/lit/ is for the discussion of literature, specifically books (fiction & non-fiction), short stories, poetry, creative writing, etc. If you want to discuss history, religion, or the humanities, go to /his/. If you want to discuss politics, go to /pol/. Philosophical discussion can go on either /lit/ or /his/, but those discussions of philosophy that take place on /lit/ should be based around specific philosophical works to which posters can refer.Check the wiki, the catalog, and the archive before asking for advice or recommendations, and please refrain from starting new threads for questions that can be answered by a search engine./lit/ is a slow board! Please take the time to read what others have written, and try to make thoughtful, well-written posts of your own. Bump replies are not necessary.Looking for books online? Check here:Guide to #bookzhttps://www.geocities.ws/prissy_90/Media/Texts/BookzHelp19kb.htmBookzzhttp://b-ok.cc/http://libgen.rs/Recommended Literaturehttp://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading
Are you incapable of making decisions without the guidance of anonymous internet strangers? Open this thread for some recommendations.
I've been reading Moby Dick for half a year now and am only halfway through.
>>23354027
>>23354017I read a few chapters of a book and never finish them.I can't remember the last time I even finished a book cover to cover.
>>23354017I keep buying books and never finish the ones in my backlog. I got 75% of the way through Brothers K and C&P a few years ago and don't remember hardly anything about them. 6 months after reading a book I could not tell you anything about it.
>>23354017KEK what book is on the reading list for 2025
>>23354017I won't pick up a new book until I finish Faust part 2 but I can only read 5 pages of it at a time before getting incredibly bored
How is the Dissolution experienced in deep sleep or the end of a world-cycle different from what Yajnavalkya describes by the name Atyantika Pralaya - Absolute dissolution of enlightenmentHe uses metaphors like the lump of salt dissolving in water in Br 4:5-13 "Having emerged out of these elements, he vanished along with them after transcending them there is no more consciousness" As I have followed along, in deep sleep due to the absence of empirical experience, the Jiva becomes one with the Absolute, that union "Satsampatti" is threatened with a break in the state, with a return to waking, however through Enlightenment one realizes that he has always been the Absolute Ātman without any vestige of consciousness or action.It is clear that whilst in deep sleep or dissolution, one can't even engage with the world. So if we realize that we were without any vestige of empirical consciousness or action how would we continue to transact with the empirical world? Like Yajnavalkya said there is "no more consciousness," shankara repeats that it is not like we have to repeat the mahavakyas like "thou art that" like to retain and sustain the experience like some later vedantins said, but only that Manana, Niddhyasana and so on were prior to Realization - he made it clear that this didn't mean that brahman was subject to injunction, for that reason that it could only be subject to injunction if it were already attained and then those injunctions were engages with like Manana.How does the constant chatter of "what's next," "what if," "soo..." integrate into this realization?
>>23352600>>23352522>>23352465I would say a single reddit community is like the collective embodiment of a "distended vikalpa" The result of oversensitization facilitated by the internet, and egalitarian leisure. The whole problem stems from the average individuals inability to relinquish their tendency towards comparison, now that doesn't mean "blending all things together into a chaotic mess" I will explain. An example I will provide is the myth of "human equality," that is taken as an almost basic assumption, but implicit in that notion of a equal whole humanity is inequality, the very notion of equality is abstracted from inqueality, inequality is observed so an artificial equality is attemptedly overlain upon it. It is only when the unquestioned assumption is challenged, when both "equality," and "inequality," or comparison all together, does one start to understand an actually whole life and humanity. A humanity in which each individual is distinct and unique, each thing is distinct and unique, one from the other, they are all incommensurable and incomparable to eachother, as "every number is infinite." As soon as that shift occurs, the "distended vikalpas," fall away without effort and a step towards wholeness and true fulfilment is made in independent sovreignty and freedom.
I am confused about the degree to which Advaita REALLY differs from Vishishtadvaita. Shankara doesn't really deny the provisional existence of grades of being within Maya does he? Couldn't an enlightened sage still enjoy beholding the complexity of Maya after enlightenment? It doesn't all just dissolve like a cloud?I would very much like to have an Advaita reading group. We could read a secondary source first or we could go straight to the Upanishads and Shankara's commentaries. Would anyone be willing to keep a thread like this going?
>>23352911>I am confused about the degree to which Advaita REALLY differs from Vishishtadvaita. They agree on more than most people assume at first glance although important and seemingly unbridgeable differences remain. To the extent that Vishishtadvaita worships the Saguna Brahman and endorses karma-yoga and bhakti-yoga Advaita accepts much of its practices as being valid ways of making progress towards moksha, but just as not as effective as the Advaitic method, There is a history within the Advaitin tradition of understanding Ramanuja respectfully in this light although it's expressed in primary source texts that are not translated.>Shankara doesn't really deny the provisional existence of grades of being within Maya does he? This is a complex question and you'd have to get more specific about what you mean. He accepts that there is a practical and empirical difference between an object comprised of the gross (or subtle) elements which exists relatively as part of the cosmic illusion and on the other hand pure delusions that are conjured up by one's imagination and don't even exist relatively if that's what you mean.>Couldn't an enlightened sage still enjoy beholding the complexity of Maya after enlightenment?A fully enlightened sage would have no further desires for enjoying anything in the Advaitic view, having uprooted desire and not identifying with the mind anymore, but he could still interact with and perceive the complexity of the world. The world of empirical experiences doesn't vanish in enlightenment but only one's mistaken beliefs about it vanish. The mind continues on experiencing the world until death but without any fear, unhappyness etc, and this is how instruction is imparted to disciples by a realized teacher.>It doesn't all just dissolve like a cloud?No, Shankara specifically writes about a type of karma called prarabdha-karma which remains and which accounts for one's continued empirical experience of the world until bodily death, he mentions it in at several places including Brahma Sutra Bhashya verses 4-1-15 and 4-1-19 as well as Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya verse 1-4-7. >I would very much like to have an Advaita reading group. We could read a secondary source first or we could go straight to the Upanishads and Shankara's commentaries. Would anyone be willing to keep a thread like this going?I'm too busy to organize and maintain myself but I would participate if someone else did. I've already read all of Shankara's authentic works but I would be happy to contribute to any discussion of reading them. My discord username is diomedes6067 if you want to reach me there.
>>23352465What you say is true in that following or studying the Advaitic teaching could help alleviate their psychological distress but I don't know if there is much to say about that specific kind of insecurity as opposed to others because the Advaitic advice would apply to all such kinds of misidentifications equally. Due to being connected more their hormones, their "unconscious urges", libido etc, I would imagine it's harder to disentangle oneself from the mind's anxieties about that particular anxiety compared to other possible anxieties because this topic seems more intimate to oneself than many others but the same advice would still apply at the end of the day. If you understand that the real you is already timeless and free and genderless, and that the current body is just one of innumerable images in a series which have appeared without beginning, and that you are not the current image any more than any of the prior ones, then that can help you stop considering the body-image problems and insecurities to be yours.If someone is going to study Advaita or try to apply its insights to improve their life or mental well-being while still living in the world and being social or sexually-active, you kind of end up having both a 'long-view' and a 'short-view' where you understand that ultimately, you are not the body etc and there is just the non-dual consciousness of Brahman alone, but in the 'short-view' you are playing your role in the cosmic play by acting out your identity as individual so-and-so and that since you've decided to remain in the world you might as well enjoy what it has to offer while not letting yourself get hung up on things that are ultimately irrelevant when viewed from the 'long-view', and you can still take steps to remedy problems in the 'short-view' but without mistakenly viewing them as being more than what they are. In cases of insecurity about body problems and similar issues you can even take steps to remedy it (penis pumps, skin regiments, hair transplants, working out, boob jobs etc) while still viewing that as ultimately just part of the role you are playing in the game and as not pertaining to the real you. In years of posting and seeing others post online about eastern philosophy once in a blue moon you see people who are either mentally ill or who are inexperienced newcomers and who may express shock or unhappyness at some realization that they claim made everything meaningless or messed with their life and rendered them unable to socialize etc, but I think that this is typically the result of them failing to successfully integrate their 'long-view' with the 'short-view' and that most people who aren't mentally ill can eventually learn to do this with time. I would even say the people who fail to do this right from the outset of their study seem to be a small minority and usually have some other issue going on, like people who take LSD and it brings out their mental illness that was under the surface.
>>23353800Well it is for sure not a specific problem, but being connected to the unconscious libido such a thing would be more difficult to entangle, that makes alot of sense. I am totally aware that all such problems, "body dysmorphic" disorders would present issues of this sort, in a more general and extended way. I just find that issue interesting to contemplate, is there anything about the libido discussed in advaita texts? Anything about psychological wellness, just plain and simple renunciation seems as if it could not end well. But yeah there are all sorts of problems, as many as the mind in conjunction and relation to the body can conjure. This specific problem I only highlight because I noticed it seems to cause such a problem for those people, and it did make me reflect on the issue more generally, "what if I didn't have such and such a body, what if I were to be missing a limb, and so on" because clearly they are not excluded from realizing the truth of their being in whatever form. I guess in more general, my question should be reasked in the form, what is the right relationship with the body and sexuality in advaita? I read some things like just envision the body as flesh, blood, feces and so on to cause "vairagya," and to be completely celibate but that didn't sit right.
Why were paperback covers so much cooler in the past and why are they so gay now?
Imagine just general publishers were putting out specialized philosophy (and, in the sixties, anthropology, sociology etc.) works for the masses too
>>23353635They peaked in the 60s and 70s. Probably the best decades for book covers. Once the 80s began, book covers went to shit.
Industry decided to punish zoomers for their obsession with image.
DRUGS editionprevious >>23350107 / >>23352659
>>23353978Netherlands definitely already allow it
>>23353981okay, man, I hope you are able to overcome whatever you have! Have you tried to change your environment? I know that stagnation can feel suffocating.
>>23352785I'm afraid of life. Other people, the outside world. Most of the time, I just want to be left alone with my books. Yet, sometimes I do yearn for those things. I've been reading Montherlant's notebooks, and he talks with such vitality, such confidence and strenght. "The main thing is to take a chance with life. It doesn’t much matter what comes of it." he says, but I can't stop worrying about what would come of it. I'm paralyzed. I can't even write due to this fear.
Took a selfie in the pub toilet and and I'm pissing myself at the thought of putting on my story with the caption 'genuinely having a wank'
>>23354044Will somebody give me the confidence to do it. Spiritually I'm an ox, I'm ready to make the move, emotionally I'm nowhere near where I need to be
>reunites with his childhood crush after she hit the wall>asks her to hook him up with a hebe gf, and she introduces him to her 16 year old daughterWhat did Proust mean by this?
>>23354018things were better back then
It's clearly very amateurish, but it wasn't worth all the seethe it generated back then
>>23353945I read it when I was like 16, back when the movie was coming out. It was very derivative but entertaining nontheless, maybe I found it interesting because I too was a big Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fan and around the age the author was when he wrote it. It's "okay" all things consider.
>>23353945I recently read Murtagh and am currently preparing to write my first letter to Paolini. I started this series in third grade and it was fucking awesome, I had no clue who Tolkein was or about the plagarism- just that I wanted to be a dragon rider like Eragon. I also couldn't pronounce either of the main characters' names and was stuck putting the wrong emphasis on Eragon (e-RAH-gun) and butchering Saphira (sah-FIRE-uh) until my friend corrected me. To this day the series is my guilty pleasure, I don't care if it's a load of hot garbage.
>>23353945What are everyone's thoughts on Oromis?
>>23354011i'm not a mind reader
I'm still mad he didn't get with the cute elf girl at the end.
I have already checked out some works:>Plato's Cratylus>Umberto Eco's The Search for the Perfect Language>A dozen articles on Sound Symbolism>John Wilkins' Essay on Real Character>Borges' essay on John Wilkins>Leibniz' Characteristica Universalis>Edward Sapir's The Function of an International Auxiliary Language>Books on Nostratic>Books on Proto-Indo-European
>>23352035You will never be Tolkien!
>>23352035babel is a parable, we're living through another babelization right now
bump
Relaxing in the thermae edition>τὸ πρότερον νῆμα·>>23288574NOTE: replace ' dot ' with an actual dot to access the links below>Μέγα τὸ Ἑλληνιστί/Ῥωμαϊστί·https://mega dot nz/folder/FHdXFZ4A#mWgaKv4SeG-2Rx7iMZ6EKw>Mέγα τὸ ANEhttps://mega dot nz/folder/YfsmFRxA#pz58Q6aTDkwn9Ot6G68NRgFeel free to write your thoughts/stories/etc... in your target language.>Work in progress FAQComment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>23353892It is almost certainly καλὸν ἔπος because of the phrase's position relative to the caesura
New to Greek and reading through Thrasymachus. Does Greek use the dative the same way Latin uses the ablative of means?>ὁ Χαρων τῳ πλοιῳ φερει τους νεκρους εισ ἉιδουAm I right in reading this as Charon carries the dead to Hades using the boat?
>>23353948yes, simple dative instrumental
>>23353948Yes, it does. The ablative got partitioned between the genitive and dative (thank fuck, I hate the Latin ablative).
>>23353542You can basically call it ‘Proto-Romance’ if you wish. It definitely existed by all the existence, but wasn’t written, so we don’t know how it exactly sounded or the extent of its influence.
If the most a novelist can hope for, the highest achievement, is to have your work adapted into a successful film television show...... why don't the novelists just cut out the middle man and star writing screenplays instead?
>>23352863Games aren't even art, nor a proper storytelling medium.
>>23351760>ifisn't, shouldn't be. it's relevant only in terms of financial gain, which may already be redundant if the book is popular enough to adapt.I'd be much prouder if I made a living selling books I wrote rather than screenplays. Screenwriters wish they could write a book
>>23352008I wonder what the slush pile at a publisher or agent looks like
>>23351760Getting a film adaptation of your novel would be more profitable. The success of your novel will generate automatic sales of an adaptation, which means less risk for a producer, which will factor into your sale price.
>>23351760the nepobaby screenplay writers need a job too you know
Very superficial book. If you already know your stuff don’t bother. If you don’t know fuck all it’s not a bad option but it’s politically correct. Giving this one a 2/5 on the ole Goodreads. Just doing my duty to warn you off bad books and steer you to good ones; sometimes I’ll make a thread after reading. See you later.
>>23354002No chud, this is not a book review
>>23354002What are good ones you suggest?And I hope you aren't just saying that cuz you're conservative or something. Suggest me good books covering this topic that aren't conservative leaning.
>>23354022I haven’t read enough geopolitics books to be able to recommend anything, that’s why I got this book as a primer. But if you read the news, especially something like the Economist, you won’t learn much. Anyway let me show you an example of political correctness, this kind of stuff is annoying to me. But it’s not all bad, he is redpilled about the Arab Spring (well, halfpilled: he never names Islam as the problem, just walks around it and blames colonialism).
Give me the good stuff anons. Scandinavian, Anglican, American methodist, whatever youve got. Deep cuts welcome
S.O.S HELP MY FLESH NEEDS DISCIPLINE t. creflo a dollar BLESSED IN THE MESSt. joyce meyer
BAMBOOZLED BY JESUS t. yvonne orji
>>23352760>marilynne RobinsonI think she's the greatest living american authors and her commitment to Calvinism is commendable.Housekeeping is extraordinary.
>>23350578I can't believe nobody has mentioned the 21st century's greatest Protestant theologian Paul Tilich yet, his work is the only Christian thinking I've found that actually engaged with Phenomology and the continental tradition of Philosophy.
EVERY DAY A FRIDAY t. joel osteen
Is this an intellectually worthwhile topic of investigation?
>>23350263Lol do they consider continental western europe also Franco-Saxon homelands or some shit like that?
>>23351756You’d be wrong by that estimatation. Besides is an image board, no one should care about punctuation or proper grammar when writing a post no one that matters is going to see, anyways.
I couldn't come up with a thesis subject so I failed. I wish I could have some weirdo or made up niche subject like this to work on.
>>23353816Do you plan on retaking your thesis? What's your course? You could ask a large language model to just come up with something.
>>23350272sounds pretty tame desu
This board gets a disproportionate amount of radical literature with little to no literature on how to overcome radicalization. We know about Rules for Radicals. What is something to do the opposite? To deradicalize and restore sanity?
>>23353914Fuck off with your thread topic The real topic should be why are we still talking about the same neocon bullshit for 30 years and why was influential author Francis Fukuyama correct?
>>23353926We can be reasonable, personally I'd even take 200k and a daughterwife
>>23353914secret organizations training people to cause civil unrest for a power grab... you crazy, man.
>>23353914>inculcate intosmartest twitter user
>>23353914porn, video games
