Inquiry 5:  What Validity Has Vedanta?

The root problem is that in the end, even Advaitic teachings finally rely on ‘blind faith’ to put their point across. There’s nothing wrong in having faith. All religions ask for blind belief in the almighty to get you your promised ‘Kingdom of God’. It’s only in Advaita that folks try to push their case by saying: “No, it’s not pure faith, it’s by reason and discourse that we reach the truth etc”.

To quote Gaudapada in his Mandukya Upanishad kArikA, “That which is stated in the scriptures ‘and is supported by reason’ is true and nothing else”. The ‘reason/discourse’ argument for following Advaita is pure bunkum, in my opinion. It relies on blind faith not on a deity, but in an obscure ‘Self’.

The implication of this series of questions is that the self is wholly theoretical, that it is some philosophical conjecture cooked up and served to the mindless masses as a means of pacifying their angst over an apparently purposeless existence.  It further suggests that the self is either a half-baked notion to be accepted on blind faith or an intricate intellectual construct whose validity is so be settled through argument alone.

Vedanta, however, is neither a faith-based religion nor a theoretical philosophy.  True, its method of self-inquiry does require faith in its initial stages because the student’s understanding is still clouded by ignorance.  But the truth revealed by Vedanta is verifiable through a conscientious examination of one’s own experience.  This isn’t to say, of course, that self-knowledge is a discrete experience, but rather that the knowledge contained in experience and which can be culled from it through thoughtful, logical inquiry does serve to reveal the truth when it is properly understood and assimilated.

Actually, according to Vedanta, the quest for a discrete experience of the self is completely gratuitous.  The fact of the matter is that we are already experiencing the self every moment of our lives.  If reality is non-dual – which it is – then quite obviously there exists nothing other than the self that can be, ever has been, or ever will be experienced.

This assertion, of course, voicing as it does the fundamental understanding upon which the whole science of self-inquiry is based, begs an answer to the question, “How do we know that the nature of reality is non-dual?”

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Inquiry 4:  Is There Any Proof That The Self Exists?

This then raises my more fundamental query. This ‘Self’ on which reams have been written – what is the proof that such a ’Self’ exists? 

I know that the self is by virtue of the fact that I am.  Simply put, the self is – I am – self-evident.  More to the point, I know the self because I am the self.

“Still,” you might ask, “how do I know that my self is THE self?”

Some suggest that there may be more than one self.  The singularity of awareness, however, can again be verified by yet another meticulous examination of one’s own experience.

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The Purpose of Life, Part 3

Inquiry 3:  For What Purpose Would the Self Want to Play?

Question:  How can we believe in lila? What could be its purpose? There is no convincing answer – I am sure you will concur.

Our initial inquiry concerning the purpose of life is, of course, valid only from the perspective of the apparent individual entity questioning life’s purpose and making inquiry into the nature of reality.

But what about the self?

What possible reason could the self have for assuming the appearance of the universe and seemingly enacting its continuous and seemingly interminable cycle of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, success and failure, triumph and tragedy, birth and death?

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The Purpose of Life, Part Two 

Introduction

Recently, a question – or rather a series of questions – was submitted to Advaita-Vision whose fundamental concern was the seeming purposelessness of life.  This series of questions and comments also directly expressed or implied various other doubts that beg for clarification in order to better understand and more fully appreciate the existential predicament in which we find ourselves as apparent human beings.

The entire series of questions was included in the introduction to “The Purpose of Life, Part One” and can be reviewed therein if you would like an overview of the issue as a whole.  The series has subsequently been divided into several sections, each of which focus on a different aspect of the fundamental doubt concerning life’s purpose, to facilitate a thorough and coherent analysis of each of the issues raised.

What follows is the second in a series of inquiries through which we will progressively consider each aspect of the rather complex and enigmatic issues of whether or not life has a purpose, and if so what it could possibly be.

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The Purpose of Life

Introduction

Recently, a question – or rather a series of questions – was submitted to Advaita-Vision that read as follows:

Q: What is the purpose of life?

If, as stated in Advaita, we are actually in a state of sat-chit-Ananda and we are actually this ‘Self’ already, why have these ‘illusions’ and this ‘ignorance’?

How can we believe in lila? What could be its purpose? There is no convincing answer – I am sure you will concur.
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