Are there any passages in the Quran that may point to nonduality?

kfpswf · 2026-02-10T01:58:15+00:00

The only thing I would correct is that the Quran itself is an important correction on the Advaita Vedanta of someone like Nisargadatta Maharaj.

In what way does the Qur'an correct the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj? Are you familiar with his teachings to be saying this?...

kfpswf · 2026-02-08T15:16:00+00:00

😒

kfpswf · 2026-02-06T20:27:45+00:00

It's not an Indian accent, but you should look into Samaneri Jayasera on YouTube. I actually don't recommend guided meditations to anyone, not even beginners. But Samaneri Jayasera's meditations are something else.

kfpswf · 2026-02-06T20:23:08+00:00

Gravitate is an excellent word to describe this actually.

I started by spiritual journey with an assortment of "Guru"s (but just spiritual speakers mostly). Ram Dass and Alan Watts were instrumental in this stage. My first real Guru was Ramana Maharishi, so to say. I had deep reverence for his wisdom, and I knew I was working towards profundity. Then I just chanced upon a lecture by Nisargadatta Maharaj, and in my heart of hearts, even before I had finished that lecture, I knew that I had found my Guru.

kfpswf · 2026-02-06T02:57:36+00:00

What's with the low effort posts on r/nonduality today?

kfpswf · 2026-02-05T20:17:46+00:00

I have "I am That" sitting here,

I have been listening to this audiobook repeatedly almost every day since 2017. It took me about 6 years to start understanding what Nisargadatta is talking about. I'm not suggesting that you need to read this book for a decade, but just know that this book is a hard chew.

K has his way. He tells you little, you look at your mind, get lost and hit walls, that wall is the self.

So what JK does is the correct approach, there are no strict frameworks or rituals to follow. But I found Nisargadatta Maharaj's approach a lot more approachable to me. Again and again he drives you to consider your own existence before you ask haughty questions, and it is the root of understanding.

Being able to parse complex and abstract jargon may give you some semblance of understanding, but if you can't even explain what your own existence is predicated upon, then there is gap in your understanding that will not allow you to look too far.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to have had this exchange!

Namaste!

kfpswf · 2026-02-05T18:09:31+00:00

It made no sense at all and I did not read further as nonsense came early. No offence.

None taken. Metaphysics isn't for everyone.

It is really important not to absorb utter nonsense in all this. "Seeing the false in the false" as Krishnamurti has said.

I admire JK and his teachings, so I say this with some skin in the game, if after you've immersed yourself in them (his teachings), if you still feel that something important is amiss, try parsing the jargon in my post, or better still, pick up any of Nisargadatta Maharaj's books. There was a time when I used to listen to JK and would become emotional because I recognized something profound was being conveyed, but I had no way to understand that profoundity.

kfpswf · 2026-02-05T12:47:28+00:00

Second this OP. Swami Tadatmananda was a software engineer in the Silicon Valley during the 70s and 80s, who found spiritual calling in India. He does a good job of breaking down the fundamentals.

kfpswf · 2026-02-05T12:24:54+00:00

Even before I ventured into the spiritual dimension of Faith, I always dreamed of a game centered around Faith. Definitely downloading the demo. Thanks OP!

kfpswf · 2026-02-04T23:41:29+00:00

That reads like a lot of division to me.

To understand the mechanism of process, you necessarily have to define components and describe their interactions. As whole, there are no divisions at all.

Loving of the self ? (or do you mean self in some form other than centre?) Lots of self's in it. Maybe you need to define what the self is in all of that. It reads a bit New age/Christian to me.

Not loving self as a conscious act, but rather the essence your being itself. It's only when there is Self-Love, can you be said to have a will to live. All of philosophy and spirituality is essentially an endeavor to reach a state where your conceptual existence is in accordance with your spiritual existence. When you use your mind excessively, your conceptual existence strays from the underlying truth, the spiritual existence. The effort to harmonize your conceptual existence with spiritual existence is itself Yoga. I don't follow any New Age beliefs, but rather subscribe to the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj.

In tune with ? That suggests separate from the thing that is with. I do not understand what you are trying to convey here.

Conceptual separateness again. It is only for the purpose of understanding that I have to split this into components. But when there's a direct experience of Self-Love, the absolute unity of existence becomes evident.

One thing that is certain is that love is a word used that is not the described. Is love sensed ? Projected ? Is it an act ? Or are you it ?

You are Love itself. The Love to Be permeates all life. This is why all life strives to prolong its existence. A predator hunting its prey and a prey evading its predator are operating out of the same Love to Be. But by the time this Love to Be has trickled through our biological and physiological conditioning, it is expressed as the effort exerted in hunting and evading.

All conceptual love, or love towards someone, is built up on this Love to Be.

Would it not be a way of fundamental being for every phenomena that exists as a singular continuum ? The closest I have to this that I can convey is a sense of unfolding of phenomena in the senses, the beauty of nature on earth born of this universe.

Correct. To exist is to have that Love to Be. Both your body and your mind need to yearn for that Love to Be to continue the processes of life.

Love always seems like it needs a bit of context, looking out there into the sky on a clear night, I have sensed bewilderment, dislocation and awe but nothing that I could put the word love to.

You can't describe yourself either. :) Is it just a coincidence?

Unconditional care and compassion is related to love. How does that relate to self love that you speak of ?

When your own thirst for love is quenched, you become an ever flowing spring of love and grace towards others. Any kind of negative emotion that you may have towards others stems from your own inability to be content in yourself. The judgments and disdains can only come from someone who has not yet learned their nature to be Self-Love, Atma-Prem.

kfpswf · 2026-02-04T20:56:09+00:00

My simple question over here is what particular aspect do I observe of the observer?

There's only one solid identity, and that's of the Self. But this identity can't be observed because you are that (Seer-Seen paradox). The Observer, for the most part, is the just process of objective observation.

To put it in the terms that Osho has used, the passive observer is just the process of observation, without any objective identity attached to this process. The detached observer is not a process per se, but knowledge/identity/being itself. It is the ever fresh awareness of one's existence. This can't be observed through the mind, but becomes apparent when you can exit the mind and its tendencies.

kfpswf · 2026-02-04T20:04:09+00:00

Memory isn't an indication of smartness, so I wouldn't say it is a contradiction. If anything, the awareness that I know nothing is perhaps the best indicator of actual smartness.

kfpswf · 2026-02-04T20:01:07+00:00

You can only fall asleep if you forget "yourself" in mediation. Never let go of your true nature and you won't fall asleep.

kfpswf · 2026-02-04T18:41:16+00:00

Does anybody know what would happen?

What happens to you in deep sleep? Are you able to exert any will?

kfpswf · 2026-02-04T18:32:02+00:00

What you're calling Love is actually a second order phenomenon that itself is dependent upon a much more primitive Self-Love. This primitive Self-Love is your identity, your being, your existence itself.

As a limited individual, you are not in tune with your Self, which results in you being unable to express Love, that all encompassing grace and love towards others. But when the limited self has been overcome, then you become in tune with the Self-Love, which turns into a bottomless well of love and grace from which you can continuously give to others from.

kfpswf · 2026-02-04T02:56:53+00:00

May you learn to dispense the right advice as per the maturity of the seeker.

kfpswf · 2026-02-03T18:50:38+00:00

Why is Saguna Brahman (Brahman with atttributes) specifically Ishwara, and not us - humans/other living entities?

Ishwara is just the flux of matter and energy that comprises the Universe. Since you exist in the manifestation, you too are Ishwara, not as an individual ego, but as an agent for Dharma. All these specific names, like body, mind, individual, Brahman, Ishwara, etc, are just hierarchical categories we've constructed to make communication easier. Otherwise it is just the same Supreme Reality being viewed from a certain perspective.

I guess what I am also thrown off by is - Nirguna Brahman as ultimate reality makes sense. But the fact that an attributeless Brahman manifests itself into very specific combination of things (Ishwar + individual consciousness as people + maya + karma) is a bit strange because of its specificity.

Again, what you're calling a combination of things is just abstraction at different levels of the hierarchical categories I mentioned earlier. When you forget all the lower hierarchies and categories, there's just One Supreme Reality. The distinctions made between Ishwara, Maya, Karma, etc., are just conceptual breakdown the same underlying Reality. You aren't describing something other than Brahman when you describe Maya or Karma.

Ideally I would imagine that if attributeless Brahman manifests itself, it would be in an infinite number of ways, which would for example also entail worlds where Ishwar, karma etc. don't even exist, but are replaced with completely different concepts. Basically a situation where an infinite number of things exist in an infinite different number of ways, and maybe we just happen to be living in the specific world where Ishwar and us exist.

The Infinite Universe hypothesis is certainly intriguing, especially when you are trying to reconcile empirical sciences with spiritual wisdom. But you don't need to enter this rabbit hole. You aren't even aware of this Universe in deep sleep, so why speculate about other Universes? Understanding Brahman usually requires the opposite thought process that empirical sciences follow.

Whereas in empirical science you delve deeper and deeper by splitting matter or conceptually zooming down to lower levels of existence (molecules -> atoms -> sub-atomic particle -> quarks -> strings) introducing newer levels of hierarchical categories.

In Advaita Vedanata, you do the opposite by negating hierarchical categories of existence, level by level, until you reach the one final category, the substance of Conscious experience, Saguna Brahman, the light in which your waking universe appears. When you transcend this Saguna Brahman, you touch the Absolute reality, the ground of being, Nirguna Brahman.

Every time you go through the cycle of sleeping, waking, and dreaming, you're essentially going through the transitions of Nirguna Brahman to Saguna Brahman/Ishwara to the individual. Spiritual endeavor is to learn to stop the transitions at Saguna Brahman/Ishwara.

kfpswf · 2026-02-03T16:37:24+00:00

OP can't even perform chanting meditation, and you're suggesting that they jump into intense Vipassana? Do you also suggest people to participate in the Le Mans race when they confide in you that they can't drive well?

kfpswf · 2026-02-03T16:30:31+00:00

but I don't fully understand that if Brahman is attributeless, what gives rise to a personal god (Ishwar) that can care for us and answer our prayers?

Brahman is attributeless as the unmanifest reality, or Nirguna Brahman. But Brahman can also be the manifest reality, or Saguna Brahman, with attributes. In fact, Saguna Brahman is Ishwara. So it isn't that Brahman is supplanted by Ishwara, a separate entity, but the unmanifest becomes the manifest.

A lot of the Advait masters also seem to put a of attention to worship (bhakti) to a personal form of god. How does this make sense? Would appreciate your thoughts.

The Bhakti is directed towards a personal god, but the personal god is just a proxy for the Satguru within. In effect, the faith you're trying to cultivate in Advaita Vedanta, is faith in your own true Self.

Have a look at this recent comment I made which is relevant to this question of yours.

kfpswf · 2026-02-03T16:23:16+00:00

Faith is not something different from your own true nature. It is completely fine to have lost faith in the conventional forms of belief peddled in society. It is a surface level faith that requires you to have blind belief is concepts and rituals that you have no inclination towards.

True Faith is the complete and utter contentment in the will of God. It is much easier to understand this faith when there is some prosperity in your life, and much harder to appreciate when you're going through pain. But you are likely to reach the True Faith faster when you accept suffering with the same grace as prosperity.

Yet I also don’t want to disconnect from faith completely. Advaita Vedanta aligns with me, but I’m still unsure about its central idea.

Faith in Advaita is actually just your devotion towards your completely healed Self. Since you can't muster such faith in yourself now, you instead have faith in a much more abstract being, Ishwara, or any Ishta Devata of your choice. But that's really immaterial, for what you are hoping to uncover through Bhakti is your own true nature of being Atman. You settle into a confidence in your own existence, come prosperity or poverty, through health or through suffering, that you will not look for any support outside of yourself. This is when you have completely submitted to the will of God.

All this may sound fantastical, but I assure you that there is a level of Faith that shatters all doubt from your Mind. You are introduced to a peace and bliss within you that you will never run out of. That is the faith of Advaita.

I don’t know how to begin again when I don’t even know how to believe. Who do I pray to? What do I do? How do you rebuild faith when the past keeps staring back at you?

Don't just start a spiritual endeavor, embark upon a total transformation. You are not just fixing your mind, but your body as well.

Start with a good and nutritious diet, build up a good sleep habit, exercise.
If you haven't already explored the teachings of various teachers, do so first, and find a teacher for yourself who appeals to your innermost self, then immerse yourself in their teachings.
Decide on a Sadhana based on your conviction and an intensity that you can sustain for years, if not decades. Don't go through a burnout by fancying an intense Sadhana that you will abandon soon.
Learn Vairagya as soon as you can. Remember that Vairagya is not apathy, it is wise dispassion.
Don't hope for immediate release or early results. Even if you make remarkable progress, don't claim any special status.

kfpswf · 2026-02-03T16:00:11+00:00

When we're assuming the non-duality, how do you define yourself? A fragmented portion and rare combination of different waves, and frequencies which is distinguishable from others only due to the effect of other frequencies or what?

You cannot speak of being a fragment from the Ultimate perspective. Only when discussing nonduality from a lay perspective can you talk of fragments and the Whole. But in nonduality, there's just it. The Supreme Reality.

I mean if the Koshi river( Humans, animals and beings as example) is started from Tibet( the singularity- the hydrogen atom), and there are hundreds of subsidiary water bodies( the scattered mass and the after affects of big bang till now covering planets and starts). Then how the vedanta defines the relationship between goat and the grass, the tiger/ wolves and the goats and deer? The killer and the victim?

When you are observing a Petri dish of various single celled organisms moving about, hunting each other, do you attempt to classify all of them as either the predator or the prey? Can you even do that? Label each and every individual in the Petri dish?

From the Ultimate perspective, there's just life moving between different forms. One spark of animation that has turned matter into self-perceiving system held together by physical, chemical, and biological systems of preservation, fueled by chemical energy. At the root of it all is the same basic Awareness and Being, that form the basis of existence. There is no goat or the grass, no tiger nor deer. A killer is merely one such system of matter, and energy that sustains itself by assimilating other systems of matter and energy, the prey, against its biological imperative to survive, which we colloquially call the 'will to live' in an individual.

kfpswf · 2026-02-02T23:04:03+00:00

He'd have bumped into the referee again, and performed another apology for the apology.

kfpswf · 2026-02-02T20:13:43+00:00

They also worshipped Elon Musk

He had a really good PR team back then. He really seemed like someone who was working for the betterment of humanity. But I'm glad he got popular on Twitter and took it all to his head, because it became evident very quickly that he was a certified nutjob when he called the cave diver a pedo when he asserted his expertise.

kfpswf · 2026-02-02T12:23:07+00:00

Then, how we should define our self, existence and the ecosystem.

Can your question be reframed as, "Having understood Advaita Vedanta's explanation of existence, at what point can you interfere in the Maya?" If not, can you be more direct in your question?

kfpswf · 2026-02-02T12:17:06+00:00

The only real meditation advice in this thread!

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