Are Self and EmpSness the Same?

Okay, this is an excellent quesHon and in places like India this can cause a lot of confusion and this confusion was here [poinHng at Himself] as well because I come from a more Vedan%c affiliaHon, more aZracHon towards Vedanta than to Buddhism. And most Vedan%ans have this kind of mindset about the Buddhists which is like ‘Oh, those shunyavadis (nihilists) you know they have converted the greatest into nothing. What do they know it has to be fundamentally wrong? But the thing is that the Buddhists themselves had a lot of this confusion. So the one that was most accused of nihilism was somebody called Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna and his foremost disciple was ChandrakirH and what would happen is that if people would ask them is there a Buddha? They would say no. Is there anything? They would say no. Is there a no? No. Everything would just get negated and then those who are more posiHve (the posiHve side of you know what I mean by posiHve, the more yes-type of people) in Buddhism they started to get very irritated with this. Because Nagarjuna was becoming very popular. So what happened is there was a concerted aZack on Nagarjuna and ChandrakirH saying that ‘If you say no to the existence even of the Buddha, then why do you call yourself Buddhist? Why are you in the umbrella of Buddhism then sharing all of this, and why are you talking about Buddha-nature if there is no Buddha? Are you talking about coming to your Buddha nature if you let go of everything, if there is no Buddha? So that is when Nagarjuna explained and this was very helpful here as well to see that there is actually no true disHncHon; just you know as every path there could be some difference in them along the way but truly they are poinHng to the same thing because Nagarjuna explained and said ‘My friends you misunderstand me, you misunderstand me because what I’m saying is that empty of even the concept of Buddha and when you are empty of all noHons only then can you come to the True, the True Buddha nature. But if you hang on to even the words like ‘Buddha nature’ then that is the same grasping which the Buddha has very clearly explained that grasping is suffering.’ So there is no difference between grasping any noHon, and let go of all your noHons and then you come to the same. Which is exactly the same process that the Vedan%ans inspired in the ne%-ne% (not this - not this) in the negaHon of all percepHon, in the instrucHon or the poinHng that ‘Everything that comes and goes is not real’ that is the same kind of negaHon. So the only disHncHon is in the talking about what is discovered. So the Vedan%ans may use the word Brahman, but what is Brahman? You can't really describe it. So what does the word point to? You can't really say anything about it versus a shunyata (which some of the Buddhists may be talking about) poinHng to the same thing ‘the empHness’ which is not fundamentally different. It is not like an empty void which many would this misunderstand and they feel like ‘we have to come and live in some empty vacuum or limbo state.’ Just in the same way as the Vedan%an many Hmes misunderstand, like some manifest aspect of Brahman to be the enHrety of Brahman, the most glorious idea of Brahman can be misunderstood as well. In the same way, there are mistakes happening on both sides because when there is a noHon, when there is a holding on to any conceptual idea, then it seems to blur the clarity of our intuiHve insight. So both are poinHng to the same intuiHve insight which is being pointed to in Satsang by all the great Masters and that is independent of percepHon and independent of any concept that you may have about it. Even in the Sikh religion for example which is more devoHonal in its character very beauHful in his character it's very clearly said that ‘If you can think about It you will not you are not ge^ng It.’ ‘Soche soch na hove jo soche lakh vaar’ which means that you may think and think and think, one hundred thousand Hmes but in the process of your thinking you will not get this. So whatever the thought maybe and the Zen Masters took it to another level completely where they just said ‘Chop the head or you know just throw it away and does a dog have Buddha- nature… No’ all kinds of things to just checkmate your thoughts, checkmate your intellect. So, whether it's a ne%-ne%, whether it is a verbal negaHon of everything including the highest concept that we can have, even the Sufi story of ‘higher than that’, or higher than that whatever you can say. Are you god? You say no higher than that. So is a negaHon of the intellect because the true Reality cannot be held in this limited instrument, in this limited object [mind]. So across all faiths, across all cultures are the poinHng in one way or the other which are poinHng us beyond our intellect, beyond our reason, beyond our capacity to conceptually understand into a greater capacity which we can provisionally call ‘intuiHve’ before it becomes too strong a label (provisionally we can call it intuiHve) and say that in our intuiHon, in our heart only there do we really recognize what we are. And the only, only, only way to get to That which is always there, is to let go of ignorance, to let go of false, let go of the misunderstanding, the misidenHficaHon. So you have to taste it now, so don't have like an intellectual board which says ‘Okay, with vedan%ns one point, Buddhist two points’ that is not really going to get you anywhere, except to if it helps you discard a lot of conceptual noHons then that is helpful. But really you have to now taste it from your own insight and there you will see that whether it is a ne%-ne% (not this, not this) or it is a Zen Kuan or the talk about The great middle by Nagarjuna, it's all poinHng to the same. So a great Master, Swami Satchitanandendra SarswaH, he talks about how in Vedanta everything is that ‘Adya roopa apvada’ which means that ‘it presents you a concept, which takes away the earlier concept that you had and then chops away the new concept as well’ leaving you with nothing. And if you look this up on Google you will find many examples he's taken from all the Upanishads where he will say ‘You in your Reality you have (one of the Upanishads will say) you as Brahman will have hundred thousand hands and hundred thousand feet, why you take yourself to just have two hands and two feet? So it replaced this limiHng concept of just being this body-mind into something greater, something bigger which the mind has trouble holding actually but tries to hold on to as some sort of Virat-roop (or great darshan) of the Self. And then later in the Upanishads they'll say ‘What, how can you Brahman have hands or feet? You are beyond all of this.’ So it replaced the sHcky one with the greater one which we willingly let go of and then takes away that and leaves us with nothing that we can really hold on to. It’s a beauHful, beauHful process. So what happens is because we are so used to going in grades (you see we go from first standard concepts to second standard concepts) and we're usually only willing to let go of concepts when a beZer one is provided to us. So you say ‘Okay, okay you are not a human you are Consciousness itself.’ But nobody wants to give up “I am a human’ unless the second part is there, like ‘you're not a human.’ Some of the mind, the intellect doesn't like that ‘Okay, then what am I... But what, what, what, finish, finish, finish. What you're saying ‘I’m not a human I am…?” so nobody likes that. So provisionally we have to use terms (the highest terms we use) and we say ‘You are this, you are that.’ just so that you become free from that very solidified idea and as soon as the Master gets the chance he is also going to say ‘By the way, not even that.’ And then the complaints start ‘Why is this Master always contradicHng himself or herself, why can't they be consistent, why is all of this so confusing?’ and these are all the complaints, all the tantrums to be in response to the invitaHon to be empty.