lorenzop wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2024 2:19 pm
You are correct in that I don't endorse 'the manifested world of forms', not sure how that makes me a nihilist. Very few people recognize this layer\world of forms: Rupert Spira, Buddha, Ramana Maharishi etc. do not.
I think you misunderstand Rupert, listen to him here
From 'I Am Nothing' to 'I Am Everything'
Likewise, Ramana taught:
Question: “Brahman (the Supreme Spirit) is real. The world is illusion” is the stock phrase of Sri Sankaracharya. Yet others say, “The world is reality.” Which is true?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Both statements are true. They refer to different stages of development and are spoken from different points of view. The (spiritual) aspirant starts with the definition, that which is real exists always. Then he eliminates the world as unreal because it is changing.
The seeker ultimately reaches the Self and there finds unity as the prevailing note. Then, that which was originally rejected as being unreal is found to be a part of the unity. Being absorbed in the reality, the world also is real. There is only being in Self-realisation, and nothing but being.
From Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 33
Similarly, the stage of realization in the Buddhist tradition is described as a total acceptance of the world of forms:
"Within the womb of the expanse, spontaneously and always present,
Samsara is all good, and nirvana is good too.
Appearance is all good, and emptiness is all good too.
Birth and death are all good; pleasure and pain are all good.
I and other are all good; believing that things last forever and denying them completely are all good.
Its nature is like a dream, without any basis.
Everything is all good—great spontaneous presence."
Longchen Rabjam
So basically, as Ramana and Rupert explained, there are three stages of spiritual development on the nondualist path. First is the confused stage where we perceive the reality fragmented and dualistically, dividing the reality into ourselves and other selves and objects as if they are real separate entities. Second is the stage of seeking of the ground of Being where we turn away from the seemingly fragmented forms and look for the true nondual nature of reality. This is the "neti-neti" stage that involves some degree of nihilism towards the world of forms, but that nihilism is only transitional. Once we experientially discover the ground of Being as a living experience and make it a stable samadhi, we turn again to the world of forms and find that it is inseparable part of the oneness of Being. The world of forms is now fully embraced and accepted as nothing else than the Being itself manifested in a variety of beautiful forms. This is the state of Love in completeness and integration. And then we can continue to go deeper in exploring the spiritual world of living thinking-willing-feeling and peel the layers of the structures of this world of forms to discover the deeper layers of its living reality, but now beings fully integrated and inseparable from the wholeness.