winterknight

Who says the ego is still there? That's the ego talking. I mean, it might be appropriate for certain contexts, but it's not true in the final analysis. The ego is like two mirrors facing each other -- they create an endless series of reflections. Those are like the vasanas. Eliminating the vasanas bit by bit is like trying to count the reflections. Self-inquiry is like tilting one of the mirrors away and -- suddenly they're all gone. They were only ever a trick of the light.

Yes, my views on that are three-fold. First, you need a good intellectual framework to resolve your doubts. You can get that through satsang and reading scripture and good books. Second, you need to be honest about what you want, which is usually a process. I often recommend psychoanalysis (or psychoanalytic psychotherapy) and a cycle of trying things, expressing your feelings about them, adjusting your notions of what you desire, and trying other things. That is a way of iteratively becoming more honest about your desires. Though the ultimate purification is from self-inquiry and surrender. These earlier steps simply prepare your mind for that. The mind just needs to be pure enough, not perfectly pure.

The ego clings to the idea of the total elimination of vasanas as a long, never-ending quest to protect itself from simply looking and finding itself gone. Sometimes

Vasana kshya is a notion which is purely from the 'relative' or 'ignorant' standpoint. It has nothing to do with enlightenment per se, though it might be interesting to talk about and think about. Only if we accept the existence of the body-mind do vasanas matter, and the jnani no longer identifies with the body-mind which is subject to this karmic progression. But sure, if in certain contexts we speak of these then we can talk about vasana kshaya.

Exactly. No, you have confused a purely intellectual realization of non-duality with the real thing.

And I just saw this quote in your cite: "Although a noble disciple may have abandoned the five more immediate fetters...still his conceit 'I am,' desire 'I am,' underlying tendency 'I am,' with respected to the five aggregates affected by clinging remains as yet unabolished." Clearly if the first fetter were nonduality in my sense this could not be the case.

Well clearly we mean something very different by nonduality, then. The nonduality I am talking about is the recognition of the falsity of the idea that "I am the body and mind." If that is accomplished, then there is no more question about greed arising, etc. To whom is the greed arising? Who is concerned about sensual desire? Who is there to do anything about these things? The nonduality I am talking about eliminates the notion of oneself as the doer and enjoyer of things. After that recognition, greed is not greed, and sensual desire is not sensual desire. These are categories that are no longer taken to be true. Merely knowing this in some intellectual sense is clearly not enough, and perhaps that's what the first fetter refers to -- that intellectual "right view." But if it referred to the deeper realization I am talking about, all the rest of the fetters would be irrelevant and beside the point. So clearly that cannot be the case.

I don’t answer questions about my experience because the answers are always misleading. But if you have any questions about your path, feel free.

Well, they're all useful for seekers, but they're not absolute truth. No, nonduality is not a combination of the first four fetters. All 10 fetters are about purifying the mind to purge it of the ignorance that prevents the seeing of the nondual truth.

It's like a modern rehash of age-old Hindu and Buddhist theories, but not nearly as good. Anyway, all metaphysical theories are wrong.

You had a little glimpse of the truth very similar to the experiments Douglas Harding recommends in The Headless Way. There is a world outside your little individual mind, but both that world and your little mind are in you in a deeper sense. If you really want to understand, there's no substitute for following the path.

Actually, the very idea of a sensation in the chest is wrong. Still, it's a necessary idea for seekers. "Seek that which knows the sensation of the chest." <-- that's an instruction for seekers In truth both the knower of that sensation and the sensation itself are false ideas. Ramana Maharshi -- and the Vedanta tradition generally -- teach different concepts depending on to whom they're speaking and the context. Because the very question hinges on incorrect assumptions -- that, for example, there is a "my" experience to talk about. But there is no "my" experience to talk about, nor is there NOT a "my" experience to talk about. So I get reduced into silence if I try to answer these questions.

Not quite. It's that language is based on the idea of the I, which is incoherent. So all statements in language are ultimately false, too. It's as if every sentence started with "If 2+2 = zebra... " But that is not the case. Anyway, there is of course no use trying to fully understand this with words I don't answer questions about my experience because the answers are misleading & unhelpful. If you have questions about your path, though, happy to answer.

Anything which can be stated in words -- which is therefore in thought -- is subject to doubt. Enlightenment is not actually a thing describable that way.

I don't really answer questions about "my" experience because the answers are always misleading. It's a playful statement & a pointer to something which cannot be stated accurately in words one way or the other.

I don't know, what is it?

It's not like lucid dreaming, though. It is the understanding not that you are lucid dreaming, but that there is no such thing as the dream.

Either there is a dream and there is enlightenment, or there is no dream and no enlightenment. Can't have it both ways. There are no two buts about it. It feels like something I enjoy doing, that I am qualified to do, and that I consider a sacred contribution.

I read half of his first book. It was ok... didn't love it, but nothing obviously terrible about it. Who is the one who is presented with that choice? Are you the one who is wondering whether to "keep a deaf ear to these thoughts"? Who is the one to whom that thought occurs?

Yes, but who is the one whose conflicts come out and then recede when he gets his bearings straight again? Is that you?

Who is the one who is trying to accept things? Is that you? Who is the one who is conflicted in this way, who deals with this resistance, who wants to develop a rock solid conviction but seems to be dragged back?

Self-inquiry will eventually dispel it by showing that all concepts are mental -- and depend for their organization on the root concept of 'I.' If that concept falls, the rest do too. It's actually not so much that "there are no other people" <-- this would be a concept too... but that the concepts of "there are other people" or "there are no other people" are both simply superseded by the holy silence that shows that the whole perspective in which these two conflict with each other is merely apparent. Actually language itself has no meaning in truth. Well, I usually consider it a several-fold process. One needs an intellectual framework (not a perfect one, but a good enough one) and to be honest about one's desires, whatever they are. That latter is simple but not easy, and may require extensive psychoanalysis, artistic expression, and trial-and-error to get clear. That itself quiets the mind a great deal. Then there is of course self-inquiry, the very process of which helps quiet the mind, along with its counterpart, surrender. And when the truth is recognized, the disruption of identity "unplugs the machine" and sets off a long process of further quieting the mind over time, quieter and quieter and quieter.

Not that hackneyed Jeff Foster video again! Anything but that I disagree that enlightenment is still being trapped in the dream but realizing it's a dream. That is most certainly not the consequence of self-realization. True self-realization is nothing to be pitied. Quite the opposite. As far as why I teach, there is no why. I mean I could tell a story of why, but it wouldn't be true. This body/mind is compelled to do so by whatever force controls the universe.

Follow this set of links and heed their advice.

Not to my knowledge