Please, I need help from patient and committed idealists

[Soul_of_Shu]

Or do the different perspectives still exist?

All perspectives are provisional, what they all share in common is not.

[SanteriSatama]

Sorry, but I haven't read anything about advaita vedanta, so I'm not familiar with any of the terms you used. Can you explain in a more layman's way to me, please?

Advaita means simply non-dualism. Anatman, literally "no-soul", is a complex way of saying in the long discussion of Indian philosophy that beings/things/phenomena don't have inherent and independent existence, but exist relationally, like nodes in a network to loan a simple metaphor.

[lorenzop]

Materialism claims that consciousness, including any and all experiences and sense of self; are generated by the brain, and perhaps other organs and tissue in the body. So, if the brain dies, consciousness and any sense of self dies. Materialism is very easy to understand - until one stops to think it through.
Materialism is also the dominate paradigm of our culture, so it doesn't really feel like a philosophy or a belief.
Idealism claims that consciousness is fundamental, that is, not generated by the body. Idealism says we are all of one consciousness, Materialism says we are each a seperate unit of consciousness, occuring inside our skulls. Materialism says consciousness is produced by matter, Idealism says what we call 'matter', is what consciousness looks like.
Re life after death, or a soul - it's not compatible with Materialism. Idealism allows for a life after death, but in principle doesn't guarantee it. Personally I am not concerned with life after death.
For me the question comes down to: Does your experience/life feel like an intimate unified integrated whole (Idealism), or, do you feel alienated from the natural world, where your life feels like a calculation ocurring inside your brain (Materialism).

[AshvinP]

Ultimately it comes down to some inquiry into what is this 'me' that is being referred to, for if it is some entity entirely dependent upon its identification with a corporeal expression, then once that expression is turned to dust, then what remains of that provisional 'me'? However, if this 'me' is an idea construction within the Mind that conceives of it, then this maya-'me' is reducible to That which it is in essence, which in turn is irreducible. So That 'entity' is actually never not present, for it is the ever-present, identity-free origin of any provisional, corporeally dependent 'me'—and which can be known right here and now, and no need to wait for the body's dissolution, or any subsequent maya-'me' to be constructed. Rupert Spira may be helpful in pursuing this inquiry.

Thank you Soul_of_Shu.

I've watched dozens of Spira lectures and I'm in the middle of a dialogue with Curt Jaimungal. I think Spira says more or less what Bernardo says, but not so clearly. So, the alter only exists as long as the body exists, is that it? At the end of the body, does the mind break free from this reduction and expand to the size of everything that exists? All minds form one mind? Or do the different perspectives still exist?

My observation here is that it is key to resist the urge to think of the 'alters' as personal minds living side by side with other personal minds within a larger circle of MAL. That is what has been termed "Flat MAL" here, and that term is actually a critique of BK's framing. We are not "ripples" on the waves of an ocean of Will, or "whirlpools", or anything similar to that imagery. We are not each "enclosed" spaces of consciousness, but there is only one space we exist in and we are all different perspectives within that one space and the Center of that one space is also an ideating perspective. You should try to keep the following image in mind as a loose analogy:

Another point to add here - when we go from "Flat MAL" to "Deep MAL" as imaged above, we realize it makes no sense to say "life" is the time of perspectives co-existing with each other and "death" is when that no longer happens. Our conscious perspectives are all interwoven with each other right this moment, as evidenced by our ability to dwell within the same ideal elements as we discuss and come to shared understandings on this forum (not completely shared, of course, but enough to communicate).

[EduardoCandeias]

All perspectives are provisional, what they all share in common is not.

Thanks again Soul_of_Shu, don´t give up on me.

I think I can understand this statement, but when we talk about "alters", are we referring to different perspectives, or not? For me, confusion arises when we connect perspectives to depth, in unity, what is the nature of this unity, it is a unity in which there are no longer any perspective, or a unity that is the sum of all perspectives, but this time, without the perceived boundaries, that is, I can no longer understand where I end and you begin, but I continue as a perspective, or, there are no more perspectives, only potential or only one perspective, that of unity. I don't know if I'm being clear about my doubt, if not, help me improve. A good analogy would be that of salt water, where the limit of salt and water is not perceived, but each salt crystal continues to have a sense of itself, from its position, although it has no sense of the its own limits. Or a kind of substance, water (for example), which in the right vibration feels like something else, you and I are that sensation, but when the vibration stops, you and I never existed and the only one mind that ever existed remembers, solipsism.

[EduardoCandeias]

Advaita means simply non-dualism. Anatman, literally "no-soul", is a complex way of saying in the long discussion of Indian philosophy that beings/things/phenomena don't have inherent and independent existence, but exist relationally, like nodes in a network to loan a simple metaphor.

Thank you again.

[EduardoCandeias]

Materialism claims that consciousness, including any and all experiences and sense of self; are generated by the brain, and perhaps other organs and tissue in the body. So, if the brain dies, consciousness and any sense of self dies. Materialism is very easy to understand - until one stops to think it through.
Materialism is also the dominate paradigm of our culture, so it doesn't really feel like a philosophy or a belief.

This is the kind of assumption I'm used to.

Thanks Lorenzop for explaining as if i was 10 years old, it makes it so much easier for me.

Idealism claims that consciousness is fundamental, that is, not generated by the body.
Idealism says we are all of one consciousness, Materialism says we are each a seperate unit of consciousness, occuring inside our skulls. Materialism says consciousness is produced by matter, Idealism says what we call 'matter', is what consciousness looks like.

This is not. But about consciousness to be fundamental, it makes sense to me. What I can't grasp is how from the whole, all the individual units emerge.

Re life after death, or a soul - it's not compatible with Materialism. Idealism allows for a life after death, but in principle doesn't guarantee it. Personally I am not concerned with life after death.

Idealism being true, it does not seem to me that it "allows" just some kind of afterlife, but that this would be an inevitability. If all that exists is life, and life is all that ever existed, then all that exists will always be life. If consciousness exists without having been produced by anything, how could it cease to exist? For me the question is what kind of life and whose?

For me the question comes down to: Does your experience/life feel like an intimate unified integrated whole (Idealism), or, do you feel alienated from the natural world, where your life feels like a calculation ocurring inside your brain (Materialism).

That's a great question, i think it feels both.

I had a teacher in elementary school who said to me: "Always ask what you want, I prefer a stupid doubt, than a stupid one with doubts."

I always felt very comfortable in my Materialism, but after "Why Materialism is Baloney", I felt doubtful. And this is good, but I have never been able to leave anything (or much) to the criterion of faith, it has to make sense, a lot of sense, for my intellect to grant me permission to believe. And then, it's all a matter of probabilities, which is more likely to be real? And how can I access the evidence? Idealism offers new possibilities to explore, materialism does not. But things aren't real just because I want them to. That's why I ask, because I keep my mind open to all the good and bad possibilities and weigh everything in the end. And one of the things I've learned in my life is that if the explanation starts to get too complex, it's probably hiding something behind the verbiage. But it would be unfair to judge Bernardo's Idealism, by my ability to understand something in English other than, "Good night, would you like to dance?" I'm not very good at abstract thinking, but I can see the practical example, like "too many firefighters in the fire doesn't mean they were responsible for it."

In a word, thanks for the simplification.

[EduardoCandeias]

We are not "ripples" on the waves of an ocean of Will, or "whirlpools", or anything similar to that imagery. We are not each "enclosed" spaces of consciousness, but there is only one space we exist in and we are all different perspectives within that one space and the Center of that one space is also an ideating perspective.

I got lost...

Can you explain this to me in a simpler way? What do you mean by "ocean of Will"? And the Center is also an ideating perspective?

Thank You, AshvinP.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Thanks again Soul_of_Shu, don´t give up on me.

I think I can understand this statement, but when we talk about "alters", are we referring to different perspectives, or not? For me, confusion arises when we connect perspectives to depth, in unity, what is the nature of this unity, it is a unity in which there are no longer any perspective, or a unity that is the sum of all perspectives, but this time, without the perceived boundaries, that is, I can no longer understand where I end and you begin, but I continue as a perspective, or, there are no more perspectives, only potential or only one perspective, that of unity. I don't know if I'm being clear about my doubt, if not, help me improve. A good analogy would be that of salt water, where the limit of salt and water is not perceived, but each salt crystal continues to have a sense of itself, from its position, although it has no sense of the its own limits. Or a kind of substance, water (for example), which in the right vibration feels like something else, you and I are that sensation, but when the vibration stops, you and I never existed and the only one mind that ever existed remembers, solipsism.

As far as I can tell, there's an infinitude of perspectives in relational process without point of origin or cessation, and that is the essential nature and imperative of everyOne, so I'm not overly invested in just this one.

[SanteriSatama]

Thanks again Soul_of_Shu, don´t give up on me.

I think I can understand this statement, but when we talk about "alters", are we referring to different perspectives, or not? For me, confusion arises when we connect perspectives to depth, in unity, what is the nature of this unity, it is a unity in which there are no longer any perspective, or a unity that is the sum of all perspectives, but this time, without the perceived boundaries, that is, I can no longer understand where I end and you begin, but I continue as a perspective, or, there are no more perspectives, only potential or only one perspective, that of unity. I don't know if I'm being clear about my doubt, if not, help me improve. A good analogy would be that of salt water, where the limit of salt and water is not perceived, but each salt crystal continues to have a sense of itself, from its position, although it has no sense of the its own limits. Or a kind of substance, water (for example), which in the right vibration feels like something else, you and I are that sensation, but when the vibration stops, you and I never existed and the only one mind that ever existed remembers, solipsism.

As far as I can tell, there's an infinitude of perspectives in relational process without point of origin or cessation, and that is the essential nature and imperative of everyOne, so I'm not overly invested in just this one.

Yes. And in that sense, every vertex is also the Center.