Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data

 speak of love as when the false sense of separation with others (others meaning not just selves, but all beings and everything really) collapses. So it's beyond "giving to others", it's, at a more fundamental level, "you and I are one".

Indeed. As I said there are many things with which I agree with him and the illusion of separation is probably fundamental among them.

In a way, just like I maintain that I am an idealist but I believe we experience life as dualistic (mind and matter), I therefore accept that we are all one yet I experience life as an individual with a unique personality. I think this is necessary for our development and I am not sure that "skipping ahead" to living a truly non-dual existence is either possible or what we need. I think we need to experience the lessons of life but it probably can't hurt to come to a realisation that we are part of a consensus that has created this illusion. Or that the consensus itself is a greater illusion of separation.

[Ninshub]

I am not sure that "skipping ahead" to living a truly non-dual existence is either possible or what we need

That's an excellent question, and definitely another topic in itself, but it is something I'm personally pondering and will probably be exploring for a while. (In the same way, I can ask myself if Buddhism is an accurate perspective of reality and the self or not, but whether trying to live its precepts is helpful or even the best path as a separate question. My intuition as I'm typing this is there's probably no right answer and no ultimately right path, and that all paths capture a portion of the truth.)

My intuition as I'm typing this is there's probably no right answer and no ultimately right path, and that all paths capture a portion of the truth.

"We ask, then, for peace for the gods of our forefathers and of our country. It is just that all worship should be considered one. We look on the same stars, the sky is common, the same world surrounds us. What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth?

We cannot attain to so great a secret by one road alone."
  -Symmachus of Rome

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Regarding this idea that love is recognition that we are not separate...This seems to me like something of a projection?

For example I'm wary of fully accepting all of Whitley Streiber's accounts but the loss of a daughter he was expecting to miscarriage, where upon he first sees some kind of demonic figure before the loss but is allowed a meeting with the spirit of the woman that would have been his daughter...it is actually rather heart-breaking to read whether one believes any of this was genuinely paranormal.

But the sadness of the loss *is* precisely such deep separation from a loved one, or perhaps at the least someone he could have loved as a daughter? There is something of an opportunity stolen, even in the "Longest Journey" of trans-physical immortal persons the life that might have been is gone.

Yet isn't this all a farce if Whitley, or any grieving parent, is not really a separate being from their child?

I bring this William James quote up ever so often, for which I apologize, but it seems to have relevance across multiple conversations:

"...I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight,—as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem..."

[Ninshub]

Yet isn't this all a farce if Whitley, or any grieving parent, is not really a separate being from their child?

Good questions.

I'm not personally advanced enough in non-dualism teachings or some such to really address these questions with any sense of felt knowledge or answer.

But being human involves the reality of being separate beings (at least in part) attached to one another and losing one another and having heartache. If we reunite together again after the dissolution of the body, does this mean it was a farce?

And if someone in an NDE merges (let's say temporarily) with a sense of all-encompassing love to the point where they're not even thinking about their loved ones back on earth (say a mother towards her children, and there are types of such accounts we can read - where the person didn't even care about going back, and later back on earth felt guilty about it, perhaps), does that mean the attachment between the mother and the children is a farce?

If we go to Sankara's model of Advaita Vedanta, for example, and go to the topic of painful emotional experiences in general (grieving, suffering in general), the empirical level of reality is real. Those experiences occur. If at an underlying, more deeper ontological level, it is all Brahman and there is no differentiation, does this mean the empirical level is a "farce"? Wouldn't it be more accurate to describe it as tremendously real, but not absolutely real? (So that not-absolute does not mean unreal, but just less-real-than-absolutely-real).

Good questions.

I'm not personally advanced enough in non-dualism teachings or some such to really address these questions with any sense of felt knowledge or answer.

But being human involves the reality of being separate beings (at least in part) attached to one another and losing one another and having heartache. If we reunite together again after the dissolution of the body, does this mean it was a farce?

And if someone in an NDE merges (let's say temporarily) with a sense of all-encompassing love to the point where they're not even thinking about their loved ones back on earth (say a mother towards her children, and there are types of such accounts we can read - where the person didn't even care about going back, and later back on earth felt guilty about it, perhaps), does that mean the attachment between the mother and the children is a farce?

If we go to Sankara's model of Advaita Vedanta, for example, and go to the topic of painful emotional experiences in general (grieving, suffering in general), the empirical level of reality is real. Those experiences occur. If at an underlying, more deeper ontological level, it is all Brahman and there is no differentiation, does this mean the empirical level is a "farce"? Wouldn't it be more accurate to describe it as tremendously real, but not absolutely real? (So that not-absolute does not mean unreal, but just less-real-than-absolutely-real).

I think there's a difference in the NDE and the claim of Vedanta. The NDEr as you say is temporarily not thinking about loved ones but later can feel guilty about it. A person who realizes our time on Earth is incredibly brief can look at not coming back akin to moving to another country in pursuit of a dream job or another opportunity, and then their perspective shifts back to mortal concerns and some natural sense of guilt.

As for reuniting, it's not that we didn't suffer or suffered for no reason. With Vedanta it seems the claim is we didn't suffer at all, because there is no actual suffering save the delusion of disunity. (Why I suspect this idea originated with high castes who needed some clever way to alleviate the guilt of their unjust apex at the top of the caste system.)

Of course if suffering comes from delusion of not recognizing the illusion one's individual existence....who exactly is suffering?

We can also look at mediumship cases, such as this one which has evidential aspects, where the dead child seeks to alleviate the grieving parents. She tells them it's okay because she is with grandma, not "Oh silly mom & dad we as individuals don't actually exist and there is nothing but the One Mind".

If we're going by paranormal data, it seems to me there is much less going for the idea that the One subsumes the Many. Rather they co-exist, perhaps in such a way that our ideas of distinct individuals divorced from their Origin is untrue in a non-dual way...but then the erasure of the Many strikes me as a violation of Non-Dualism as well...

[Ninshub]

I think there's a difference in the NDE and the claim of Vedanta. The NDEr as you say is temporarily not thinking about loved ones but later can feel guilty about it. A person who realizes our time on Earth is incredibly brief can look at not coming back akin to moving to another country in pursuit of a dream job or another opportunity, and then their perspective shifts back to mortal concerns and some natural sense of guilt.

As for reuniting, it's not that we didn't suffer or suffered for no reason. With Vedanta it seems the claim is we didn't suffer at all, because there is no actual suffering save the delusion of disunity. (Why I suspect this idea originated with high castes who needed some clever way to alleviate the guilt of their unjust apex at the top of the caste system.)

Of course if suffering comes from delusion of not recognizing the illusion one's individual existence....who exactly is suffering?

We can also look at mediumship cases, such as this one which has evidential aspects, where the dead child seeks to alleviate the grieving parents. She tells them it's okay because she is with grandma, not "Oh silly mom & dad we as individuals don't actually exist and there is nothing but the One Mind".

If we're going by paranormal data, it seems to me there is much less going for the idea that the One subsumes the Many. Rather they co-exist, perhaps in such a way that our ideas of distinct individuals divorced from their Origin is untrue in a non-dual way...but then the erasure of the Many strikes me as a violation of Non-Dualism as well...

Again all good points, although I'm not sure I agree with that sharp distinction. I'd have to re-read said NDE accounts, but I'm not sure it was clear-cut simple as "I'm just not temporarily not thinking about loved ones", more like "somehow I know they still exist but it fades in importance to what I'm experiencing now". Something like that. Again, I'd have to revisit.

The literature is clear that many NDErs come back and have trouble seeing attachment the same way they used to. Which accounts for a lot of divorces, for one thing. "How come you don't love me like you used to?" "I now love you like I love everything". (A bit like an "enlightened" Gary Weber who no longer is attached to his wife and children the same way he used to be, but now they find him to be much less of an asshole. I read that somewhere.) 

And then re: the Advaida Vedanta. Again I think if I'm not mistaken that you're giving it a reading that is not faithful to what I understand being Shankara's definition of it. It's not true to say the suffering doesn't exist, because it is true at the empirical level - on that level of reality. And it is not an illusion in the sense that "really it's not happening".

Going back to Richard King: later Advaita thinkers re-interpreted Advaita to mean that Brahman's transformation into the world of multiplicity is an "illusory transformation", but Shankara held that it is a "real transformation". (metaphsical realism). (p. 220).

If I don't know if this excerpt can help clarify this a little bit:

Sankara's nirguna brahman is often portrayed in rather abstract and dry terms as a static and formless Absolute, devoid of any activity, mutability or indeed any predicable qualities whatsoever. Sankara makes it clear, however, that brahman is described as formless (avikara) precisely because it is the cause of all forms (...) Sankara thereby establishes a dialectical tension between a dynamic and creative personal deity (saguna brahman/isvara) on the one hand, and an unchanging and ineffable ground of being (nirguna brahman) on the other, resulting in a fertile and dynamic form of 'dialectical theism' grounded in the conception of two levels of truth.

(Richard King, Indian Philosophy, 1999, Georgetown UP, p. 218.)

I take that "two levels of truth" meaning to say exactly that there are two levels of truth.

[Ninshub]

(Why I suspect this idea originated with high castes who needed some clever way to alleviate the guilt of their unjust apex at the top of the caste system.)

I think I mentioned something earlier about Advaita Vedanta specifically being against the caste system. Google (or in my case "startpage") "Advaita Vedanta" and "caste" and you'll find more of the same.

Check out if you're interested also, in terms of Hinduism in general, this article (pdf) by Professor M V Nadkarni (Professor of Economics, but also interested in social sciences and religion) called "Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism? Demolishing a Myth".

This paper, citing evidence from the ancient scriptures, attempts to establish
that Hinduism – its vedic and classic variants – did not support the caste system; it rigorously
opposed it in practice and principle. Even after the emergence of the caste system,
Hindu society still saw considerable occupational and social mobility. Moreover, Hinduism
created legends to impress on the popular mind the invalidity of the caste system – a fact
further reinforced by the constant efflorescence of reform movements throughout
history. The caste system survived in spite of this because of factors that ranged from the
socio-economic to the ecological, which helped sustain and preserve balance
among communities in a non-modern world.

It does have a paragraph concerning Sankara and Advaita Vedanta:

The story of Shankaracharya (8th century), prostrating before
a Chandala is well known. When the latter stood in the way of
the former, he was asked to move away. The Chandala asked
him whether the Acharya’s behaviour was consistent with his
philosophy. He asked further: Viproyam Shvapachoyam ityapi
mahan koyam Vibhedabhramah (what is this confusing distinc-
tion between a brahmin and an untouchable?). Shankaracharya
then prostrates before him as before a guru and breaks out into
five verses known as Manisha Panchakam. He reiterates his
advaita philosophy, but in his very first verse he says that a person
who knows the Supreme, whether he is a Chandala or a twice-
born, is a guru for him. (Chandaloastu sa tu dvijoastu gururityesha
manisha mama).13 Ramanujacharya who came in 12th century,
defied caste even more powerfully. Madhvacharya (13th century)
in his Brahmasutra bhashya declares: ‘Even the low born (un-
touchables) have the right to the name and knowledge of god
if they are devoted to him. 14

I think I mentioned something earlier about Advaita Vedanta specifically being against the caste system. Google (or in my case "startpage") "Advaita Vedanta" and "caste" and you'll find more of the same.

Check out if you're interested also, in terms of Hinduism in general, this article (pdf) by Professor M V Nadkarni (Professor of Economics, but also interested in social sciences and religion) called "Is Caste System Intrinsic to Hinduism? Demolishing a Myth".



It does have a paragraph concerning Sankara and Advaita Vedanta:

Oh I don't think Hinduism is intrinsically tied to the caste system, since "Hinduism" is a catch-all term for a variety of beliefs that existed in South Asia. I actually would consider myself Hindu for many years, though now I feel I am more a somewhat devout, somewhat agnostic follower of the Perennial Wisdom tradition...

It is good that Sankara bowed before the untouchable, but I don't know if this fully exonerates this idea of suffering individuals as illusory. It just seems so convenient that where there is societal injustice you have movements saying to look beyond the immediate suffering of said injustice...like the mediums who supposedly channeled deceased slaves who loved being slaves, or the idea that God has pre-determined all events so those who suffer are meant to suffer.

However, I would demur that whatever the origin of a metaphysical claim it shouldn't invalidate the claim itself which should be judged on its own merits. But mysticism of the kind that seems to inspire Vedanta, since it involves a person claiming to see something with little to no paranormal data, seems more suspect to me than a clear communication from the dead to the living. Just as some NDEs can be rendered suspect because they seem to closely align with proselytizing a religion (see some of the Pure Land Buddhist NDEs) there's just a...suspicious oddity to the historical context of certain Monist traditions...

OTOH, we do have NDEs that contradict each other as well, and some in-between life memories don't seem like they are literally real such as children's souls trying to hide in a grain of rice to be consumed by the mother. So the true nature of reality may not be discernible from paranormal data, though I would contend at least the communications that produce verified information have to be held higher than mystic visions.

That said, I do recall some stuff about parapsychology and mysticism in Beyond Physicalism and Paul Marshall's work so will double check.

[Ninshub]

It is good that Sankara bowed before the untouchable, but I don't know if this fully exonerates this idea of suffering individuals as illusory.

Just on this point, Sci, once again, however, I'm not sure if "the idea of suffering individuals as illusory" can be attributed to Sankara like you're doing, given what I've detailed now in several posts through the last pages of this thread as to what his philosophy actually articulates.

Just on this point, Sci, once again, however, I'm not sure if "the idea of suffering individuals as illusory" can be attributed to Sankara like you're doing, given what I've detailed now in several posts through the last pages of this thread as to what his philosophy actually articulates.

I guess I have to admit confusion here, because I'm not sure what this means:

If we go to Sankara's model of Advaita Vedanta, for example, and go to the topic of painful emotional experiences in general (grieving, suffering in general), the empirical level of reality is real. Those experiences occur. If at an underlying, more deeper ontological level, it is all Brahman and there is no differentiation, does this mean the empirical level is a "farce"? Wouldn't it be more accurate to describe it as tremendously real, but not absolutely real? (So that not-absolute does not mean unreal, but just less-real-than-absolutely-real).

To me this is like "proto-consciousness" invoked by some panpsychists and even materialists...but this seems to try and add gradations to something that seems either-or? Similarly what does it mean for an aspect of reality to be "less-real-than-absolutely-real"?