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Re: Siva as Yogi?
In article <4df36o$6fc@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<vidya@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:
<snipping others comments>
> Kashmir Saivism is itself pronouncedly non-dualistic in nature. Any
> philosophical problems that one faces with advaita will ultimately come up in
> Kashmir Saivism also. The problems may not be readily apparent because Kashmir
> Saivism keeps the distinction between "Pure consciousness" and "awareness"
> fuzzy. But Kashmir Saivism's conception of nishkala Siva, and its idea of
> moksha as absorption in nishkala Siva are very close to the classical advaita
> ideas of nirguNa brahman and moksha.
There seems to be an implicit assumption that any non-dualistic
philosophical system will face the same problems of advaita. IMHO I don't
believe this to be the case. Among the difficulties of advaita are the
explanation of the relative and more particularly the explanation of our
own experience. If atman == brahman and brahman lacks qualities then there
is the problem of how do you explain the diversity of our conventional
experience. How can the atman and the jiva ever be related. A similar
problem crops up in the view that mathematical truths are ideal and
transcendental. If they are ideal and transcendental then how are they
knowable. There are a few non-dualist systems that side-step this problem.
Madhyamaka prasangika posits non-duality without postulating a
transcendental unity. Cittamatra posits a non-dual unity of consciousness
and in that system it doesn't seem hard to understand how consciousness can
ultimately be one while still having diversity. Kashmir Shaivism (which I
guess is a pretty vague term) seems to me to be closer to the cittamatra
view. Please note that I am not saying that these other non-dual schools
don't have other problems to contend with. All I am saying is that they do
not have the same problems as advaita vedanta.
<snip>
Kind Regards,
Kurt
