The Katha Upanisad stresses the same point: “When the five senses together with the mind cease (from their normal activities) and the intellect itself does not stir, that, they say, is the highest state” (II.3.10). Again, both agree that this condition cannot be willed to happen. “We must not run after it,” says Plotinus, “but fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly for its appearance” (V.5.8). And the Katha Upanisad: “This self cannot be attained by instruction, nor by intellectual power, nor even through much hearing. He is to be attained only by the one whom the (self) chooses” (1.2.23). In a locution that shows how close are the Orphic and the Upanisadic discourses, Plotinus defines “acquiring identity with the Divine” as “awakening into myself” (IV.8.6). Since the self is already there, how can it be sought? Since the self is what would seek, how can it be sought?

How come Plotinus looked after Orphans while Shankara just practiced navel gazing?

>>14351197
>>14351204
>>14351211
the Buddha already discovered these truths

more psyop BULLSHIT

>>14351298
Those truths already existed and were taught long before Buddha in the early Upanishads

>>14351316
more FAKE THREADS

>>14351298
This

>>14351316
Neo-vedantist propaganda. Even other Hindus like Madhva and Ramanuja have called Shankara a "crypto-Buddhist" for 1200 years.

>>14351298
Okay but why did the Buddha deny the existence of "The One"?

>>14351335
>>14351326
>>14351320
>>14351315
Cope.

>>14351326
ahh, yeah, this sounds legit. plenty of /lit/ posters love dwelling on this kind of COMPLETE BULLSHIT

>>14351278
>traveling around India on foot, establishing temples, debating and defeating opposing schools and incorrect interpretations of the vedic doctrine, and writing voluminous works in a short life of 32 years
>navel-gazing

>>14351326
>>14351316
>>14351298
every human is capable of achieving this knowledge. nearly every religion is based upon this revelation to a degree. if you think there is a single human who has some kind of claim of ownership over the most fundamental human knowledge that there is then you are (to put it bluntly) a delusional hylic

>>14351344
no proof the historical shankara did this, this is all hagiography

meanwhile we have an actual biography of plotinus written by his student

>>14351332
he didn't really, he described it implicitly. If he stated it outright it would only lead to speculation and karma accumulation.

the more you know

>>14351344
>establishing temples

Im a newfag, I genuinely want to learn more about the split between Upanishadic Hinduism and Buddhism.

What reasons does the Buddha give for not believing in the existence of the Brahman.
I have heard some Buddhists say that Unity with Brahman achieved by Hindu sages is actually just one step on the path to achieving actual Nirvana, which goes beyond Brahman by annihilating that as well.

>>14351332
The One is the Void.

>>14351364
hahahaha

is there any point making FAKE THREADS that no-one gives a FUCK about?

>>14351366
I'm sure guenonfag has a great answer for "you" just waiting in store!

The real answer is, of course, not to listen to a random neovedantist on the internet who would be considered dangerously unorthodox by nearly every Hindu in India, and to go read an actual history of Indian philosophy.

>>14351368
That could easily be true, but was the Buddha implying just that Voidness was a better way of describing Brahman than what Upanishadic sages did? since Brahman was supposed to be beyond all description

>>14351374
You are worse than Guenonfag imo

no-one is worse than anyone because this is a FAKE THREAD

>>14351342
>>14351370
>>14351391
nobody is forcing you to read the thread you moron, if you find it so upsetting like close the tab, like walk away from the screen lmao

Just ignore/hide all the hylic posts trying to hijack the thread

>28 posts
>7 IPs

>>14351407
because you spazzed out and made of bunch of MUH GUENONFAG posts like you always do whenever you see any thread remotely related to Hinduism or Traditionalism, if you had just exercised a little bit of self-control than maybe people could have actually engaged with the subject-matter of the thread concerning Platonism and Vedanta

>>14351351
That's hardly a reason to doubt it and assume that he spend his time navel-gazing instead

>>14351452
He was a renunciate since childhood so he didn't have a means to look after orphans, in a sense he was a 'orphan'.

>>14351366
>Im a newfag, I genuinely want to learn more about the split between Upanishadic Hinduism and Buddhism.
There was no split. Buddha came along, learned from either Jain or neo-upanishadic teachers (Samkhya for example), was not satisfied it lead to 'end of the spiritual life' and developed his own path.

>What reasons does the Buddha give for not believing in the existence of the Brahman.
If by Brahman you mean the vedantic Atma-Brahman, he only denied Brahman insofar as he denied the eternalism of Brahman. Whether he denied the absolutism of Brahman or Atman however is an unanswered question.

>I have heard some Buddhists say that Unity with Brahman achieved by Hindu sages is actually just one step on the path to achieving actual Nirvana, which goes beyond Brahman by annihilating that as well.
It depends on the sect of Buddhism. Some of them regard unity with an absolute as a step to the spiritual journey while some (for example dharmakayic traditions) even go so far as to equate it with Nirvana.

>>14351478
>>14351366
samefag, see >>14351335

>>14351452
>>14351464
as if any REAL PEOPLE would converse like this

ahh wait, it's a fucking BOT THREAD

>>14351481

>>14351489

>>14351298
Based

>>14351489
Take your meds or check yourself into a shrink before its too late

>>14351507
>>14351508
schizos btfo, what is it about Shankara threads that attracts them like flies to honey?

>>14351514
>>14351515
yeah man, using a proxy is way beyond my IQ level

>>14351515
makes him seethe for some reason

>>14351478
So, assuming Sunyata is Brahman. Is Buddhism still a good religious/worldview to practice irl? Or us Vedantic Hinduism better

>>14351551
>irl
>implying māyā = irl

>>14351553
Buddhists dont believe in Maya though?

>>14351551
You decide:
https://www.planetcustodian.com/over-50-scary-images-depicting-filth-of-varanasi-and-river-ganges-that-went-viral-in-china/8134/

>>14351558
They believe in samsara which is practically just maya but without an explanation for what's causing it (i.e. Brahman)

>>14351586
So to liberate oneself from the Samsara, is Buddhism the ideal "religion" to follow? Or is it more a personal preference between things like Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism etc.

>>14351551
I wouldn't cede that assumption, Buddhists disagree that Sunyata is the same as Brahman. Maybe Dharmakaya is, but not Sunyata. In terms of which is better, I guess Buddhism would make you stand out less. Imagine calling yourself a Hindu as a white person.

literally WHO even talks like this?

>>14351613

>>14351607
Social norms dont bother me as much as liberation from the Samsara does fren.

>>14351607
White Pagan religions/Christianity are all garbage anyway. With the exception of Neoplatonism with dosent even exist as a "religion" anymore

>guenonfag now carrying on an entire conversation with himself AND pretending to be an additional, comically retarded dissenter

He's actually losing it, isn't he

>>14351628
Ok Guenonfag

>>14351624
both would get you there anyway, but its less cringe with Buddhism and is far more accessible in a western country.

>>14351652
Yeah I mean, I like Hinduism but its not really my thing. I was mainly tossing up between Sufism and Buddhism

Could anyone give a brief overview of the main differences between the major sects of Buddhism? And which one is most likely to be correct and closest to the original doctrine of the Buddha.
or link to an article that talks about this or someshit

>>14351648
thing is, it’s quite noticable to anyone with command of the English language that this whole thread isn’t a real discussion between actual people. Even the posts with insults are just an empty shell of what a real person engaged in debate would say.

It’s laughable that anyone could think this kind of bullshit COINTEL could actually succeed

>>14351665
pic related is very a brief overview of the 3 main sects. It is far more complicated but you can find this stuff out. I cannot say which one is 'correct' but Theravada is the oldest continuing school and relies principally on the oldest record of Buddha's words within their canon.

>>14351693

fren, why are these glow in the dark niggers trying to influence our debates on how liberation is best achieved?

>>14351833
Oh vey, you want to be liberated from the Samsara? Not on my watch.

You need to keep being reincarnated here to serve our God Yaldabaoth and be our slaves for all eternity

>>14351833
(((They))) are trying to introduce permanent psychosis by means of the guenonfag and his alter ego, the anti guenonfag. By creating a situation where you don't know who is telling the truth you will trust nothing and be cursed to ignorance forever.

>>14351906
Thats pretty much a summary of all discourse in the modern world though

>>14351906
psyops 101, clever clever.

unfortunately not gonna work because no-one actually gives a SHIT

>>14351906
Unfortunately for them, it only works on those who haven't developed an immunity to all forms of subversion.

>>14351906
Wow, Guénonfags alter ego was a agent of yaldabaoth all along

>>14352039
All Hylics are agents of Yaldabaoth. Including Guenonfag

>>14352056
Yaldabaoth is really just another name for Indra. And the Archons are the other Gods.
Vishnu is the Logos

anyways, does anyone actually want to talk about the relation of neoplatonism/plotinus and upanishads/shankara? I find it to be interesting

>>14352064
I think it was kind of summed up here

>>14351197
>>14351204
>>14351211
The Monad is obviously Brahman

What truly is maya? Is it possible to construct "maya-free zones" using some ritual?

>>14352062
Its no coincidence, picrelated

>>14352095
Maya is just the illusion of the material world/materialism.

In Buddhism, the Maya/Illusion is the individual "self"/ego

>>14352064
Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus' teacher:
>While many scholars have interpreted the cognomen "Sakkas" as indicating he was a porter in his youth, others have asserted that this is a misreading of "Sakkas" for "sakkophoros" (porter) which is grammatically incorrect and/or have connected the moniker with the "Śākyas," an ancient ruling clan of India.[2][3], and thus, have claimed that Ammonius Saccas was of Indian origin.

>This latter view has both been subsequently contested and supported by more recent scholarship. Some scholars supporting the view of the Indian origins of Ammonius Saccas have also contended that said ancestry is consistent with the passion of his foremost student Plotinus for India, and helps to explain the philosophical similarities between Vedanta and Neoplatonism which are increasingly attributed to Indian influence.

>>14352134
If He was of Indian origin he may of been a "St. Thomas Christian".

>According to Porphyry, the parents of Ammonius were Christians, but upon learning Greek philosophy, Ammonius rejected his parents' religion for paganism. This conversion is contested by the Christian writers Jerome and Eusebius, who state that Ammonius remained a Christian throughout his lifetime:

>[Porphyry] plainly utters a falsehood (for what will not an opposer of Christians do?) when he says that ... Ammonius fell from a life of piety into heathen customs. ... Ammonius held the divine philosophy unshaken and unadulterated to the end of his life. His works yet extant show this, as he is celebrated among many for the writings which he has left.

>>14352064
yeah me too is this worth reading?
https://dbnl.org/tekst/staa009adva01_01/staa009adva01_01.pdf

>>14352158
Ammonius Saccas isnt the same person as Ammonius of Alexandria the Christian, the person the Church fathers wrote about were different people

>>14351326
>the followers of Madhva argued that Shankara championed monism because he was so stupid that he could only count to one
KEK

https://grahamhancock.com/cassaror2/

>>14352200
In Neoplatonism the '3rd eye' is the Nous

>>14352223
Isnt the Nous the Demiurge?

>>14352226

no, it is the 'mind'

>>14352226
The macrocosmic nous is, but we have to remember in Neoplatonism the demiurge isn't evil as such.

>>14352239
Ah I think I see. The Macrocosmic "mind" is the Demiurge, like the overmind. the Microcosmic Nous is your own mind

>>14352245
He isnt evil in Valentinian Gnosticism either. Although the Sethians exaggerated the Demiurge's 'evilness', he was still a tool of the Monad and could only create things based on the Logos

http://esotericawakening.com/what-is-reality-the-holofractal-universe

http://esotericawakening.com/what-is-reality-part-2

>>14351298
>>14351316
>>14351320
>>14351326
Nobody but autists, worldlings and western scholars cares about this.
It doesn't matter who was first.

>>14351351
Nobody but autists, wordlings and western scholars care for your "accurate historical account" of these figures' lives

And while we're at it, nobody but autists, not even regular worldlings or western scholars, cares about "muh Guenonfag", please just shut up.

>>14352960
>n-nobody cares about guenonfag!
ok guenonfag

>>14351316
>he thinks ANY upanishad can be reliably traced to before the Buddha

>>14351551
I like Buddhist aesthetics more but it is also essentially a cult of morality from what I can tell. If I have to live in a pod and eat onions based bug meat just to get enlightened then enlightenment is not for me.

What is the point of getting enlightened if I can't then become a missionary to spread this new faith and save Evropa?

>>14351197
There's a striking similarity between many presocratic philosophers and eastern mystics, see also Heraclitus and Lao Ze. Do you think it's all part of the same "spiritual awakening" as Eckhart Tolle calls their birth? Or should they be seen separately.

>>14352167
Yes I think so, I've glanced through that same dissertation before and was impressed with the quality

>>14351326
Based

>>14352064
>>14353267
I came across the idea of convergent/parallel evolution the other day when I was researching for an essay on animal toxins for uni. How different species evolved to produce venoms that target the same receptors in the body.

in a similar way it sounds like these observations occurred independently amongst separate groups with slightly different mechanisms but targeting the same spiritual questions. They all reach a similar “bottleneck” in spiritual advancement

>>14353247
Terrible strawman of Buddhism. Although you are correct about the cult of morality part (like all religions)

>Caring about Evropa and the physical world at all

thats where youre wrong kiddo. The only people to blame for the state of Europe are the enlightenment cucks and the Europeans who supported them (and still do support them).
This is just an inevitable byproduct of the Kali Yuga that needs to be rode out to the end, not resisted.

>>14353229
All the teachings of Krishna/the Bhagavad Gita existed before the Buddha.

>>14351298
>the Buddha preemptively uncovered those truths

>>14352116
>gets drunk, sits on a wall, jerks off, has a fall and cracks his head
>material world spews on the floor
>ohhhhhh lmaooo dude sorry, anyway enjoy the imperfect universe but watch out ok? don't try to put it back together again i'm scared hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
why is the demiurge such a faggot

>>14353385
More like he stole it from Mahavira

>>14353393
Mahavira and the Buddha were low-key the same person. Two different interpretations of his tradition evolved independently

>>14353229
The vast majority of scholars, linguists, Indologists who specialize in that field agree that the early Upanishads came first, I'm sure that you, an anonymous shitposter know better though.

Plotinus has a doctrine of grace. The distinction of our soul and the One isn't illusory. We must sit in apophatic darkness alone with ourselves and wait for the sun on the horizon.

>>14353573
Dosent Plotinus teach that everyones individual soul is just a fragment of the world soul?
And the world soul is one with the Monad?

>>14353579
The world soul is just one among the souls that make up the principle of Soul. She is all souls equally, and each like you and me are truly distinct; the nature of Soul is like a chorus.

>>14353599
I agree with that, but isnt she also one with the Monad?

>>14353599
(likewise the reality of The One is the single harmonic tone from an infinity of voices), the pure white light from the infinite color spectrum.

/lit/ is literally crawling with sockpuppets and Jannies and Mods do nothing about it

bump

>>14353573
>The distinction of our soul and the One isn't illusory.
How else can permanent liberation from worldly existence and permanent union with the One be possible if the distinction between the One and the soul isn't ultimately illusory? Eternal equally means existing forever without any beginning as much as it means existing eternally without any end. There can be nothing truly eternal which suddenly comes into existence or which suddenly emerges, it's only eternal if it has always existed, an eternal thing cannot be non-existent and then be 'produced'. One of the reasons that Advaita says that the distinction between the One and the soul is illusory is that if union were not already the case in reality then were union somehow acheived it would be a produced result and subject to change, i.e. not actually eternal, there would be no reason why someone who had attained union couldn't be estranged and descend back down into a body again. The only truly eternal liberation or union with the One is that which has in truth always existed; a status such as eternal liberation which has always been true or existent can only be 'achieved' if it was only falsely seeming to be otherwise via illusion and this illusion removed via knowledge.

>>14351197
There is no oneness. There is only a dualism.

Reminder to ignore all pseudointellectual rhetoriticians and instead go and read the complete works of Homer, Pindar, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Arrian, Sappho, Plutarch, Ovid, Virgil, Lucretius, Arisoto, Horace, St. Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, Rabelais, Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Bruno, Boccaccio, Leopardi, Machiavelli, Luther, Cervantes, Chaucer, the Beowulf poet, Chretien de Troyes, Marie de France, Sterne, Burton, Browne, Spencer, Wyatt, Sidney, Percy Shelley, Tennyson, Donne, Pope, Dryden, Bacon, Novalis, Schelling, Schlegel, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Pascal, Lichtenberg, Dickinson, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Strindberg, Dickens, Marlowe, Diderot, Jonson, Goethe, Bunyan, Gibbon, Addison, Smollett, Milton, Johnson, Boswell, Emerson, Quincey, Burke, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Mary Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Racine, Baudelaire, Valery, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Moliere, Montaigne, Browning, Gray, Holderlin, Schiller, Shaw, Voltaire, Hugo, Balzac, Zola, Colette, Duras, Dumas, Stendhal, Nerval, Flaubert, Mallarme, Malraux, Chateaubriand, Artaud, Poe, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Byron, Keats, Arnold, Pater, Walter Scott, Swinburne, Rossetti, Carroll, William James, Henry James, Hawthorne, Twain, Melville, Dewey, Bergson, Whitehead, George Eliot, Williams, Frost, Cummings, Crane, Stevens, Whitman, Plath, Trakl, Rilke, Celan, Montale, Neruda, Lorca, Tagore, Manzoni, Peake, Murdoch, Wharton, Wilde, Faulkner, O'Connor, Passos, Nietzsche, Marx, Adorno, Bloch, Lukacs, Bakhtin, Hamsun, Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekhov, Andreyev, Bely, Bulgakov, Gonchorov, Camoes, Pessoa, Queiroz, Saramago, Paz, Borges, Bloy, Pirandello, Huysmans, Lautreamont, Schwob, Casares, Bolano, Cortazar, Lima, Donoso, de Assis, Carpentjier, Celine, Marquez, Unamuno, Gracq, Gide, Jarry, Camus, Conrad, Wells, Hardy, Salinger, Anderson, Lawrence, Forster, Hrabal, Swift, Bronte, Woolf, Bachelard, Roussel, Beckett, Proust, Nabokov, Joyce, O'Brien, Yeats, Waugh, Heaney, Pinter, Auden, Hofmannsthal, Mann, Musil, Broch, Zweig, Bachmann, Jelinek, Lessing, Laxness, Simenon,Svevo, Levi, Buzzati, Quasimodo, Moravia, Llosa, Walser, Kafka, Babel, Schulz, Transtromer, Kertesz, Pavic, Andric, Grossmann, Linna, Mahfouz, Boll, Grass, Canetti, Pavese, Robbe-Grillet, Blanchot, Perec, Queneau, Calvino, Bernhard, Gass, Barth, Gaddis, Vollmann, Vidal, Hawkes, DeLillo, Pynchon, McCarthy, McElroy, Soseki, Murasaki, Shonagon, Kawabata, Mishima, Akutagawa, Tanizaki, Dazai, Oe, Xingjian, Yan, Kosztolanyi, Gombrowicz, Ishiguro, Eco, Coetzee, Auerbach, Benjamin, Barthes, Pasternak, Derrida, de Man, Kristeva, Deleuze, Bateson, Foucault, Lyotard, Mcluhan, Eichenbaum, Steiner, Munro, Carson, Handke, Schmidt, Theroux, Patrick White, Alfau, Marias, Enard, Claude Simon, Elizabeth Bishop, Markson, Lowry, Bellow, Dara.

>>14354667
Your list is completely arbitrary, and you need to stop spamming it. Many Europeans of 19th century would have given a completely different list.

>>14354664
Based.

>>14354664
cringe

>>14354647
Henosis is a perspective of your own making not a state of nature, likewise embodiment is a product of your own making by changing perspective. If we can attribute anything of the one it is that it's eternally and infinitely giving, it is in a way pure potential and power, infinite creative generation. And each strata of existence begets, just like the one begets. Otherness isn't evil, multiplicity isn't evil (the one is all things but not a single thing), evil is to twist and turn the hierarchy of existence from its natural order. To be our true self, our specific uniqueness and individuality, is to be the One in ourselves. Being in the world, or in the angelic chorus of soul, or the tranquil divine life of a star, or entering into the adytum of God and converge upon the One becoming that very transcendent One-all; none of these are without meaning or purpose.
An evil and hopeless life is one spent locked up meditating away your whole bodily life trying to get back up above. Plotinus' "henosis" wasn't temporary because he was unable to stay in that frame, they were temporary because he had a duty to other souls in this life. The life devoted to the higher virtues isn't lacking the lower ones. Severe asceticism is egoism and far removed from Philosophy; even if you've reach the Nous in your ascetic endeavour, the moment your body dies, you who haven't truly lived, won't know the difference from God and his reflection and then like a fool you'll fall into the deep in love with your own reflection.

>>14354667
>ignore all pseudointellectual
>read Whitehead
pick 1

>>14351665
Don't pay much attention to >>14351715, this is really only the surface. There are fundamental differences in the doctrine.
I recommend reading the first two chapters of "Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy" by Chandradhar Sharma.
>And which one is most likely to be correct and closest to the original doctrine of the Buddha.
This question will find its answer there.

>>14355157
Compeltely incoherent post. Do you even know what you’re saying? How is asceticism egoistic, far removed from Philosophy? Are you aware of the pythagorean, hindu, neoplatonic, christian ascetic practices?
How is spending your time to your own source, your own true Self, your point of return not contraditory to the evilness of ignoring the hierarchy of reality?

>>14355157
>Otherness isn't evil, multiplicity isn't evil
According to the SEP Plotinus disagrees

>According to Plotinus, matter is to be identified with evil and privation of all form or intelligibility (see II 4).
>Matter is only evil in other than a purely metaphysical sense when it becomes an impediment to return to the One.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/

It seems pretty clear to me that Plotinus identifies the One as the highest good and the return to it by the soul as the highest aim of existence, and that matter and the way it's connected with separation from the One are evil by the fact of it being an obstacle to returning to the One. This scheme like most Indian doctrines identifies liberation from the world of multiplicity/matter as the highest aim. I don't find any indication that Plotinus thought that we should only temporarily attain henosis and then return to the world of multiplicty to devote ourselves to serving others, you seem to be inferring this from the events of his life despite that it's contrary to the idea of returning to the One as the highest good.

>An evil and hopeless life is one spent locked up meditating away your whole bodily life trying to get back up above.
"locked up" is a hopeless misrepresentation of Vedantic monasticism, the renunciate in the Vedantic tradition is completely free, not "locked up" anywhere but free to roam where he pleases, freed from the obligations and constraints of the householders life such that one is able to abide in unalloyed and unceasing bliss.

From Vivekachudamani:

"Men of realisation have their food without anxiety or humiliation by begging, and their drink from the water of rivers; they live freely and independently, and sleep without fear in cremation grounds or forests; their clothing may be the quarters themselves, which need no washing and drying, or any bark etc., the earth is their bed; they roam in the avenue of the Vedanta; while their pastime is in the Supreme Brahman."
"Satisfied with undiluted, constant Bliss, he is neither grieved nor elated by senseobjects, is neither attached nor averse to them, but always disports with the Self and takes pleasure therein."

>Plotinus' "henosis" wasn't temporary because he was unable to stay in that frame, they were temporary because he had a duty to other souls in this life.
Does he state this anywhere in the Enneads or are you inferring this?

>Severe asceticism is egoism and far removed from Philosophy; even if you've reach the Nous in your ascetic endeavour, the moment your body dies, you who haven't truly lived, won't know the difference from God and his reflection and then like a fool you'll fall into the deep in love with your own reflection.
It's highly presumptuous of you to make such haughty proclamations about something which you have no firsthand knowledge of

>>14353668
Who would be motivated to do that and why?

>>14354896
No one has ever beaten me in a debate.

>>14353573
beautiful post

>>14356616
You would never admit it anyways if they did (which I have seen before) since you are a megolamaniac paranoid schizo who believes that you are a prophet

>>14352354
stop posting that cringe nonsense bro

bump

>>14351197
*tink tink tink*

AHEM

Fuck Advaita Vedanta, fuck the perennial philosophy, and fuck monism.

>>14356842
>which I have seen before
Where?
>who believes that you are a prophet
I KNOW I am a prophet.

>>14357772
Based zurvananon giving it to these monist cucks

>>14351562
not an argument

>>14351344
how the fuck did he “establish temples”? did he build them with his own hands? dis he fund them with his tremendously non-existent personal wealth?

>>14353312
>>14353267
>>14352064
Well both peoples descended from Indo-Europeans and originally had the same religion. It only makes sense that racially and culturally similar people would develop in the same way even when separated.

>>14356013
>Plotinus identifies the One as the highest good and the return to it by the soul as the highest aim of existence
AFTER YOUR NATURAL DEATH
was the fucking point of my post, if your body dies from neglect that is suicide and a sin.

>>14354664

Are each of the two ones or are they themselves twos?

>>14358658
>"natural death"
>implying atmajnana affected by karma by maya can be negated after becoming Nirguna Brahman

>>14356602
that's for you to divulge, not for me to expound

>>14352175
Although they (the Christians) thought they were the same. Paradoxically they then thought Origen wasn't Origen and there were two Origens (there weren't).

>>14358879
Heaven isn't bodyless, matter is found there as well, in fact matter here is the very same indefinite as the Indefinite Principle.

>>14359213
Which is why one should take care of body here, the One is without all difference, that includes the enlightening of matter. This is in-fact one of the affectations that charms the soul into the world. The realm of soul is without matter, while still funneling matter from above into the World, we look up and then below and see what's up mirrored in the world, and in our plunge down we forget that it is only an image of an image but intuitively recognize the Intelligible reflected here, and feel at home in the image not knowing of the above (only intuitively). The truth is that the above is the same as here, we only look at it incorrectly, we are in a way blind. Heaven is not a spatial location. The One is ever-present.

>>14355760
Thanks for your comment but I already stated I’m not into Hinduism so I’ll pass on that text recommendation. Plus I have been researching a little bit yesterday and that anon seems to be correct in the main divisions of Buddhism and how Theravada is the oldest. But I am now looking into Dzogchen of Tibetan Buddhism as it seems like the quickest no-bullshit path to escaping samsara.

>>14359281
Bro did you really just pretend to be me and respond?

Hinduism is fine as Upanishadic philosophy, I just wouldnt convert to it as a proper religion.

Also Tibetan Buddhism is shit, and from what ive learned already, even Mahayana is a perversion of the original teachings of the Buddha

>>14356616
Prove to me right now that Dualism is correct and Monism is wrong.

>Mahayana isnt a corrup-

>>14359371
looks like a cope and half-assed return to the hinduism which Buddha himself corrupted which is itself probably also just a corrupted memory of the Atlantean religion
t. layman retard

>>14359403
Atlantean religion is gone bro, and never coming back. Keep coping

>>14359229
>Heaven isn't a place
>Matter and body without location
It just doesn't exist as an actual state, rather, potential. There is no omniactual expression prior to expression, it only exists in expression and so isn't the principle omnipotential source, there is no separation from the subject and that which is what the subject does but that isn't the conflation of Saguna Brahman as Nirguna Brahman in a bottom up false bottom up superimposition of seeing the rope when seeing the snake, Saguna Brahman is what Nirguna Brahman does as Saguna Brahman, it is not what Nirguna Brahman is without distinctions and qualities. That which is matter without location is the form of matter that takes up no space nor time, the form can never be directly knowingly responsible for not knowing, while the very expression is in the state of avidya even after vidya, that doesn't mean that people should never seek vidya. The only grace there is only known apophatically. You are making an inward grasping of a sacralization of an utopian life after life/death as the highest goal to be sought after, claiming to know through works and devotion, falsely therefore thinking those works and devotion is what saved you and not the wisdom of the Self.

>>14359213
>>14359540
Atmajnana isn't atmabhakti nor atmakarma or any combination in between. Once the true Self is known there is no work nor devotion, rather, duty without any gain of karmic residue, for any work or devotion prior to enlightenment merely served as expedient means towards the right path but is not the right path itself, since work and devotion are means to stay alive longer in this world to know thyself which must be done directly and it can never be memorized as epistemological fact for the understanding of why it can only be as such concerns with metaphysical ontology. Just as seeing the sunrise with your own eyes can never be substituted for descriptions and depictions of the same, so is the divine illumination itself can never be known as the objects that it illuminates. To objectify the essence is to be a common fool that sees self in what's not the self, like that of a gamer that thinks it's dead for a split second just because their character they're playing dies, or like that of a blind man thinking he was shot when he hears the bullet hitting someone else besides him, the underlying substrate, that which percieved and partakes in the superimposition even for a brief moment in the state of ignorance when confronted with such illusion can also immediately be known as as illusion when it never harmed the Self even before the effects of the consubstantial superimposition of the soul coordinate to the body ends in death, but disobjectification isn't disembodiment, for objectification is agnosis, the Self isn't object, but it can be objectified in emanation, never in its return is there any objectification for All is One, no need to seek One outside One as the All, nor is there a superimposition of All and One as a duality. Objects are always other than the Self while the knowledge of objects is known by the knower, you are what you know in principle, so any maya is only apparently real in relation but not actually real in potentiation.

>>14359208
There is no valid proof of this that doesn't come from a biased source.

>>14358658
>if your body dies from neglect that is suicide and a sin.
That's not what Vedantic monasticism encourages, the renunciate is supposed to obtain food from alms until their body dies of old age or whatever disease etc causes the natural death of the body. I don't know where you got the mistaken notion that Vedantic monastics kill themselves or stop eating entirely.

>>14353328
Nonsense. Adharma needs to be resisted even in the Kali Yuga.

>>14351197
Thank you for posting this. In reading OP I was reminded of some things I'd forgotten for some time.
It's a bit funny, really.

this could have been a discussion of the mind but instead it falls into a discussion of which monkey discovered which first

>>14359862
>discussion of the mind
Who thinks Plotinus and Hindu philosophy would make a mindful knowledge of the philosophy of mind? It will be exact same in terms of "falls into an oblivion" quality of debate. It will be exact same as someone claiming Tao Te Ching and Buddhism solved hard problem of consciousness.

>>14359900
no but we could be expanding on them instead of fagging over the same discussion over and over again

>>14359900
arguing about substantive issues like the nature of mind seems at least a bit more dignified and potentially fruitful than arguing about relatively trivial things like the personalities behind the ideas

I have a question for Guenon/Shankara fags here. Did they/you believe that the Buddha was the 9th Avatar of Vishnu? or are you still expecting there to be 1 more Avatar before the Kalki Avatar

>>14359654
The only thing one should renunciate is hedonism and cheap pleasure for pleasure's sake. Iamblichus even proposed that copulation at certain times of the year is virtuous, and indeed following the Pythagoreans and Plato then one is even obligated (if one knows oneself to be "above" the average man) to procreate. For those who are ascended or blessed have a duty as bodily daemons to lead the many, like Zeus up Olympus, which includes not forsaking the world by not leaving a trace of your spirit behind.
He who leaves the cave is obliged to redescend willingly.
In the Neoplatonic schools only Plotinus and Proclus chose the solitary life, Damascius and Olympodorus probably didn't have a choice to do so (Olympodorus speaks of this way of life as one option in a hopeless world, he unironically "Rode the Tiger", but if you can find an "inspired woman" then that is a gift. We are afterall not singular in heaven but paired, and is it not one of the missions here to find our other lost halve?

>>14359980
>>14359980
Generally speaking I'm pretty sure they believe Muhammad was the last 'avatar' or prophet in this cosmic cycle until Kalki.

>>14359980
In the actual sources of those claims (i.e. the Visnu Purana etc) it says that Visnu incarnated as the Buddha not to spread wholesome dharma but to spread false and misleading teachings in order to subdue and waylay some demons so that the demons could be defeated by the Gods. Many people wrongly assume that the 'Buddha as Vishnu' claim involves Vishnu spreading beneficial/true teachings as Buddha whereas it's actually the opposite.

>In order to defeat the demons ( daityas ) who had succeeded in obtaining great powers through religious austerities, Visnu came down to earth disguised as an ascetic and began teaching doctrines contrary to the Vedas. First, disguising himself as the founder of the Jaina school, he taught the doctrine of anekāntavāda (perspectivism or “non-one-sidedness”) to the group of demons. Then, moving on to another group, he changed his outfit and, appearing as the Buddha, taught that animal sacrifices are immoral and so forth. By this means, the demons lost all of the powers they had attained, and were summarily massacred by the gods.
>This story is remarkable because it accomplishes two goals simultaneously. First, it manages to subsume Buddhism and Jainism under orthodox Brahmanism, by demonstrating that both Mahāvīra (if that is indeed who is portrayed—he is nameless in the Visnu Purāna ) and the Buddha were incarnations of Visnu. Second, it completely discredits the actual content of the doctrines of these two sects, by suggesting that the teachings of Buddhism and Jainism are intentionally false and nonsensical. The dupes are the Buddhists and Jainas, who do not understand that the source of all of the teachings they defend so vehemently is a divine trick.

>>14359980
no need to invoke the resident schizo for this we had a thread a couple of months ago about it, he believes as most hardline hindus do that the buddha mentioned as the 9th avatar of vishnu wasn't the same person as the historical buddha.

>>14360044
ultimate cope, very cringe
the duality of sex is part of the material delusion and inherently evil, it's a cope and substitute for the wholeness of the spirit
there are no "pairs" in heaven unless you consider God and yourself the "pair"

>>14359980
the whole Buddha being an avatar of Vishnu is just one big Hindu cope. They couldn't contend with the popularity of Buddhism and resorted to 'avataring' the Buddha saying he was conveniently one of them this whole time even though the Buddha clearly rejected the Vedas.

>>14360185
while I agree with you, even some gnostic sects that claim sexuation is a sign of our fallenness admit syzygies and pairs in the Pleroma, though I suppose in some way or another the androgyne is supposed to be this syzygy

>>14360238
this

first they ignored the Buddha, then they laughed at the Buddha, then they debated the Buddha, then they acknowledged the Buddha, then they absorbed the Buddha, then they plagiarized the Buddha.

>>14360185
Sure whatever you say GNOmSTICk

>>14360238
>They couldn't contend with the popularity of Buddhism
Buddhism was never especially popular, the idea of India being mostly Buddhist at one point is just a myth. It only became semi-widespread for a brief period because Ashoka promoted it in a top-down manner *after* unifying the subcontinent via military force, not because of the persuasiveness of Buddhist arguments. And even Ashoka's promotion of it still couldn't penetrate into the rural villages and countryside which always remained staunchly Hindu, it was really only accepted among some city-dwellers and certain monastics. And Buddhism soon declined in India after the doctrines of it's various schools were pointed out as illogical by various brilliant Hindu thinkers such as Shankara (pic related), and Kumarila Bhatta, whom even the Buddhist historian Taranatha wrote defeated in debate the disciples of Buddhapalkita, Bhavya, Dharmadasa, Dignaga and other Buddhist thinkers. After being badly discredited in debates and after assimilating various concepts from Hindu teachings and recycling them in Mahayana sutras Buddhism fled India with its tale between its legs and subsequently spread a Hinduized form of itself across east-Asia.

>>14360185
>inherently evil
>inherent evil
fuck off

>>14360185

Indeed.

>>14360454
>Buddhism was never especially popular, the idea of India being mostly Buddhist at one point is just a myth
Cope

>Buddhism soon declined in India after the doctrines of it's various schools were pointed out as illogical by various brilliant Hindu thinkers
t. neovedantist

>>14360454
If it was so fringe and illogical, why were they forced to admit he was an avatar and plagiarize his arguments hundreds of years later?

>>14360749
Nobody was forced to admit anything, the Puranas are anonymously-assembled texts which are not authoritative sources of doctrine like the Sruti is, the various Puranas say all sorts of things which contradict one another, the Visnu Purana says that Visnu is the Supreme Being of the Upanishads and other Puranas disagree with this. The Visnu Purana says that Visnu incarnated as Buddha to teach a bunch of retarded nonsense in order to distract and subdue some demons, see >>14360094, that's not at all incompatible with people like Kumarila and Shankara attacking Buddhism as illogical. In fact, the very illogicality of Buddhist doctrine which these thinkers point out is exactly what you would expect if it were a false and misleading doctrine taught by Visnu to distract some demons.
>plaigerize
everything people point to as alleged "plagiarism" (such as monasticism, disidentification with the psycho-physical complex, the doctrine of maya, rebirth etc) all appears in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads first

>>14359403
*Hyperborean, the Egyptians come from Atlantis and the Indo-Europeans from Hyperborea, get your facts straight bro

>>14359281
>>14359353
You don't need to read the part on Hinduism, the first two chapters cover the teaching of Gautama Buddha and Sunyavada or Madhyamaka. It really is a good text to get a grip on what Mahayana is about.

is nous pronounced "noose?"

>>14359371
If it's so corrupted then why is it called the great as opposed to the little vehicle? Checkmate, faggot.

>>14362120
Yes, more or less