Brad Warner's video linked to yesterday makes the point the his I and all other Is are the same I. That I thing really unites Hinduism and Buddhism too, found in the insight types like Zen and Advaita Vedanta which focuses on that point - and in other traditions as well. To me it's in the core of the perenial philosophy. The Who am I? koan goes way back in India.
There's a big billboard with that question on the entranceway to the Vivekananda Ashram at the very south tip of India in Kanyakumari. Hinduism always gets hit with the Buddhist no self point because they have the small self and the big self but Buddhists have to use that word or some facsimili too. Shunryu Suzuki sure did with big mind small mind. It's not that there are different minds but different experiences of mind. Ramana Maharshi said or maybe it was Nisargadatta or Mooji etc that all any being knows is that feeling of I exist. Then they make the point that that feeling of I is the same I, the great self or the not self. I remember Mooji saying that it's not just people but every being, every fly. He also said that once the big I is experienced, one can go beyond that where there's no I.
MK wrote me that he was at the Yuba River and he looked at a fish and the fish looked at him and that he experienced first hand the sameness of their mutual feeling of I exist.
Ramana Maharshi said that the ultimate spiritual statement is in the Bible: I am that I am. That's not describing some being somewhere else.
There's a big billboard with that question on the entranceway to the Vivekananda Ashram at the very south tip of India in Kanyakumari. Hinduism always gets hit with the Buddhist no self point because they have the small self and the big self but Buddhists have to use that word or some facsimili too. Shunryu Suzuki sure did with big mind small mind. It's not that there are different minds but different experiences of mind. Ramana Maharshi said or maybe it was Nisargadatta or Mooji etc that all any being knows is that feeling of I exist. Then they make the point that that feeling of I is the same I, the great self or the not self. I remember Mooji saying that it's not just people but every being, every fly. He also said that once the big I is experienced, one can go beyond that where there's no I.
MK wrote me that he was at the Yuba River and he looked at a fish and the fish looked at him and that he experienced first hand the sameness of their mutual feeling of I exist.
Ramana Maharshi said that the ultimate spiritual statement is in the Bible: I am that I am. That's not describing some being somewhere else.