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aham brahmasmi - Revised and Enlarged!
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Subject: aham brahmasmi - Revised and Enlarged!
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From: manish@cadence.com (Manish Tandon)
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Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 20:37:22 GMT
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Apparently-To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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From news@cadence.com Tue Jan 31 15: 27:44 1995
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Cadence Design Systems
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Sender: news@cadence.com
Where are all the advaitans gone??
Anyways, here is an even more elaborate version of my original post.
aham brahmasmi - I am brahman
tat tvam asi - you are the absolute (tat/brahman)/ Thou art That
Both these Upanisadic aphorisms seemingly imply that everyone is brahman
and therefore apparently support the advaita theory. Consequently, advaitans
almost always cite them to prove that their's is the only theory supported
by sruti and that Vaisnava approches are all based upon smriti, hence
based upon ignorance.
Well, I know valiancy is to go beat the opponent on their court, so that is
what I will do here (by beating here I only mean defeat their philosophy, not
any physical or verbal abuse).
Whenever a reference is made to brahman, even nirguna brahman, inherent is
the reference to its attributes/nature, i.e. sat, cit, and ananda.
So, aham bramasmi is analogous to saying, "aham sat-cit-ananda"
Now the fun begins, sat means eternity, ie. no beginning and no end,
cit means knowledge, and ananda is bliss.
Both advaitans and others (since there are several schools of people who do
not subscribe to the advaita philosophy) agree that there is a spirit soul
in the body and that body itself is just temporary, i.e. not the real self.
Now, since aham brahmasmi (and consequently "aham sat-cit-ananda") is a
Vedic aphorism, it must be true for all beings at all time and space.
So if I say aham brahmasmi and Vidya also says so, we both must be true and
yes it sounds right, but not for long. Enter "aham sat-cit-ananda", I am
sat (by "I" here I am refering to my soul) and all other are also sat.
Still sounds good, yes we are all eternal, enter the concept of moksha
(liberation) as tought in advaita, the individual sprit merges with the
Impersonal Brahman, becomes one. Here is trouble.
I was eternal, but not any more! there is a logical contridiction. Well,
several questions can be raised and explanations put forward, so I will
analyse some of those too (btw that Lord Krishna also tells is the Bhagavad
Gita about the eternal nature of the soul - 'jiva bhuta sanatanah')
1. aham brahmasmi is true at all time and space but not for every individual
jivatma, i.e. it only becomes true after the individual soul merges
with the brahman.
But that is not true, because that only means that brahman is brahman
the jivatmas are not, rather they become brahman after merging into
brahman. Obviously this is completly devoid of any logic.
How can something become "eternal" (sat)?
Something can be made immortal but not eternal (sat).
Eternity (sat) by definition requires that there be no begining to begin
with, i.e. that thing must always be.
2. aham brahmasmi is true for all beings but not at all time and space. ie.
they become brahman after liberation.
But this is just another way of saying what was said in (1) and the same
contridictions apply. In fact, another one joins in, Veda by definition
means knowledge and how can it be knowledge if it is not true at all time
and space?
3. aham brahmasmi may be true but the concept of self, be it body or soul,
are both false/illusory.
This is the position taken by certain philosophers who insist that since
we are limited, all we see/experience is an illusion. This only leads to
perpetual stagganation, save for chance it will take infinite attempts
over infinite time to attain self-realization under this scheme.
An offshoot of this is the Buddhist philosophy which is seriously flawed
and not supported by Vedanta, some of the flwas in this theory are:
If there is no real self, than what is it that reincarnates or takes
rebirth and thus causes suffering? If that non-material self is also
illusory, than how can it is carried over from one body to the another?
If the body itself is the real self, than moksha/nirvana should be
automatic at the time of death, i.e. no need for any type of yoga.
All buddhist do is some word jugglery saying sunyata is not nothing,
void is not nothingness, etc. and the whole idea of going from something
to nothing is not based upon logic.
Moreover, this option reduces brahman to merely sunyata!!
There was a Chinese proverb, "if you don't know where you are going, any
road will do." A modern counterpart of this is, "If you don't know where
you are, a map won't help." To claim that both concepts of self, body and
spirit, are illusory implies that we don't know where we are since all we
see/experience/know is illusion which in turn means we will always remain
in such miserable situation. Vedic scriptures as a map will not help.
4. aham brahmasmi is always true but the spirit is all one!
Now this is completly absurd. It is beyond doubt that the self in me
is different than the self in Vidya and the self in so and so.
If we are all just one self, than how can one attains liberation and
not all at the same time?
How can a part of _one_ be suffering and other part of the same whole
one be enjoying?
The scriptures clearly say that the jivas are all different (in terms of
their identity) and everyone has to work for their own liberation.
Also if this is the case, Upanisads would have said "sarva brahmasmi"!
bottomline is that this option is completly ludicrous.
5. aham brahmasmi is true and has nothing to do with the situation of jivas
at any particular time, ie. whether they are in the material world or
liberated.
This runs counter to the experience and the rest of the Vedic literature
itself, because if we only have ananda, why are we suffering, why do
the scriptures and the acharyas talk of liberation/moksha (regardless
of the various interpretations of moksha within different sampradayas)?
That it is the nature of ataman to be sac-cit-ananda is understandable
but to say that we always are in that state is denial of the truth and
is not in agreement with rest of the aphorisms in Vedas either.
6. aham brahmasmi is true at all time and space for brahman and the jivas,
but when a jivatma attains liberation, he/it doesn't really merges into
the brahman, rather just goes to the brahmajyoti (or the spiritual world)
and still stays independent.
That is the Vaisnava philosophy, eps. the dvaita. Other vaisnava
philosophies also say the same thing however they do cite a qualitative
similarity between jivas and the brahman. dvaita only speaks of the
difference but that does not means that it denies there is any oneness,
just that the oneness isn't deemed important to be mentioned seperately.
7. aham brahmasmi is not true.
Well that is atheism and we here are not (at least I am not) interested in
discussing that option.
So, where does all this leaves us?
All I have done here is shown that aham brahmasmi is contrary to adavita
(including brahmavad and mayavad). But since we (people intended to be part
of this discussion including me) all already accepted to accept the word of
Vedas and are not open to any option to the contrary.
Also, if we do not break up aham brahmasmi, than it certainly implies that
I am brahman and so are others, so the dvaita philosophy(ies) are also out
of question.
The only philosophy which resolves this riddle is one that speaks of
oneness and difference, of that there are two prominant ones, vishstadvaita
of Sri Ramanuja and acintya bheda-abheda tatta of Sri Chaitanya.
They resolve the riddle because they tell that aham brahmasmi is always
true for all beings (souls). The way it is done is that they tell that
we all have the attributes of sat, cit, and ananda (which is what is required
to establish that aham brahmasmi is true and thus uphold the Vedic scriptures)
BUT, we are not brahman in the sense that we are limited and the Absolute is
unlimited. We are eternal and the Supreme Absolute is eternal. We have
knowledge and the Supreme has knowledge, however our knowledge is limited
which is why we are in this material world undregoing repeated birth and
death but the Supreme has complete/infinite knowledge, which is also in
line with the common experience. and we have limited bliss and the Supreme
has infinite bliss, which also explains why we are hankering after pleasure
here and there in temporary mundane things, other embodied souls, etc but
the Supreme is self-satisfied, AND the two, Brahman and ataman(s) never
become one for that would deny the brahman nature to ataman.
vishstadvaita, as the name implies is qualified monoism, thus it puts more
emphaisis on the oneness than on difference.
acintya bheda-abheda tattva on the other hand begins with "bheda" difference
and ends with "abheda" nondifference and thus puts more emphaisis on the
difference. In the language of bheda-abheda, vishstadvaita can be actually
written as "abheda-bheda tattva".
Now, if there is difference between us (spirit souls) and the Absolute
(brahman), even though there may also be oneness in certain sense, common
sense would tell (the scripture also affirm that) that difference better be
assigned more important.
I have developed a metaphor here to explain my point about difference being
more important than oneness and which is also why we Gaudias Vaisnavas do
not call dvaita philosophy as wrong rather accept Madhvacharya as one of
our spiritual teachers which gave the freedom to some of the people (who
don't know much about this branch of vaisnavism) to fling accusitions at us
by saying that we are wrong since we try to follow both dvaita and acintya
bheda-abheda (Shisha Rao and Vidya beging the prominant ones here).
Consider the case of cats and Lions (Big Cats!) Now both cats and lions
belong to the same biological family, so there is oneness but they are also
different (no explanation needed for that!)
Consider the fate of 4 cats that go in a place which has some lions/tigers,
one that thinks it is same as the lions, one that thinks it is more similar
to lion than it is different, one that thinks it is just different, and last
that thinks it similar but the there is difference and that is more important.
The last two will be most secure since they know about the difference, the
second ones is more likely to get into trouble and the first one is in for
some big trouble (here btw I assume that the popular myth about lions not
attacking cats out of professional courtsey is not true).
Now this is only a metaphor, however I believe there is some similarity it
has with us, in the sense of our subordinate position to the Supreme even
though we are qualitatively one with it (aham brahmasmi/aham sat-cit-ananda).
This metaphor also explains why I believe dvaita (which only speaks of
difference and thus is technically incomplete) is still valid although advaita, which speaks only of the oneness is wrong.
For those who only know of the bheda, the Lord will impart them intelligence
to make their knowledge complete, but those who only think/know of the oneness,
ie. think themselves to be the Lord or deny the existence of a seperate Supreme on the basis of the superficial understanding of aham brahmasmi, well the
lions are hungry and the cats are there :-)
Lord Krishna explicitly says in the Bhagavad Gita that "those who are
completly devoted to Me, I destroy their ignorance with the shining lamp
of knowledge, dweling in their hearts as the supersoul (paramatma)".
So, the dvaitans are safe but the advaitans are most certainly on the wrong
track. They have to deal with all the troubles themselves and progress is
slow and even questionable, given the limited knowledge and strength of an
infinitestimal individual jivatma. BG 12.5 confirms this.
"For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal
feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make
progress in that discipline is always very difficult for those who
are embodied."
It is beyond doubt that Lord Chaitanya who is Krishna Himself established
the most perfect doctrine, acintya bheda-abheda tattva, and I encourage
anyone to come forward and refute it if they think they can. The explanation
given for aham brahmasmi also applies for tat tvam asi because "tat" also
means the Absolute/brahman.
However, I have already said that their is absolutely no point in trying to
say/do what Shisha Rao and Vidya did, i.e. falsly claim that Gaudia follow
both dvaita and acintya bheda-abheda tattva and hence they are wrong. This
as I said before is based either upon incomplete knowledge of Lord Chaitanya's
teachings and/or a desire to deride them somehow even if that takes a little
concocted presentation of facts.
There are other aphorisms in the Upanisads which speak of the duality more
explicitly, but aham brahmasmi and tat tvam asi are the two most often
cited by adavitans, so I only dealt with those here. Dear advaitans, the
bottom line is that sruti speaks of both oneness and difference even in the
ultimate state and there is absolutely no way that you can resolve that
with your incomplete philosophy. Even the most straightforward monoistic
aphorism that you cite I have shown has the difference, by way of the
eternal nature of spirit souls, built into it.
Lets see who is willing to talk and accept logic here and where does the
fudge between logic and dogma comes from.
Hari Bol!
Manish
