bax (or baxishta if he’s feeling uppity) does not consider himself fully awakened, but knows for sure that he’s recognized glimpses of the self. He says this puts him in an awkward position and insists on starting off with this apology,
if what i’ve seen is true
then i’m a hypocrite
every time i speak about it
no better than the man who
having awoken briefly from his dream
rushes back to tell his friends what he saw
“you’re all in my mind”
he informs them
and they laugh at him twice
once for being obviously wrong
and once for being right
and therefore talking to himself
my only defense is that
even hypochondriacs do get sick
and even hypocrites do awaken briefly
bax’s motto is “self is solid”, and he considers himself a student of Ramana Maharshi, whose favorite description of the self was “a dense mass of self-knowledge”. He considers himself a post-new age thinker, and feels that most of what is discussed today goes only halfway to Shankara’s great ‘three laws of self-knowledge’. Specifically, much is said about consciousness but not very much about the self itSelf.
Interview recorded 2/17/2010.
YouTube Video Chapters:
- 00:00:00 – Introduction and Background
- 00:04:03 – Self-Discovery, Music, and Health Issues
- 00:07:13 – Fact and Fiction
- 00:10:43 – Different Dialects for Different Schematic Regions
- 00:14:01 – A Near-death Experience
- 00:16:53 – Affective Flatlining
- 00:19:10 – Coming out of Nothing
- 00:22:24 – The World Lacks Existence
- 00:25:02 – The Experience of Solid Existence
- 00:28:23 – Recognizing the Glimpse of the Real
- 00:31:19 – Solidness as the Measure of Reality
- 00:34:34 – Mini-cycles of Seeking and Depressions
- 00:37:33 – The Evolution of Personal Development
- 00:41:11 – The Deep Dark Density
- 00:44:26 – Unpacking Points: Solidness and Intelligence
- 00:47:50 – The Paradox of Existence
- 00:51:01 – The Illusion of Consistent Laws
- 00:54:25 – Brahman as the World
- 00:57:54 – The Phases of Seeking
- 00:58:58 – Uncertainty
- 00:59:45 – The Marvel of Creation and Divine Intelligence
- 01:04:08 – Embracing Contrarianism
- 01:07:02 – Being a Trouble-maker
- 01:10:18 – The Cycle of Thought
- 01:13:25 – The Scale of a Thought
- 01:16:53 – The Presence of Self in Contrasting Situations
- 01:20:10 – The Clarity of Perception
- 01:23:22 – The Importance of Defining Words with Care
- 01:26:13 – The Importance of Truth and Half-Truths
- 01:28:53 – The Beauty of Existence and Non-Existence
- 01:31:13 – The Urban Guru Café
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