============ awareness is a conceptual reality dicovered or created by Rupert Spira which is not translatable into any other language google says awareness in English in french is conscience, and that conscience in french in English is conscience, thus awareness in English means conscience in English. noun consciousness conscience conscience conscience awareness conscience mind esprit, avis, idée, mémoire, intelligence, conscience conscientiousness conscience appreciation appréciation, valorisation, hausse, remerciement, conscience, estimation heart cœur, fond, conscience, tendresse, humeur, mémoire self-consciousness gaucherie, conscience google says awareness in English in German is Bewusstsein Bewusstsein means awareness but Bewusstsein also means Besinnung, as well as Die Sinne noun das Bewusstsein awareness, consciousness, convictions die Wahrnehmung perception, awareness, cognition, detection Besinnung means consciousness Italian consapevolezza noun la consapevolezza awareness, consciousness, sensibleness la coscienza consciousness, conscience, awareness, sensibleness Greek noun επίγνωση awareness, insight, consciousness γνώση knowledge, cognition, awareness, learning, cognizance, sense ενημερότητα awareness, cognizance ενημερότης awareness, cognizance Spanish conciencia noun la conciencia awareness, conscience el conocimiento knowledge, awareness, knowing, consciousness, familiarity, cognizance ================== Spira is expressing his understanding of Indian thought (philosophy, mysticism) as he understands it through translations unavoidably limited by the translators understanding. Spira, like Amma, is presenting us with his experience, with his understanding the our language, the Kings English, which is common to us, filtered through the unavoidably filtered understanding of the translator. I myself do not wish to be limited to Spira. I want to develop my own thought in the broadest possible framework. Spira does not answer my questions but he distracts me from my search for the answers. Spira is not genuine. He pretends to be thinking, and to have found the answer. But the only valid answer is in the asking. =================== I do not find Spira's monism a solution, an answer to the dilemmas of cognition or action, or to the incongruities of time, I cannot endorse the formulaton of the problem to which he offers a solution. I have spent my life informulating my own questions and experimenting with ossible solutions, which have refined the questions and made them more dogent and fundamental without obviating them As a matter of principle I do not criicise books just as I do not criticise people. I try to understand them, and when I find that they have no substance, or when they disappoint me I accept the differences as a welcom challenge to a deeper understanding. Non-duality is oversimplification. Active thought is contradictory. and dialectical. he contradiction means that there is no answer, only the search for an answer. Words obtain meaning be repetition, they engrave themselves into the hearers or readers thought, experience, life. Consider the Nicene and apostolic creeds. =================== Thinking about Spira book is a useful exercise. I prefer, I need to think and feel for myself. I resist dogna. Words have meaning from prior usage. If one were conversant with, were fluid in Sanskrit dialects'one would have a different understanding. =================== Dear Haran, Thank you again for reminding me of Indian religious/philosophical traditions. I had, of course been aware of their existence, but had shied away from them because of my ignorance of Sanskrit, its history and its dialects, which still are inaccessible to me. I've given more thought to Rupert Spiras Ashes of Love; have found it very stimulating, an illustration an example of an attempt to create reality from language. The Christian prototype of the effort is the Nicene Creed I criticize neither persons nor books. I try to learn from them, but what I learn from Spira's book is not what he wanted to teach me, which is what Spira's wife Ellen Emmet summarizes in her translation of the introduction. Truth seekers familiar with his teaching will find its essence here: concise, sharp as a diamond, overwhelming with its awesome higher reasoning, whilst bathing us in unconditional love. Others will be struck by the clarity and profundity of Reality as conveyed by this master of Advaita, and illumined by the glimpse of an inner revolution. Monique Proulx JANUARY 2013 Translated by Ellen Emmet and Caroline Seymour++ From the Internet's Wikipedia I obtain a very superficial explanation of Advaita Vedanta: The Advaita Vedanta school has been historically referred to by various names, such as Advaita-vada (speaker of Advaita), Abheda-darshana (view of non-difference), Dvaita-vada-pratisedha (denial of dual distinctions), and Kevala-dvaita (non-dualism of the isolated).[36] According to Richard King, a professor of Buddhist and Asian studies, the term Advaita first occurs in a recognizably Vedantic context in the prose of Mandukya Upanishad.[36] In contrast, according to Frits Staal, a professor of Philosophy specializing in Sanskrit and Vedic studies, the word Advaita is from the Vedic era, and the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya (8th or 7th-century BCE[37][38]) is credited to be the one who coined it.[39] Stephen Phillips, a professor of philosophy and Asian studies, translates the Advaita containing verse excerpt in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, as follows: सलिले एकस् द्रष्टा अद्वैतस् भवति एष ब्रह्मलोकस् सम्राट् ति ह एनम् उवाच अनुशशास याज्ञवल्क्यस् एषा अस्य परमा गतिस् एषास्य परमा सम्पद् An ocean, a single seer without duality becomes he whose world is Brahman, O King, Yajnavalkya instructed This is his supreme way. This is his supreme achievement. —Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.32[40] Language is fluid. It obtains much, if not most of its meaning from hin who listens or reads, above all perhaps from him who struggles to understand. What I understand is that there are some English terms, concepts with which translators have tried to explain the vedanta, onto which Spira has latched and on which he attempts to develop his own thinking. I have no criticism, but my understanding veers in a different direction. It's my policy to criticise neither books or persons, but to try to understand and to learn from them. Rupert Spira's book reminds me of the power of words to create a virtual reality in the susceptible mind. I'm persuaded neither by his awareness nor by his non-duality. But he stimulates me to think about what persuades me. Binarity (if you permit me to coin a word is fundamental and essential to human mental activity. Yes and no, 1 and 0, subject and object are dialectic are fundamental characteristics of our thought. Ones use of the digital computer, based as it is on binary logic is inconsistent with the denial of duality. I do not deny that duality entails spiritual problems I do not deny that the spirit, the hagia pneuma, the holy spirit lays claim to the entirety of our existence. I cannot subscribe to monism, to non-dualism, or for that matter, to non pluralism; My life is change. I am adifferent person eavery day. For me, life is motion, from here to there. I am too fidgety to sit and meditate on my Awareness. My thoughts are the bricks and girders with which I build the temple of my understanding, the only place where I am safe from the cruel world. Monism is not for me. There is no truth without falsehood. no yes without no, no life without death, no inspiration without expiration, no systole without diastole. I interpret monism as an escape from the burdens and pains of life; but I have become accustomed to escape these burdens and pains by other devices, by working by doing something; I'm unable to sit still inactively and meditate. For me meditation is the activity of thinking thoughts. I understand religious and "philosophical dogma as nothing but words. I interpret (religious) philosophy as an exhibit of language. Saint John wrote: In the beginning was the word. awareness first used 1828 awareness does not have the meaning Spira assigns to it