winterknight

"Just be" means to drop thought. "Do nothing" can be interpreted in many ways.

If this doesn't appeal to you, the other possibility is to just drop all thoughts. Stop thinking.

Yes, it might be confusing and uncomfortable. "something that isn't there" is just a thought -- and it's not true. You are. It's just that you're not what you think you are. You have the feeling of the I. As long as you feel that you are, focus on that feeling and attempt to hold it. Try and try and try -- with as much effort as you can -- for however long it takes before you get clarity.

Focus on that feeling intensely and don't let it go.

Who is aware of not being able to find it, getting bored, and losing motivation?

He takes a few liberties with the translation, but he's very poetic and readable. None of the translations of Ashtavakra are perfect. If you like an ancient scripture, it's always recommended to read it in other translations.

Ok now I read the edit. No, none, none of these positions. You are being trapped in the mind. It is not about positions. As long as you have doubt, you must ask who has the doubt and return the mind to investigate the I. Who is it that has these doubts, that "wants to make it my whole reality"? Focus day and night on the "I" -- and do not let go until there is absolute, perfect clarity without doubt.

Ashtavakra -- I'd go with Bart Marshall at first CYV -- yes Ribhu Gita - yes Upanishads -- yes, fine Zhuangzi - Ziporyn Tao te Ching - Tolbert McCarroll Bodhidharma - Red Pine

Everything you said sounds fine, but if it is true, then how can you ask: "What to do with my life?" Do you see how that is inconsistent? That means your mind is being drawn away from "nothing is happening in truth." That place where "nothing is happening in truth" -- stay there. Don't go back to your old understanding. And if you are drawn back, return. Over and over.

Nope. This is just a practice, not the truth. But the illusory sense doesn't actually exist. This is only said for seekers. It is not the truth. The truth is that nothing is done and there cannot be said to be any such thing called maya. You haven't completed the inquiry into the I. You should try to focus continuously on that I feeling.

Anything you can talk about is most certainly "created by beliefs." Putting the investigation of God's creation on a pedestal can be an attachment that is dangerous to the spiritual search.

Sure, as long as you keep in mind that all this is just play, and that the scientific understanding -- even on its own terms -- will never be remotely complete.

That which is is you. Does that help? Probably not. I suspect you are tying yourself into intellectual knots. Are you trying to do self-inquiry? If so, I suggest you follow the instructions here.

Not "do what you want." Are you the one who is choosing to do or not to do? The answer cannot be in words... go back to that silence and go deeper into it. Persist.

In what context? You'll have to tell me about your search and how this question comes up if you want a useful answer.

"I know I'm sitting here on the couch watching the movie. I'm not in the movie. But there are still a few things I want to get clear, like what I should do when I face that movie villain."

Be careful. It seems like you are saying "yeah, yeah, the answer is silence, but what about these concepts?" That means you are still identifying with the asker of questions. Silence means that there is no thought. So if you are still thinking about concepts -- that is not silence. Ask who wants to know about those concepts. Every time you want to know something -- ask who wants to know, who wants to know, who wants to know.

It is and it isn't. Yes, who is trying to copy? This is the problem. It's not about "agreeing" that everything is silence. Go back with the mind to the "I am" every time a thought like this comes up. Every. Single. Time. Silence means there are no questions. But if you are dissatisfied with the silence and want more, ask: who is it that wants more?

Sure, but if one asks: yes, but why are there kangaroos at all? Evolution. Well, why did evolution proceed in this way? Because of the initial conditions of the universe + the laws of the universe. Yes but why were the initial conditions that way? Why are the laws as they are? And even if there were answers to that...

Well if you want to take it from the scientific point of view, that's a totally different thing. But I wouldn't expect to be able to "get to the bottom of the matter" by asking about what is the condition of things when a soul is born. There is no bottom of the matter, and science is never going to be able to penetrate the mystery of consciousness (because scientists are trapped in their own minds).

Well I'm saying that even to say this life is experienced not true. To say this moment is experienced is not true. If that is the case, then it couldn't be true that "enlightened masters" say something. That also is a fact that is equally incorrect. Indeed, the very concept of "enlightened masters" is also wrong, in the end. A useful concept for seekers, but in the end, out it must go. The entire conceptual framework within which all of these words are said is based on the subject-object duality, which is wrong. I mean, we can talk in that language for a while, but as you see, if that language is pushed to its limits (where did things come from, etc.) it becomes ultimately incoherent.

Ultimately "explanation" is like looking into the mind of God... explanation cannot penetrate there. There are just layers, which have to be explained more layers, and then more layers. The layers can be useful within a certain context. We can know if we drop something it will usually fall. But why was it there in the first place? Trace back the causes... and they will be neverending. The issue is that the entire mind is a kind of simplification which maps the world into concepts. Maps can never fully represent the territory. The mind creates the idea of "causes and effects" and then asks for causal explanation for what it has deemed effects. But actually there are no causes and effects. In reality, the entire concept machine, and all its concepts, are limited -- and therefore wrong. There cannot be said to be past lives -- or for that matter, present ones -- in reality.

If souls had a beginning, you'd be left with the question of what caused them to be the way they were, and you'd be left with the same perplexity about how they began (i.e. do they all have equal capacity, etc.). Anyhow souls are a false concept, that's the real point.

Well, karma theory does not agree that souls begin. Souls -- and ignorance -- are "anadi" -- beginningless. Never was there a time when these souls weren't there. So you could never ask what the souls were like when they were "born." There are other theories, bu they all have their own even worse problems. These kinds of problems are why advaita vedanta in the end rejects karma theory, and says that the very idea of souls is illusory; actually, they're not even that. That too is said for seeker's sake. In the end, the souls do not even appear to appear to exist... and so these kinds of questions are deemed simply incoherent.

Well, actually, perhaps it is. Keeping in mind that karma theory is not considered strictly true to advaita vedantins -- it is merely a provisional theory, an approximation for seekers -- there is some evidence along these lines. Take for example this dialogue with Ramana Maharshi: Maharshi: “There is nothing new under the sun.” What we call inventions or discoveries are merely rediscoveries by competent men with strong samskara [tendencies that result from past actions] in the directions under consideration. Questioner: Is it so with Newton, Einstein, etc.? Maharshi: Yes. Certainly. But the samskaras, however strong, will not manifest unless in a calm and still mind. It is within the experience of everyone that his attempts to rake up his memory fail, whereas something flashes in the mind when he is calm and quiet. Mental quiet is necessary even for remembrance of forgotten things. The so-called genius is one who worked hard in his past births and acquired knowledge and kept it in store as samskaras. He now concentrates his mind until it merges in the subject. In that stillness the submerged ideas flash out. Well, karma theory doesn't allow that souls "begin" at all. They are eternal. Even at the end of a world cycle they go right back into storage and come back out. This leaves a lot to be explained, of course (one of karma theory's many downsides!)