there is no doer

[genep]

Advaita, non-duality, tells us that there is no doer.

No matter how much a mind tries to observe thoughts in meditation
it  can never figure out  what is going on
without physics telling it the exact same story: the mind is what it observes.

With Kundalini, Samadhi, everything is so overwhelmingly (universe-vanishingly) obvious that there is nothing to figure out because
there is no doer
there is no other
there is only thoughts, the mind, and Consciousness, Kundalini.

and this is the supreme truth for the very same reason: there is no other.
-- Kundalini

[Stevo]

I completely agree!

[Lente]

If there is no doer, why is there so much getting done?

[intergalactic]

Thinking like that is so impractical for daily living if you tried to live a day thinking like that your head would explode. :hammer:

[MindFreak]

Actually thinking like that is very practical and useful. It just reminds you that you are separate from your opinions and your personality.

[jilola]

If there is no doer, why is there so much getting done?

"No doer" can be put into words using another analogue:

"An ocean has no waves."

If you think of that a bit you can see how it is true. Yet waves erode the beach, eat into the mountain and turn it into sand. Huge things happen and it all is because waves that aren't there keep pounding on a shore that, for them, is unknown.

The doer and the Non-doer are not seen and defined from the same perspective. Doer is you and I, the physical individuals, Non-doer is you and I as the wave in the ocean.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

[Lente]

Actually thinking like that is very practical and useful. It just reminds you that you are separate from your opinions and your personality.

It seems you follow non-duality teaching, but your making yourself into a dual entity. You separate yourself as consciousness from yourself as personality, creating a dual view of yourself. There is no separation, you cannot become what you already are, you can discover what you already are, but to do this you shouldn't devalue your earthly personality, because that is an important part of you to. That part of yourself makes it possible for you to live here.

[Lente]

If there is no doer, why is there so much getting done?

"No doer" can be put into words using another analogue:

"An ocean has no waves."

If you think of that a bit you can see how it is true. Yet waves erode the beach, eat into the mountain and turn it into sand. Huge things happen and it all is because waves that aren't there keep pounding on a shore that, for them, is unknown.

The doer and the Non-doer are not seen and defined from the same perspective. Doer is you and I, the physical individuals, Non-doer is you and I as the wave in the ocean.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

I didnt entirely get what you wanted to say, because your being a little vague here, but am I to understand that there IS a doer?

[MindFreak]

I separate myself as consciousness from myself as personality because my personality is not me. It is a fabrication. It is not real. Therefore, there is no dual view of myself. Only one self, the universal mind. That which is always there. Every other part of the mind, which is always moving, is not who I am. Only that awareness that is ever present.
And that awareness is the same for everyone, which is why we are all one.

[Lente]

I separate myself as consciousness from myself as personality because my personality is not me. It is a fabrication. It is not real. Therefore, there is no dual view of myself. Only one self, the universal mind. That which is always there. Every other part of the mind, which is always moving, is not who I am. Only that awareness that is ever present.
And that awareness is the same for everyone, which is why we are all one.

I do not agree for the reasons stated earlier and I don't see what the advantage is in thinking like this.

[jilola]

but am I to understand that there IS a doer?

Yes, there is but the Doer is not an individual. It's more like the sum total of everything.
That's why I used the (like you said, rather vague analogue of waves and ocean).
The ocean is what does (the sum total) the doing and the waves (that's us) is an expression of that doing.
What a single wave or a single individual perceives as doing is just being and expressing what they are. Thus, as far as us the individuals are concerned there is no Doer.
Everything we do or don't do is just a reflection or an expression of what we are as a result of the ocean moving.

So there is both the doer and the non-doer and they are the same.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

[Lente]

but am I to understand that there IS a doer?

Yes, there is but the Doer is not an individual. It's more like the sum total of everything.
That's why I used the (like you said, rather vague analogue of waves and ocean).
The ocean is what does (the sum total) the doing and the waves (that's us) is an expression of that doing.
What a single wave or a single individual perceives as doing is just being and expressing what they are. Thus, as far as us the individuals are concerned there is no Doer.
Everything we do or don't do is just a reflection or an expression of what we are as a result of the ocean moving.

So there is both the doer and the non-doer and they are the same.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

Your distort the idea of no separation, you make it seem like we are just an effect of something greater, that we are not part of the creative process.  

Ironically your making a separation with this, by viewing the ocean and the waves as two different things, where there is actually just an ocean, there is just conscious. Conscious is made up by many parts, one of those parts is us, a integral creative part, with its own right to exist, its own little part in the doing.

[jilola]

"An ocean has no waves."

Umm, perhaps you're not reading that correctly? My intent was to convey the idea that you CANNOT separate waves and the ocean. They are one and the same.

But waves are part of the ocean's creative process, they ARE the creative process, each as an individual expression of the process and all together as the sum total of the creative process. They do not exist apart from the ocean, thus they have no individual existance either each indivudually or all taken together. Without the ocean there is no waves but waves are just an expression of the change in the ocean total.

In my view, the dualistic separation comes into being the moment you say only that we are PARTS of some greater process.
I disagree that a part of the kind you describe (Such as consciousness) has any separate existence from everything else.

Our seeming disagreement appears to me to be the case in point of why words usually muddle understanding of ideas of this kind.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

[Lente]

"An ocean has no waves."

Umm, perhaps you're not reading that correctly? My intent was to convey the idea that you CANNOT separate waves and the ocean. They are one and the same.

But waves are part of the ocean's creative process, they ARE the creative process, each as an individual expression of the process and all together as the sum total of the creative process. They do not exist apart from the ocean, thus they have no individual existance either each indivudually or all taken together. Without the ocean there is no waves but waves are just an expression of the change in the ocean total.

In my view, the dualistic separation comes into being the moment you say only that we are PARTS of some greater process.
I disagree that a part of the kind you describe (Such as consciousness) has any separate existence from everything else.

Our seeming disagreement appears to me to be the case in point of why words usually muddle understanding of ideas of this kind.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

Well I guess I misunderstood you, but now its your turn to misunderstand me it seems. I'm not saying there are parts that have in anyway an independent existence from the rest of consciousness, but I'm saying there are recognizable parts that hold a distinction from the rest of consciousness.(consciousness = everything, oneness, being, essence, tao etc) (a tree is a tree, and though it holds no independent existence from the rest of consciousness it is still recognizable as a tree)

Advaita is the philosophy of consciousness (everything is consciousness, which is oneness and not two), however advaita defines little of how consciousness really works, in that it falls short of being a integral consciousness philosophy. This being the way it is it is often that advaita underrates the creative involvement of the earthly persona, this being because it doesn't describe how it relates to the rest of consciousness, which leaves a gap between the understanding of the whole (consciousness) and the earthly persona (as we know it, which we don't much) in which the focus tilts towards the whole. This is my major critic of advaita.(and similar teachings)

[MindFreak]

There is only Consciousness, everything else is just a creation of the mind; its not real.

[MisterJingo]

There is only Consciousness, everything else is just a creation of the mind; its not real.

Creation of which mind? And if this is so, why is reality so stable (to so many individual's) and not rapidly changing like thoughts do?

[jilola]

ut I'm saying there are recognizable parts that hold a distinction from the rest of consciousness.(consciousness = everything, oneness, being, essence, tao etc) (a tree is a tree, and though it holds no independent existence from the rest of consciousness it is still recognizable as a tree)

We have complete agreement there. What you are referring to is that fact that the perception of All is expressed as the individual objects (to use a very bad word) we in turn term Tree, Me, Consciousness, Nothing etc. Am  I correct? If so then we speak of the same in different terms and from a slightly different point of view.

Advaita is the philosophy of consciousness (everything is consciousness, which is oneness and not two), however advaita defines little of how consciousness really works, in that it falls short of being a integral consciousness philosophy. This being the way it is it is often that advaita underrates the creative involvement of the earthly persona, this being because it doesn't describe how it relates to the rest of consciousness, which leaves a gap between the understanding of the whole (consciousness) and the earthly persona (as we know it, which we don't much) in which the focus tilts towards the whole. This is my major critic of advaita.(and similar teachings)

Imho, it's impossible to have a description of Universal Consciousness vs. individual perception thereof. Bow one way, moon the other. It seems that t he various philospohies oof consciousness either favour the Universal Whole at the cost of slighting the individual perspective to it or vice versa.
I, personally, have come to the understanding that the ocean/wave analogy is almost the perfect way to put the relationship of us and the All with respect to how the perceived reality comes about. We are both the doer and the deed.There is no disctinction other than the one we create in intellectualising the concept. Having said that, my view is very much an intuitive one and based upon personal experience. Thus the view of someone else may differ even significantly.

2cents & L&L
jouni