Redditeer: There is no giver. What do you imagine can be given? As there is nothing to be given, there is no receiver. Let’s look at love. A person who loves and is not loved back is a stalker. The person being loved does not feel the stalker’s love. They are creeped out by the stalker’s behavior. The stalker, on the other hand, may be convinced his or her object of love is in fact in love with him or her. Any interaction may be perceived as an indication of that love. No one can receive or give love. That is not how it happens.
You convince yourself you are being loved because of the person’s actions that you define as loving in your own mind. The love you feel is self-generated. This is how people feel loved by imaginary entities like Jesus or God.
I have no idea why you would think the present is eternal or blissful. You can be stabbed with a knife and feel pain right now. You can experience emotional pain right now. Admittedly, thoughts about the pain occur and quickly move to the past. The experience is now, and it need not be eternal or blissful.
Freedom is not the nature of “I am.” “I am” is a trap. You are not a thing. There is no ‘I.’ You pretend you are a thing and then mourn the loss of that thing when you believe it is ending. You are a process. Never the same from one moment to the next. The more you cling to “I am,” the less freedom you have. “I am, a teacher, doctor, trash collector, good guy, smart, whatever that ‘I am’ is, it severely limits possibilities and attempts to thwart the process of living in the understanding of the process. This thing we pretend to be is a process of existing.
Time and space are creations of the Big Bang cosmology. They are the cage in which we find ourselves. The arrow of time moves in one direction and does the process of life. But more than that, the entire universe and all that is in it is a part of the same process. All follow the arrow of time. We stop things and call them real or existent because they follow different processes than the ones we follow. But it is all, still, just a process. It is all, still, simply moving and changing.
There is No Giver
So you aren’t giving me a lecture, informing me I’m deluded? I’d say you gave too much time to Neo-Advaita and received a lot of fancy nonsensical jargon that resonates in the Neo echo chamber. What I said exists. If it didn’t exist you wouldn’t have the pleasure of pontificating your ill-considered belief like a fanatic that thinks Jesus is the only way.
Definition of Reality
What you probably mean is that my post is not real, as is yours, which they aren’t. FYI real means what is always present and never changes. It’s difficult to say what you actually mean, since only you know what you are talking about. If my post doesn’t exist, neither does yours. Think about it. Now you have given yourself the pleasure of receiving a short non-existent lecture from me. How does it feel? Oh, right, it doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t exist, then you definitely won’t reply. In case it does exist and you do reply with the same nonsense, I will take advantage of the opportunity to block your posts, but there is probably no danger of a hostile act like that because…you got it…it doesn’t exist. 🙂 Most of the many non-existence guys (and gals?) in this sub know what Vedanta says about non-existence to whit: there is no such thing because there is only eternal non-dual existence shining as consciousness/awareness. Non-existence exists like the horns on hares. 🙂
Freedom is Non-Dependence on Objects
If freedom is the nature of “I am,” then you aren’t free because you don’t exist. In case you do exist, how does it feel to be unfree? How can I be a process when I don’t exist? And if I do exist, what part of the process am I? I only experience myself as a single unborn conscious impersonal entity. Whatever processes that present themselves to me are objects known to me. I am never what I see. You can stab my body, which feels pleasure and pain, but you can’t stab me because I am immortal, not non-existent. I am blissfully aware of the pain. Anyway, enough of that, as it falls on deaf ears.
What is Your Means of Knowledge?
“My” post is well-vetted traditional Vedanta…Wikipedia it. Vedanta is a proven means of self knowledge that provisionally accepts duality out of compassion for people who are stuck in it…such as your non-existent self…and are looking for a reasonable way out of the apparently real misunderstanding that real is a duality, which it certainly seems to be. You have no way of knowing if what I say is true apart from your belief that you do. Beliefs are only evidence of themselves. There are still people who know for sure the earth is flat. The non-existence idea is in the same order of reality as the flat earth idea. You have no way of knowing, but the daily posts on this sub generally average 4000 upvotes and no downvotes and I have not been shy to point out the silliness of the non-existence view for the edification of Neo memorizers like yourself. Go out and talk with regular people for a while and you will realize how silly this “I don’t exist” idea is. I’ll bet you don’t say you don’t say you don’t exist when a traffic cop asks for your non-existent identification. Probably you picked this stuff up from Tony Parsons.
Think for Yourself
Keep an open mind. Think for yourself. Simple common sense is operating in this post. Anyway, Vedanta provides a means of Self inquiry that leads to a helpful understanding that the impersonal self, existence shining as unborn immortal whole and complete non-dual awareness, is all there is and that anything else is unreal or apparently real, like the horns of hares.
You are Immortal
Vedanta just says that you are immortal bliss-full awareness. Try it on, see how it feels. How anyone in their right mind can dismiss such a truthful wonderful message, I don’t know. If you get it you will be perfectly satisfied with yourself as you are at any given moment and perfectly satisfied with the world as it is at any given moment.
No Hard Feelings
Anyway, no hard feelings. Only love. All the best.
