Source Text
That Which Isn’t is Without location and Without the concept of existence You are not anything And are without form or being-ness and have no point of origin and no point of origination You are an abstracted representation of That Which Isn’t Nisargadatta Maharaj: “You are the child of a barren woman.” The perception of the Absolute: The Great Without Is an abstracted representation of That Which Isn’t Zen Koan: A bird is not a bird, it is the name of a perception.
What Is It Gives An Appearance Its Sense of Solidness and Reality being-ness or is-ness? Each appearance contains several presuppositions which are so deeply implicit and unquestioned that we can refer to them as “The Unthought Known” It is the “The Unthought Known” which makes the appearance which appears to appear seem solid, in a specific separate location, with an independent existence and an independent self nature To illustrate: the thought “I love myself” or “I hate myself” appears to appear to a perceiver. A perceiver, know-er, aware-er etc are appearances which appears to appear on That Which Isn’t Contained within all appearances are several assumptions presuppositions and Unquestioned Un-Thought Knowns.
“The Un-Thought Known” #5 The presupposition “I should be different then the way I am” or It, (The appearance) should be different then the way it is. or “Something I am experiencing should be different then what it is” fuses with the interesting idea that assumes the appearance and/or the “ME” has to be dealt with and changed, made better or gotten rid of” in some way.” This Un-Thought Known leads to the human potential movement and the concepts of growth, improving, and even the concept of evolution which is then projected onto “spirituality” and consciousness and That Which Isn’t
A student said to Nisargadatta Maharaj “I want to be happy.” Maharaj replied: “That’s nonsense. Happiness is where the “I” isn’t”
Nisargadatta Maharaj: “All paths lead to unreality…there function is to enmesh you within the dimension of knowledge whereas Reality prevails prior to it.” That Which Isn’t is Without a process Without purification Without a purge Without the idea of being done
AI Summary
The Absolute by Stephen Wolinsky presents key insights from the Advaita Vedanta tradition. The 5 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights above are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.