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Re: Advaita (was Re: Siva as Yogi?)
In article <4duetc$gjg@babbage.ece.uc.edu>, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
<rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
I wrote:
> > 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.
To which Ramakrishna replied:
> There seems to be a big mis-understanding here. What exactly is the system
> which is called Advaita? Traditionally people accept Shankara's system as what
> is called Advaita. Again and again and again questions have been raised about
> "conventional experience", whatever it may be. In this regard lots of
> half-truths and myths have been spread by various people, including
> (supposedly) some of his own followers. Shankara refutes any such thing as
> realization. It is NOT a state to achieved. There is only ignorance, which
> makes us think that we are not "realized".
>
> How do you explain a building which you see in a dream? The masters are of the
> opinion that explaining creation, etc is like explaining how a building
> came to exist in a dream. The mind which has imposed causality THINKS that
> someone must have built it etc. In the dream you think SOME ONE must have
> built it. You do not realize that it's YOUR own metal creation.
First of all it may be worthwhile to consider the question: ``What is the
purpose of this discussion?'' or more generally ``What is the purpose of a
tenet (or philosophical) system?'' The only interest that I have in a
discussion in SRH is one that seeks to elevate my state of undertanding and
through a cognitive transformation to help lead me from a state of
ignorance, marked by emotional suffering, to a state of enlightenment,
marked by contentment and an absence of suffering. Similarly, what I seek
in a tenet system is a viewpoint that produces, or aids in producing, a
similar effect.
So in this context when you say
> Finally, there is no jiva (verse 10) and hence no need to explain the
> relationship between jiva and the atman.
or
> At the risk of repeating myself ad-nauseam, there is nothing to "know" or
> "realize". One just has to lose the delusion.
or
> Advaita does NOT regard the "usual reality" worth explaining. Since it's a
> delusion, what explanation does it need anyway? In short Advaita has NO
> problems in this regard.
Then if I take you as a valid exponent of the Advaita philosophy, which I
am genuinely happy to do, then what you are telling me is that Advaita has
nothing to offer me. To use your analogy from above:
> How do you explain a building which you see in a dream? The masters are of the
> opinion that explaining creation, etc is like explaining how a building
> came to exist in a dream. The mind which has imposed causality THINKS that
> someone must have built it etc. In the dream you think SOME ONE must have
> built it. You do not realize that it's YOUR own metal creation.
or I might simply say: ``You have to wake up.'' So to continue the analogy
let me volunteer that I acknowledge myself a dreamer Moreover, I
acknowledge that I need to wake-up. The methodology for this that you, and
apparently Advaita, are offering me is to simply stop acknowledging the
reality of the dream. I think that this is definitely worth trying once.
This approach apparently worked for Ramana Maharshi. I would say that
something similar worked for Hui Neng, ``the 6th Patriarch of Zen.''
However, having tried this viewpoint and my ignorance was not dispelled
(i.e. I did not wake up) then I don't see what Advaita has to offer me. To
simply continue to repeat (ad nauseum ;-) ) Mahavakyas, quote
Shankaracarya, Gaudapadacarya, or the Upanishads doesn't change my state of
ignorance.
In a prior post you said:
> All
>criticisms of this teaching of non-duality [ie. Vedanta] are based upon a >reluctance to give
>up one's habit of thinking in dvandvas, and are due to extending one's
>experience of ordinary reality to the realm of moksha, of which the vast
>majority of us have had no experience.
I would put it differently. Criticisms of Advaita Vedanta come from the
fact that from the standpoint of philosophical discussion pure Advaita
Vedanta, as you are expositing it, is about as interesting as solipsism. I
think that a a computer program can be written that passes the Turing test
as an exponent of Advaita Vedanta.
But this is just a gratuitious comment that I couldn't resist - because I
am not evaluating Advaita Vedanta from the standpoint of philosophical
discussion but from the standpoint of a tenet system to lead individuals
out of ignorance. Here I don't feel that it has much use for me. Moreover,
I can't see any benefit in simply ``emulating'' the non-dualist standpoint
when I have no such experience. In fact I can imagine that I might
experience some cognitive dissonance were I to ceaselessly posit a view
that has no foundation in my own dualistic experience. Of course this is
only a personal assessment. I wouldn't want to comment on the utility of
the Advaita Vedanta tenet system for others.
Mangalam,
Kurt
