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The Eternal Now in Advaita Vedanta | Michael James

Closer To Truth

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What if liberation is not entering another world, but awakening from the illusion of all worlds? Michael James explains how Advaita Vedanta and the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi reinterpret eternal life, liberation, time, individuality, and the end of the world as appearances within the dream of ego.

0:00 Eschatology and Liberation
1:30 Liberation Beyond Heavenly Worlds
5:07 We Are Always Liberated
7:41 The Beginning of the Illusion
10:29 Universal Liberation
12:47 The External World and the Dreamer
15:41 One Dreamer and the End of the Dream

Michael James has spent nearly 50 years studying, practicing, and translating the works of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He studied under Sri Sadhu Om, a direct disciple of Ramana, and is the author of Atma-Vidya: The Science of Knowing Oneself. He is regarded as a leading authority on Ramana's primary sources and experiential practice.

More from Michael James on Closer To Truth:
Eastern Traditions and the Big Questions playlist: Eastern Traditions and the Big Questions
CTT Contributor page: https://closertotruth.com/contributor...
Landscape of Consciousness entry, "Sri Ramana’s Self as Pure Consciousness": https://loc.closertotruth.com/theory/...

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Closer To Truth, created and hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world's greatest thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence and sentience. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

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20 Comments

@CloserToTruthTV Creator 4 months ago Pinned

If liberation reveals that nothing ever truly happened, how should we understand suffering, time, and the reality of the world we experience now?

@ernestogonzales9277 4 months ago

No one ever dies. It’s always the other person that dies….

@vinayviking 3 months ago (edited)

7:05 "Once that(liberation) happens it will be clear that there never was any change" - wow thats so powerful

@ShiyrChadash-x2o 4 months ago

'Now' is eternal. That is why the time of day is always Now.
🎉

@RainBroWarrior 4 months ago

Floating on the eternal now, like an autumn leave down the stream of time.

@olaf3140 4 months ago

I meditated for years and never really got much out of it. One night, I went to bed listening to a guided meditation by a certain "guru" on youtube, and somehow I was able to actually follow his pointings and all of a sudden I had the most profound experience, maybe it's what people call ego death? It's not something I can remember, it's not a state of mind you remember, probably because anything you remember has to do with concepts and feelings and things, and what I experienced was beyond all things. But the one thing I remember occurring to me, though I can't comprehend it now, is that I realized that nothing ever really happens. Even death, I realized, was just a blip in consciousness. This was like 8 years ago, and I've never "seen" from that place again.

I'm a big skeptic, not into woowoo or religion, don't believe in life after death... So I can understand when people read/hear this kinda stuff they think it's nonsense, just a silly illusion caused by some quirky neurochemistry, like when you take certain drugs. But the one other thing I remember is thinking "oh this is the most sober I've ever been, the everyday feeling of identifying with your conscious experience is what's not real, just a fun dream."

I don't know why I'm writing this, but I am.

@thomas_brouwer 3 months ago

This is why Zen is so reluctant to talk about the ultimate. There are no satisfying answers from our limited perspective.

@slipton6493 4 months ago

I loved both the questions and the answers.

@GaryV-n6p 2 months ago

Only listen to Michael James on this channel. Pls bring him more.

@MafiMathArt 4 months ago

Excellent guest; deeply fascinating topic. Kudos to the host.

@kaivalaumm9679 4 months ago

Aum Nama Shivaya depuis Arunachala Tiruvanamalai

@I-Am-Aware 3 months ago

Thank you, Robert and Michael, for this wonderful discussion….in the waking-state dream. 🙏

@suketuparikh8696 2 months ago

Very intersting dialogue on Vedanta and Sri Ramana by Michael James. Often connecting eastern tradition which take pure experience as higher truth then one derived from logic. Exactly reverse in scientific tradition where logic , measure is higher. True dialogue can be based on quantification of mental states.

@TheMysticGambler 4 months ago

16:28 Hit me hard. I could never understand how, during my NDE, all my thoughts and feelings associated with my life on earth were fading away. Michael James just explained it at 16:28 during his use of the classic dream analogy. He asked a simple question that cleared it up for me and at the same time "proved" what's going in this world: "When you wake up from a dream, do you worry about all your friends - whether they've woken up or not?"

@parry3231 4 weeks ago

Living with learning and to prioritize the honor of being alive right now with loving kindness and caring.
Everything matters and has consequences.
What we focus on gets the energies.
Simply be present with love and harmony in peacefulness and nurturing.

@adamshawart 4 months ago

great series of conversations. thank you. I really appreciate it.

@ivetivet333 3 months ago

dear dear Michael 🙏🙏🙏 Om Namo Bhagavate Arunachala Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

@ranipatel3572 4 months ago

We are liberated but The ego/mind thoughts separate us from being that which we are. In deep sleep there is no mind only pure awareness. That’s why when we get up we say oh I slept so well! Awareness just IS but the mind says it was a good sleep !
Ramana Maharishi gives an example of the snake and the rope.
When ignorance of seeing a rope is a rope and not a snake which the mind thinks it is we realize that a rope is always a rope. In the same way we are god but we THINK ourselves to be separate. When we are thoughtless as in deep sleep or in meditation or when we are awake when the mind is quiet, we feel time and space have been suspended making us realize that both time and space are constructs of the mind. Thought is a movement, when it moves it creates time and space !
Yes love Michael’s dedication and passion to understand advaita!

@wolwerine777 4 months ago (edited)

Is hard pill to swallow but michael explains it very good, ultimately this reality is just like a huge panoramical dream in the mind of god.And as our people in our dreams are our creation, analogicaly we are the creation of mind of god which is observed by the pure consciousness.