Buddhist believe in reincarnation and rebirth. Buddhists hold the illusory universe in which birth, life, death takes place as reality. If the universe is illusory then birth, life death is bound to be illusory.
Buddhist do not believe in the existence of the Soul. Without the Soul there no nonduality.
Bhagavan Buddha: ~ “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way... and not starting.
Dalai Lama said: ~ Buddhism need not be the best religion though it is most scientific and religion and inquisitive. But Buddhism has no answer to certain questions like the existence of Atama (Soul) and rebirth. Dali Lama said that as an individual he believes in rebirth as he had come across a few cases of rebirth. Modern science, Dalai Lama hoped would unearth the mystery behind the rebirth. (In DH –dec-212009-Gulburga)
Bhagavan Buddha meant when he said the Self, did not exist, that the physical self alone did not exist.
Atman: real self. (Soul)
Jiva: physical self. (Ego)
Bhagavan Buddha said emptiness. Emptiness means the nature of the Soul, the fullness of the consciousness without the form, time, and space.
Bhagavan Buddha referred to the emptiness as "where thinking fails to attain", where words fail. All that you can say is there “No two". That is Advaita.
Sunyavadins (Buddhists) say that Buddha taught void, and because Buddha went through Idealism, he is called an Idealist. Not so. Buddha cannot be pinned down. Buddha himself does not commit himself but says it is beyond words.
Bhagavan Buddha kept silent, refusing to answer questions on the ultimate. Therefore, he was the wisest man in refusing to commit himself.
Even Buddhism is mixed up with regional culture and traditions of the local religion, wherever it existed. Thus to get the full essence from Buddhism is very difficult.
Dali Lama: ~ “If the scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.
Buddhism has not proved the truth of Nonduality. Buddha pointed out the unreality of the world, we agree. He told people they were foolish to cling to it. But he stopped there. He came nearest to Vedanta in speech but not to Vedanta fully.
Buddhism: ~ Buddhist teaching has itself become a kind of interactive and Self -evolving process, much like its idea of pratityasamutpada. However, the end goal is still Nirvana, which is an experience ultimately beyond all concepts and language, even beyond the Buddhist teachings. In the end, even the attachment to the Dharma, the Buddhist teaching, must be dropped like all other attachments. The tradition compares the teaching to a raft upon which one crosses a swift river to get to the other side; once one is on the far shore; there is no longer any need to carry the raft. The far shore is Nirvana, and it is also said that when one arrives, one can see quite clearly that there was never any river at all.
Buddhist Sunyavada is incongruous because every thought has its opposite every word is tied to its coordinate for all thought and speech can only operate under such dualism. Hence, taking the most fundamental word, existence its implied opposite non-existence is also there, and vice versa. Therefore, the Sunya "non-entity" is meaningless without "entity". Both are there.
Buddhist Idealism speaks only of ideas.
What about the knower of these ideas?
Buddhist Nihilism does not ask, "What is meant by Nihilism?
It is a thought. There must be a thinker of this thought.
When you say "Nothing is" what is the meaning of "is"? "Sunya" is something that exists: you cannot prove that consciousness does not exist. Has the Void a meaning? If so then it is only your imagination.
The Sunyavada ultimate of the "void" is really a breath, and therefore an imagination and not truth. Sage Sankara opposed the Buddhists only, who misunderstood Bhagavan Buddha and became atheists.
According to Sage Sankara meditation always means the critical analysis of the Self to get salvation from worldly tensions. Due to the eccentric ego of the then atheists, Sage Sankara did not go beyond this since the atheists will not accept God beyond themselves. This limitation is not due to limited knowledge of Sage Sankara but is due to the then-existing situation of the psychology of the surrounding society.
Even Bhagavan Buddha kept silent about God because the society dealt by Him consisted of Purvamimamsakas, who were strong atheists.
Bhagavan Buddha told that everything including the Self is only relatively real (Sunya). This is correct because the Self is a part of the universe, which is relatively real with respect to the absolute unimaginable God.
Bhagavan Buddha stopped at this point because the atheists cannot realize the existence of the unimaginable God indicated through His silence.
The point of Bhagavan Buddha is that if God is non-existent, the entire creation including ‘Self ‘is non-existent. Sage Sankara wanted to establish the existence of the Brahman. For this purpose, He made the Atman as the Brahman. He brought out the identity of Self with the consciousness and made the Atman the Brahman. Since one will not negate the existence of his Self, he will accept the existence of the Brahman, which is the Atman or Soul the innermost Self.
Both Bhagavan Buddha and Sage Sankara kept silent about the absolute unimaginable God. The same philosophy was dealt with by them from different angles in different situations.
Sage Sankara disagrees with Buddhists who say, there is nothing - a nonentity. Sage Sankara believes there is some reality, even though things are not what they appear to be. If one knows the truth, he will know what to do to find inspiration for action. The seeker of truth‘s subject is to know what is it that is Real.
Buddhism says: all things are illusory and nothing exists. However, Advaita avers that it is not so. Advaita says that the universe, of course, is illusory, but there is Brahman (consciousness), that exists forming the very substratum of all things (illusion or universe).
Remember:~
Dalai Lama said: Buddhism need not be the best religion though it is more scientific and religion and inquisitive. But Buddhism has no answer to certain questions like the existence of Atama (Soul) and rebirth. Dali Lama said that as an individual he believes in rebirth as he had come across a few cases of rebirth. Modern science, Dalai Lama hoped would unearth the mystery behind the rebirth. (In DH –dec-212009-Gulbarga).
People who believe in reincarnation and rebirth theories are unaware of the fact that their belief is based on a waking entity, which is the false ‘Self’ within the false experience.
The waking entity(you) itself is the false self within the false experience, it means the present experience of birth, life, death, and the world is a falsehood.
Thus whatever is seen, known, believed, and experienced as the waking entity is bound to be a falsehood, because the Soul, the ‘Self’ is birthless, because it is formless. Therefore, the rebirth and reincarnation theory based on the false self’ is bound to be a falsehood.
People who are caught up with the idea of reincarnation and rebirth theories are not qualified to receive Advaitic wisdom or Self’-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana because they accepted duality as reality. Birth implies duality and the duality is falsehood from the ultimate standpoint.
Accepting rebirth and reincarnation theory as reality is accepting false ‘Self’ (waking entity or ego) as real ‘Self’ and false experience (waking) as reality.
Self-realization is an impossibility if one accepts the present waking entity as real ‘Self’ because the ‘Self’ is neither the waking entity nor the ‘Self’ is dream entity, but the ‘Self’ is formless Soul, which witnesses the coming and going of the three states without the physical apparatus.
This imagined theory based on the waking entity (ego) is for that lower mindset which is incapable of grasping the ultimate truth or Brahman.
Deeper self -search reveals the facts that, the waking experience itself’, is an illusion. It means the present experience of birth, life, death, and the world is an illusion.
Thus, the reincarnation theory based on the false ‘Self’ within the false experience is bound to be a falsehood. When the waking entity is not the ‘Self’ then whatever theories based on the waking entity are imagined theory. : ~
Santthosh Kumaar
