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Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2023 01:49:19 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: Re: Is Advaita just another Cult??
From: graeme sutton
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From: graemesutton426@gmail.com
On Saturday, 10 November 2007 at 08:44:28 UTC+11, NoVA101 wrote:
> I had originally posted this on an Advaita board, but it basically
> asks the same question of any philosophy that offers 'enlightenment'.
> I would love your feedback!
> *** Advaita ***
> Advaita is one of a large number of teachings that offers "Spiritual
> Enlightenment." You could substitute almost any other teaching of
> "Enlightenment" in the discussion below.
>
> *** Is Advaita a Cult?? ***
> Do you really want to believe there is something more than just this
> mundane, misery-filled, earthly life, and then that's it? Or do you
> really WANT to believe there is something more? Advaita offers that
> for which we have all been seeking: Enlightenment, Heaven on Earth,
> the One True Way, Freedom from all suffering, and Oneness with God.
> But is it just another Cult? Is it Brainwashing? Are its believers
> Delusional or suffering from Psychosis? Is it just another religion?
> There are zillions of people and zillions of groups who claim to have
> "The Answer" to all your problems. Advaita is one of those teachings.
> The people who "believe" in Advaita and claim that it has changed
> their lives for the better say MANY of the EXACT same things that Cult
> believers do. How can you ever know if THIS set of beliefs is finally
> "The Answer"?
>
> *** SUMMARY ***
> Advaita can be seen as the ultimate self-help program because it
> solves 100% of ALL of your problems. That is because you actually
> transcend this life, there is no "you" any more, you are one with
> everyone and everything in the universe. You now realize your "true
> natural state," you "awaken from the dream" which was the entire life
> you had lived up until this moment. You are now "One with God" (you
> and everything else IS God, you just didn't know it before Advaita),
> you reach "Nirvana", "The Real Truth", "Constant Bliss", "Innate
> Happiness", "True Freedom", etc. This is truly the answer to all your
> problems. Who wouldn't want all that?!
> To achieve this, proponents often study ancient, obscure spiritual or
> semi-religious documents, usually with guidance of a Guru, ideally
> from India. What you have to get is "ineffable" -- it can never
> actually be explained, it must be experienced. But once you experience
> it you will never want to (or even be able to?) go back. Many cool
> Eastern-sounding paradoxes abound: You must search for it, but you
> can't get it until you stop searching for it.
> You realize that there is no such thing as "time" any more. You
> believe you are eternal, and this is just one of many of your lives.
> If you are killed that is OK, that is just your body dying, that is
> not the real you, you are Eternal. All of your thoughts and emotions
> really don't exist, you realize there is no such thing as free choice,
> you therefore have no responsibility.
> Proponents of Advaita say that if you call them a cult, then you just
> don't get it. Just like all cults do.
> *** Reality, or Mental Disorder ***
> Why do you believe what you believe? Most people don't even know WHAT
> they believe, let alone the reasons WHY they believe those things.
> SOME of the reasons WHY you believe what you believe are:
> 1. an authority figure you trust told you (parents, news reporter,
> etc.)
> 2. you are afraid not to (authoritarian religious belief)
> 3. you really want to (there must be life after death, I don't want to
> believe this is all there is)
> 4. you engaged in groupthink (everyone else believes it, so you do as
> well)
> 5. you had an EXPERIENCE that convinced you something was true
> Note that the strongest beliefs we ever have are #5 -- things we
> believe because we actually experienced them ourselves. And the only
> way a person can get Enlightened in Advaita is by having a particular
> mysterious experience. Then they "know" it is true. But how can they
> share an EXPERIENCE with you? They can't! Therefore the *ONLY* way for
> you to "know" what it is like to be Enlightened in Advaita is to have
> the required experience yourself. But once you have the experience,
> there's no turning back!
> It is 100% possible that believers of Advaita experience reality "the
> way it really is", and are forever changed for the better, and they
> know something that the vast majority of humans have never known and
> will never know.
> Also, it is 100% possible that the believers of Advaita have an
> experience, and now they believe what they are experiencing, but they
> are actually "Delusional" -- that is, they really, truly, totally
> believe something that is in fact NOT TRUE. Obviously if you ask them,
> they will say that is ridiculous, they "know" what is "true" and you
> do not.
> You have now entered the realm of Epistemology -- the philosophical
> study of what is TRUE and what is REALITY and what are BELIEFS. You
> will find NO definitive answers here.
> SHOCKING Implication: It MUST be that EITHER people who are
> Enlightened, or the rest of us, are DELUSIONAL. By classical medical
> definitions, one group is mentally ill! And neither one can know which
> is right. Ever. This may be a truly impossible problem.
> But look at the amazing implications of this! First off, is it
> possible to have an experience that completely screws up your sense of
> reality? Are there other cases in regular medicine where this is known
> to be true?
> * Something you experienced, so you "know" it is true, but it
> actually is not true at all, but you really believe it is, since you
> actually experienced it? What is true reality? If it makes you feel
> better, is that wrong? What if is actually right? But what if it makes
> you feel bad, does that make it wrong or not true?
> * Some people suffer a break with reality when traumatized by an
> experience (shell-shocked, PTSD, victim of a crime) and they don't
> know what reality is any more. Dissociation is a symptom of PTSD, and
> it sounds shockingly similar to Enlightenment: "Dissociation is
> another "defense" that includes a variety of symptoms including
> feelings of depersonalization and derealization, disconnection between
> memory and affect so that the person is "in another world," and in
> extreme forms can involve apparent multiple personalities and acting
> without any memory ("losing time")."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Symptoms
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