Shorn of all the paraphernalia, there is essentially the Path of Bhakti(Devotion, Worship) and the Path of Jnan(Knowledge through Enquiry).

Depending on the conditioning of the seeker, which is as much to do with the genetic template of the sentient object as well as the environ in which this sentient object got nurtured to "have become a seeker"...

..either of the paths get opted.

And this does not mean, that the "Bhakt" does not move into the state of Jnan or the "Jnani" does not start dancing in ecstasy in front of a symbol of say Shakti.

i.e. the morphing into one another is perfectly possible.


The need to reconcile vanishes when it is apperceived that the two paths in fact reach  the same.

How?

The Jnani culminates to the realization "Only I", not as the individuated I perceiving an array of not-I(s), but as I AM THAT I AM, the sense of impersonal presence.

In the rarest of the rare..........is the further apperceiving that if I am all that there is, who or what is the other, to whom this assertion can be made to?

If none other to whom this assertion can be made, for whom can that very assertion be of relevance?

And this sense of impersonal presence, the I AM also dissolves (the term dissolve, just to use a term).


The Bhakt culimates to the realization, "not me, Only Thee"
(However that "Thee" is conceived)

In the rarest of the rare..........is the further expressing, that if "not me only Thee", where is the me, who is the me, to even make this assertion.

And the very affirmation "Not mine but thine will"......dissolves.


The Jnani is the Bhakt who is the Jnani ..........synonymous to that either terms, either paths are meaningless.


That no terms, (including the term of no-term), can be attributed to that
whose expression is the term.   

 
 
Energetic immersion without insight practice, as hinted at by the Buddha, becomes the cause of further suffering, striving, illusion, delusion, and even much worse imo. We see this in the guru power plays (I have seen far too much of), the scandals, the non-sensical cosmological paradigms & myths based on illusion-fueled 'inner experiences' , beliefs in reincarnation, objective inner gurus.
Having been, known, read & researched this type of group & practitioner deeply, peace & contentment never seems to arise, even amongst the supreme gurus of such groups, whose inner experiences & worldly actions appear to be nothing more than reflections of greed for power, recognition & control (name & fame).


Yes.

This is often the case.

And parallels the drama whether it is the stage of political arena or spiritual arena.
 
 
On the other hand, perhaps equally insidious, is the neo-advaitic trend/fad occurring. Nothing needs to be done, nothing ever happens, there is no self to realise etc. An intellectual understanding of the best conceptual or linguistic representation or rendering of 'Absolute Reality' conceived as all that needs to be understood, with no energetic counterpart needed or required?


Before getting into the so called neo-advaitic trends, let's see the drama played out by both the schools.

The school of thought which is that without doing something and that too over a minimum of a life span, nothing can be achieved, realized, experienced, reached etc etc.

Such a school of thought has to rush to condone, oppose, negate wherever there is a hint of affirmation, that in order to achieve, reach, "become".........there must be an apriori existing, individuated entity, which is afar from the conceived achievement...... which is distant from the goal to be reached etc.

That, if there is no such entity at the start of the game, there can be none to reach the end of the game.

This rush to condone/refute/negate is needed, otherwise a while life time of effort and self believed achievements of that effort .........will go poof, if the other side is allowed to get away.

What will be my identity, if my proclaimed and publicly applauded/accepted enlightenment is seen to be all fluff?

 

The school of thought of "nothing needs to be done, nothing ever happens" are equally on the watch out for the "doers" and at each instance of the proclamation of the need to do something........ they have to rush to sneer, laugh, come out with piercing logical argument to negate anything to be done.



Both betray a total lack of understanding of their very own premises.

A total lack of understanding, which of course is totally needed for such a drama of opposition, negation etc etc to get played out.

The school of "doers" have no clue what is the path of the Bhakt(the path of doers is really the path of Bhakti, whether the worshiped idol is an icon or an abstraction like meditation).

In the path of the Bahkti, for the Bhakt, there is none in his/her universe other than the icon of worship.  

And thus scorn, ridicule, opposition, obstacles, tribulations do not even get cognized, let alone reacted.

See all the examples of Bhakti and the common essence in all such examples is that the Bhakti is so complete, so filling.........that nothing else matters.



The school of "non-doers" trying to oppose, negate .........is another example of  utter ridiculousness of the very opposition.

If nothing ever happens, nothing has ever happened, then what "doing" or "doer-thereof"has happened such that it has to be negated, such that it has to be opposed.


If in the doing of something, nothing ever gets done.........then what doing is to be opposed, negated.


This feuding over the centuries, a mere amusing drama, that's all.




Yes, nothing needs to be done..............which is why everything is possible to be done, and which is why the appearance of  the infinite myriad forms of doing.... ...appears.

As this phantasmagoria.


Yes nothing every happens in any occurrence, nothing has ever happened in any occurrence.......

......and yet everything occurs in order to display what would it be like, if something like such an occurrence.....

..... was to ever come to exist.



And as much applicable to this exchange of pixels over cyber space,
in the form of this exchange.

 


 
 
It may be as close to the 'Truth' as is conceptually possible  but how does it benefit the temporary illusion of 'self' that is unhappy, uncontent, lacking in peace?


The seeking of something to benefit the unhappy, discontented, turmoiled mind/self/entity...

...is the play of the same thought, which in the first place has conceived a  unhappy, discontented, turmoiled mind/self/entity.

The sense of benefit for a sense of lack, both emerge from the same source.

Both are the same.

So it's like the round and round of the mulberry bush.

The apperception of this(which is not the realm of thought and neither not in the realm of thought)...

....has no issue with the presence of any doing or with the cessation of any doing

....seeing the entirety of the drama as a story getting told out.

As a display of what such a story would be like, if such a story could ever be a reality.


The disposing away of even the sense of impersonal presence, the sense of
I AM, through the object known as Nisarga.

And yet the same object kept banging the cymbals twice a day as part of a religious ritual.

Ramana, knowing that there was no seeker in front of him, kept answering the posed questions from such seekers.

Buddha after declaring that at the moment under the Bodhi tree, when there was an awakening, what was seen was that there were none to be awakened.

And  for 4 decades after quitting the Bodhi scene, Buddha kept on muttering on suffering and how to get rid of that hoopla.
 

Which is why the prattling that Buddha spoke for 40 years and not a single sound escaped his lips.



Incidentally, if today the Beedi dude, the dude in the diaper or Buddha were writing on any of the spiritual cyber based Lists....

....they would be denounced as total neo-advaitins indulging in acute advaitic shufflings.
.



 
Even actually realising there is no 'self', or the 'advaitic' realization doesn't, in most cases (I suspect there are exceptions, such as Ramana & probably Niz) completely end the appearance of a stream of experience, 'I' or no-I.


Experiences continue to happen till the instrument for experiencing is "alive".

But there is none to take delivery of that experience, there is no loci for the experience to get anchored and thus claimed.

And whether realization has happened or not, such is the case.





 
Without an energectic counter-part to non-dual realization, all you're left with is empty words, possible nihilism, or a semantic loop which deflects any inquiry into any possible remnants of dis-satisfaction with our relative/energetic state of being.


Satisfied or dissatisfied is an experience apparently getting localised.

Very much needed in the plot of story

 
A path with no Heart. The conclusion may be accurate, the realisation of no-self actual but I honestly believe that ALSO is only part of the possibility for human experience. I feel it can go so much deeper, if we don't shut off at that understanding with the semantic merry go round of conceptual advaita?


Advaita does not take any position.

All it points is that in any aspect of whether it is the apparent reality of the perceived phenomenality, or in the realization of the illusoriness of this "array of perceived",

it is always not-two.

That not-two is never not the case.


Even this pointing gets consumed.....

.... for in not-two-ness..........to who else .....is not-twoness to be shouted at?



The apperception of Advaita is the erasure of the very pointing of Advaita.
 




 

 
 
I don't believe in reincarnation, karma, heavens & hells  a part of my 'advaitic' realisation :) but I also don't think that materialistic reductionism, "there is nothing to do" (for one pre-disposed to seeking), dismissing everything 'mystical' etc covers it.

In my experiences, I have found that synchronicities, 'inner experiences', kundalini awakeninings, inner absorbtion � and even odd occurrences such as telepathy, precognition, timelessness, 'miracle' type experiences around the guru-disciple dynamic (even if the guru is a creep � I believe the process is universal, not personal) etc are REAL. Very REAL.


Within the story, indeed the elements are story real.

And the quality of story-telling depends on how deep the forgetting
that it is a mere story.

 

I also believe the non-dual concept or non-conception is about as accurate as you can get to expressing the ultimate 'truth'.
 
But, you can have a dream that you have realized you are dreaming � without actually becoming lucid. I've actually had dreams in the past where I've gone around telling everybody "this is a dream, this is a dream", whilst never actually becoming lucid!


To those whom you scream at, this is a dream.........are they anything else but dream characters?

If not, then it is not a dream.

If yes, then the ranting is akin  the muttering of Shakespeare

A tale told by an idiot
Full of sound and fury
Signifying nada



 
What a mystery, what a paradox! Does this reflect the non-dual realisation of many of today's neo-advaitists? I cannot say for sure.

I would say a fair test is, if you are non-dual realised, then you will be no more elated by winning the lottery, having sex with the most beautiful partner/s imaginable, or experiencing an 'inner' paradise or heaven, as you would in your most intense moments of boredom.



Or, the sensations of both elation and boredom.......are seen to be nuances of the drama.

As a display of what such sensations would be like, if such sensations could ever come to be actually felt.




 
To go back to the dreamers analogy  once *genuinely* lucid in a dream, it is just as exhilarating being chased by a monster, as it is making love to a woman  the realisation of the illusion, the *genuine INSIGHT* into one's actual condition, is the cause of that exhilaration, not the actions taken within that illusion.
 
To relate the dreamers analogy to dualistic paths, they never realise they are dreaming, but continuously strive to manipulate the dream to create heavens, paradises, bliss states etc  but always remain uncontent or unpeaceful or un-whole  because they don't realise their basic fundamental condition of dreaming individuality, seeking something that is their fundamental nature (wakefulness), seeking it *within* the dream, imo.


The only issue(so to say) is of a sense of preference over segments of the dream vis-a-vis other segments of the same dream.

Dream, no-dream .........poses no issue in the context of no sense of distinction.



 

Anyway, I think this TWO aspects of 'spiritual seeking' are hardly every, in any group, discussed together as aspects of ONE path? Except in hard to decipher Buddhist Pali scriptures?
 
I would suggest any 'skillful' guru or teacher, when discussing with those immersed in dualistic practices or paradigms would emphasise the "nothing to do" or insight aspect - but conversely when discussing with somebody purely 'advaiticaly realised', they would emphasise the heart, energetic, compassion or love aspect? One without the other is only half the potential for human experience imo, and together almost a quantum leap in the experiential sense.


So long thought creates the premise that it is the matter of an experience(human or otherwise)....

.....then thought has to create pathways and create the distinctions between pathways,

as well as the hypothesis of the grand unification of pathways...et al.


Hoopla of thought.