he says he is at stage 5 to 6 worr..
First of all, whether or not he realized what the Buddha
realized, perhaps it is best to respect whatever he has to offer
rather than make sarcastic remarks about it - asking or questioning
his claims is ok as I do that sometimes myself, but just try to be
respectful. Since his advices are coming from genuine intentions,
experience and insights. If he made a mistake comparing his
experience and insight with Buddha (which is far more common than
you think) - it is because there is a lack of understanding that
there are different levels of insights and enlightenment is
not just a one-stage, final event sort of thing. There is
a lack of understanding the difference between I AM and Non-dual
awareness, non-dual with anatta, anatta with emptiness/d.o.,
Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism, etc. Few and rarely do teachers speak
about the differences.
And therefore when such people attain certain insights and
experiences, they think that that is it. This is final. There is
complete certainty about what he realized - and so he thinks what
he realized therefore must be what the Buddha, and the other great
sages realized, too. Such statements usually aren't made out of
pride but are expressed out of the full confidence they have in
seeing an aspect of reality, and partially because of their
ignorance and extrapolation. While they do have some true insight
and experiences, what they have seen is not the full picture.
In other words, there is a lack of pointers, maps, etc - or
there are, but they simply aren't well known or taught well enough.
So of course most people will have false ideas about what
enlightenment is, or what exactly the Buddha realised and so
on.
I commented that he is at Stage 4 based on some of the comments
he made.
First is his insight of non-dual. This wasn't as explicitly
expressed in other videos and if not for this video, I would not
have commented that he is at Stage 4 (as many of the other
expressions could have been at stage 1~3, not that they are less
important, as each 'phase' of insight offers a valuable insight and
experience). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxbpvVZ0EzU
- which he describes life as "just life flowing right here right
now, the birds chirping outside, the dog woofing next door. sounds
of the computer fan spinning."
For example, in his video 'What is Oneness' -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43mGPfhRB_Y&feature=channel_video_title,
he commented that reality is the space here/now, the canvas in
which everything is painted on. If we see that we are all part of
one reality, then we are reifying a greater reality, a Brahman, a
substratum, which nevertheless encompasses, pervades, and manifests
as all manifestations.
This is what Thusness said in his 4th stage, "Nevertheless
it is a very important key phase where practitioner experiences a
quantum leap in perception untying the dualistic knot. This is also
the key insight leading to the realization that "All is Mind", all
is just this One Reality.
The tendency to extrapolate an Ultimate Reality or Universal
Consciousness where we are part of this Reality remains
surprisingly strong. Effectively the dualistic knot is gone but the
bond of seeing things inherently isn't. 'Dualistic' and 'inherent'
knots that prevent the fully experiencing of our Maha, empty and
non-dual nature of pristine awareness are two very different
'perceptual spells' that blind."
At Stage 5, we see that in seeing there is just the seen, no
seer - in perceiving just perception, no perceiver. No awareness
seeing the world - for awareness simply means the
perceiving/perception, and the flow of perceptions.
Reality as such is simply nothing substantial, there is no agent
or essence the underlies all things, we are not 'part of' some
greater reality.
It is like the word 'weather' - to say that 'clouds are part of
weather' may be true conventionally, but actually what is
'weather'? Is it truly existing? Or is it simply a label collating
the everchanging stream and aggregation of weatherly phenomena like
clouds forming and departing, changing, rolling, rain, lightning,
wind, all kinds of everchanging factors and phenomena.
So likewise, the word 'self', 'reality', whatever you want to
call it - is utterly empty of any substantial reality. It is simply
a mere label collating a conglomerate of everchanging
phenomena and no other reality, or real canvas, can be
spoken of "in which things occur".
This is also the difference between Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta
- in anatta, there is no unchanging background behind phenomena at
all, not even one that is "at one with/inseperable from phenomena",
we cannot even say that "Awareness is inseperable from phenomena"
just like we cannot say "Weather is inseperable from rain" - what
is weather apart from rain? No findable essence!
That being said.
After watching more of his videos, I think his videos are not so
much about an unchanging non-dual Brahman (One Mind), but more
about resting in non-conceptuality and sustaining the
non-conceptual experience of impersonality/life/universe, as well
as No-Mind. Means his experience is at the phase of
non-dual, and it is No-Mind, but the insight of anatta has not
arisen and his practice is skewing towards non-conceptuality
stripped of the sense of personality (which leads to the experience
of a universal life living and expressing this moment) and self to
experience impersonality and no-mind. No-mind is like the
experience of anatta, but not as an insight into the absence of
agent, and can remain as a sort of peak experience. The experience
is there but not the realization that "in seeing always just the
seen, no seer-seeing-seen" - and so the entire practice is skewed
towards non-conceptuality to rest in no-mind. This is still around
phase 4-5 but not really 5.
This is precisely what Thusness said here as Case 1:
The Disease of Non-Conceptuality
