Talk by Philip Marvin 14/12/2015

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Talk by Philip Marvin 14/12/2015

Postby Administrator » Tue Dec 15, 2015 10:20 pm

This talk was given by Philip Marvin on 14 December 2015.
66 minutes.
http://www.studysocietymedia.org/talks/ ... Marvin.mp3

Transcript of talk:
http://www.studysocietymedia.org/talks/ ... eeting.doc

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Rumpelteazer
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Re: Talk by Philip Marvin 14/12/2015

Postby Rumpelteazer » Wed Dec 16, 2015 6:59 pm

So yet another swipe at Hungerford Group! It should be obvious that the question ‘What is Self-realisation?’, is simply another formulation of Ramana Maharshi’s famous question ‘Who Am I?’ – the question that the Shankaracharya said led to Ramana’s realisation. As any genuine teacher knows, no words that are absolutely true can ever be spoken/written. It is child’s-play to criticise genuine efforts at Self-discovery by ignoring the meaning and attacking the words. As several genuine teachers of Advaita (including the Shankaracharya) have pointed out, washing a thin veneer of non-Duality over a deeply held feeling of being a separate ego (and the consequent behaviour as such) leads only to a strengthening of the apparent ego. For example:
The original Shankaracharya said once that those who are ignorant, and those whose Prajna (knowledge of truth as ‘being’) is not firmly established, keep on saying that everyone is the Absolute without real knowledge of it. Their being is in darkness and they move towards darkness and not towards light. (HH Study Society Record 24th October 1990)

Readers should note that (apart from a few Mela and Ashram talks) all responses from the Shankaracharya are answers to questions from a specific person who has a specific misconception, lack of understanding or need for advice, and is at a specific point on the spiritual path. (The same is true for reported dialogues with any other spiritual teacher.) Furthermore, anything from the SES Record should be regarded as suspect as, unlike the Study Society Record, the wording of the SES Record was ‘improved’ by Leon McLaren and is not as the original translator gave it.

Unlike in Dr Roles’s day, we now all have a wonderful choice and very easy direct access to genuine teachers of non-Duality who really have realised their true nature. There are on-line videos, webinars, regular meetings, retreats. Some even hold satsangs at Colet House (generally non-Study-Society events). Love, compassion, happiness, lightness of being are their hallmarks. They have no hungry ego to feed and therefore have no cause to continually assert their own superiority or make snide and disparaging remarks about the sincere and loving efforts of others.

Wei Wu Wei said “a school is an efficient instrument for reinforcing the stranglehold of the so-called ego”. It seems he was right.

fiona
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Re: Talk by Philip Marvin 14/12/2015

Postby fiona » Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:44 am

I would like to express my gratitude to Peter and Fionnuala Eadie and to all those in the Hungerford Group. There is always a richness of understanding and of questioning to be shared by everyone during those Friday afternoons. The phrase ‘when two or three are gathered together in My name’ has real significance. I was one who responded to the suggestion that we give attention and awareness to the expression ‘Self-Realisation’ (to the question ‘Who am I?’). Though we all know that words are just a shadow, nevertheless the sharing with others, when done through Love, is a wonderful thing indeed. I suspect we are all in tune with the ‘tricks’ and ‘assumptions’ that the narrative self, desperate for its own preservation, will attempt to make. In any moment it will flex its elbows and try to push its way in. The nature of the particular exercise given, which could be referred to as the contemplation of Oneness, is that all this transient nonsense shrinks away in the Presence of the Absolute. The exercise far from being a ‘working it out’ by the mind can actually be its liberation.


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