Don DeGracia
New
I was thinking about this DeGracia material.
I'm most comfortable coming away with the idea that consciousness is real and the manifest world is real in a different way. Folks who believe that the difference between the two is very minor would be closer to materialist/physicalists. Folks who believe the difference is major would be closer to idealists. I like sliding scales. ;)
Hi again Dan!
The manifest world is vibrations of consciousness.
I try to point out in the book that materialism and idealism are actually the exact same viewpoint. We are conscious of "stuff" that includes the world we perceive, the emotions we feel, the thoughts we think, the desires and motivations that drive us. All of the stuff we are conscious of is the screen of our consciousness. If someone takes the world we perceive to be the "source" of the other stuff we are conscious of, they are a materialist. If they take our thoughts and mind as the source of the other stuff we are conscious of, they are idealists. In either case, they only know of what is on the screen of consciousness.
This is the value of learning the yogic view of consciousness and of the nature of the mind. It teaches that the screen is only the surface of the mind and that the mind goes very deep. Most of what the mind consists of is hidden from our consciousness and is what I call the cave of consciousness. The cave is the mind in its totality. At the heart of the mind, at its center, like the center of a cyclone, is the bindu, the link between what is in the mind and what is outside of it. The outside of the mind is the Absolute.
The model is like training wheels. It is only meant to help visualize what yoga teaches for newbies. As you learn more and more about it, you see that the model is a nice overlay, but it is not the beginning nor the end of understanding. As your understanding deepens, it becomes less and less important to be intellectual about any of this. It becomes more and more important to understand your own mind and to pull back the darkness hiding its depths, and to discover and become conscious of what's in your own mind. The more you do this and the deeper you go, that is what matters. This is the transition from someone who doesn't do yoga to someone who does do yoga.
Remember, yoga is not sitting funny on a blue mat. It is not exercise. It is not even meditation. Yoga means "to join" and it refers to joining yourself to the Source of your being, which I call the Absolute, using van der Leeuws word. It is recognizing you are the Absolute. And I am the Absolute. And everything you are conscious of is the Absolute. And where the sliding scale comes in is that some parts of the Absolute seem to be aware they are the Absolute, and other parts are less and less aware they are the Absolute. Metaphorically, it is a sliding scale between the light of self-awareness, and the darkness where self-awareness is lacking. It is a sliding scale between awareness of one's true being, and ignorance of one's true being. The light of consciousness or the darkness accompanying lack of the light of consciousness and all the shades of grey in between.
As Buddha said, Buddhism is a boat you use to get to the other side, after which you no longer need the boat. This is a metaphor of the role of our intellect. You need the right intellectual understanding to act as a boat to move you in the correct orientation to life and existence. But once the orientation is achieved, there are other things you need to do that are more important, and the intellectual constructs get set aside, being recognized as the training wheels they were to get you where you needed to be.
So, yes, your intuition is spot on from what I can see, and its just a matter of orienting your thoughts properly so you can see beyond the ideas themselves and on to the important business of doing the joining. I hope this is not self-assuming on my part to have said it in this fashion, but it is the perception I got from reading your posts.
All my best and off to dinner now!
Don