I do not see how a human in maya could get himself out of maya.
He's simply stuck in it, with nothing but a series of mistakes to show for.
that show of mistakes is trying anything and everything except taking shelter of god
Sure.
And even if one accepts the help of someone who purports to know the way out, one still cannot know in advance whether one has made the right choice - it might be just another mistake. I find it very difficult to fully devote myself to something which might be just another mistake.
hence any epistemological move is underpinned by issues of faith
But faith doesn't simply guarantee that one will not make mistakes on the spiritual path, or that one will "get it right" in the first try.
I think this is one of the bigger problems that many people have with any systematic approach to spirituality and theism. Although this problem is likely to be generated by 1. doubting that God is the controller of the Universe and the well-wisher and benefactor of all living beings, including oneself; and 2. the desire to derive some fame and recognition based on the choice of one's spiritual path ("I am a ...-ist, and therefore I know what I am talking about and you should all respect me, believe me and consider me to be better than yourself.")
My point is that to deem something as "false" or illusion, there must be some standard notion of truth.
If it was otherwise, there would be no question of illusion, merely a variety of choices of equal value
Yes. Somehow the obvious just doesn't seem so obvious ...
Basically it works in tandem to the degree that one has a substantial footing in god.
IOW a theoretical understanding of god grants a theoretical understanding about the nature of the world being temporary, etc etc
And then based on this theoretical understanding, one performs some activities that lead to more theoretical understanding and some realization, is it not so?
Does this hold for reasoning as well? Because reasoning is als a kind of activity (function and performance).
certainly
people give all sorts of crazy reasons fueled by desire all the time
Even though it is common to say "People believe what they want to believe", I find this notion about how desire shapes "our world" hard to accept. It seems so relativistic somehow, as if if a belief came about out of desire, it is not actually true. But perhaps this has to do with my thinking that "reality"/ "truth" is objective, inanimate, impersonal.
I don't think the problem is so much the potential of physical damage but the anticipated social damage that freezes the wheel.
Having "mental health issues" is often a horrible stigma. Once people conclude or know that there is something wrong with with a person's "up there", many people start treating such a person as if he or she was a small child, in every way - cognitively, emotionally, socially, professionally, financially ...
I don't seem to be able to make such a decision. Is there anything else I can do about the issue of being partnered vs. being a renunciate?
i am simply suggesting that there are disadvantages (in the form of extra stress)
It is sometimes said that the single person has the single person's stress, the married person has the married person's stress, the teacher has the teacher's stress, the student has the student's stress ... It's all stressful ...
"its time to break out of tamas, so regardless of the million and one reasons a tamasic mind can produce for
staying in bed, its time to get up"
How do I convince myself of that?
by developing a strong association with other modes, or even better suddha sattva.
Can I become thus convinced, at least to some degree, even by a sort of mechanical, ritualistic behavior?
In the sense that I "just do it" (chant, get up early, study scriptures etc.), without thinking about it much?
I know this probably sounds highly calculative and lazy. But my usual way is to think through each step of action through to its philosophical basis, and as Hamlet says, "the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action."
I seem to feel the need to start "from scratch" each day; each day, I feel like I need to decide anew whether to try to be a devotee or not. As if I had some kind of amnesia about my practice where I would forget each day as it ends, and would need to, each morning, have someone or something else there to "brief me in", while I have little or no sense of continuity of my practice.
What am I missing here??
The general principle is that a person eager for spiritual advancement should gravitate towards whatever (suddha) sattvic opportunity presents itself more details there in the beginning of SB 11.13
I looked it up.
I don't think I understand that individuality could be ever increasing.
If you've ever encountered a person who is caught in the rift of substance abuse, you can know something about decreasing
I would say it is the mode of goodness that decreases in such a person? Also, in the case of progressive substance abuse, one thing I can see that decreases is the range of options that the person can realistically choose from and act on. With this decreasing of options comes a decreasing of individuality, as more and more of a person's life seems/becomes predetermined - and as such there is less and less they could immediately do about it.
The more there is entanglement in the modes, the more there is entanglement in karma, the more there is predetermination, the less there is room for free will, the less there is individuality -?
Basically whatever desire (even the desire for impersonalism) that inhibits KC can only be surmounted by an equal or greater desire.
Ordinarily this would make things hopeless (since desire is kind of like a horse that has long gone shot through the gate),
I think I know about this hopelessness! In Buddhism, one is supposed to basically generate karma that leads to the end of karma, it's about something like statistically counterbalancing karma. I had tried that for a while, but it was extremely frustrating.
but its the nature of KC that it can go on like a needle and come out like a pitchfork.
IOW just a little bit of the right thing at the right time has the potential to overwhelm us completely
At the risk of sounding rude - it better!
(maya also works on the same principle BTW)
I do know about this one, though.
So in practical terms, the answer is to keep as many KC channels open as possible. IOW occasions where one has the opportunity to attempt KC will eventually bear success. Similarly occasions where one has the opportunity to get into maya will eventually bear success. Hence the "do's" and "do nots" (yama and niyama) that surround any spiritual discipline.
Allright.
Its easy to idealize one's desires but its often quite difficult to pin point them (particularly if we are snowed under by normative descriptions, so one can only see what one should be rather than what one is). The general means to help us see ourselves is through the reflection of others (ie desire reveals its nature in company)
I have to admit I don't like Sciforums, but the situation here is unique and appealing somehow. Because there are the atheists and agnostics; there are the theists; there is me; and then we all communicate. I am noticing how this helps me triangulate things for myself that I don't think I would otherwise be able to. A really big part of posting here is noticing what goes on in my mind as I read and post, the attitudes and desires that come up. These things I usually don't directly write in posts, but I have begun to make notes of them privately or otherwise bring them into my arguments.
Discussing things only with theists is allright, but so much seems to go unnoticed then - and much of it seems important for someone like me who is somewhere between atheism and theism.
I was just expressing that impersonalists do not usually conceive of their "way" culminating in personalism.
No, they don't. But then again, I am not a standard impersonalist either.
