“The timeless non-state cannot be achieved because the mind cannot evolve towards it. The mind can only bring you to the threshold. Awakening comes unexpectedly when you do not wait for it, when you live in not-knowing. Only then are you available.”
~Jean Klein
Realization is beyond words and, ultimately, beyond the mind, though it (and what is referred to by its equivalent terms, awakening and enlightenment) first occurs in the mind, an apparently individual mind. Mystery of the timeless descending, as it were, into time, of the unmanifest becoming manifested, of the limitless appearing to be limited. Words, concepts, are unavoidable and, in this context, ‘experience’ and ‘knowledge’, are irreplaceable (experience-knowledge as one description of the ‘event’ – chit?). Consciousness, being the ultimate witness, sums it all up and, in itself, is not a concept. It does not admit of a description and is not relational.
Akhandakara vritti is, in psychological terms, the certainty that ends all doubts, the moment of realization which happens in timeless time. Ontologically, reality irrupts, as it were, into unreality, whereby the mind is transformed, or re absorbed, into consciousness unalloyed. Prior to that atemporal moment there may have been momentary sparks or instances of awakening or clear vision, anubhavas. But the realization that akhandakara writti consists of is definitive, irrecusable. Three aspects of reality combine in that ‘moment’: power-will-fearlessness (sat), Knowledge (chit), and liberation, freedom (ananda). A symbol of it would be spacelessness (or wide space).
A tarka (reasoning, argumentation) is required for the analysis of anubhava, as both SSS and RB (the author) agree – consistent with Shankara’s position. That is, language and thought, needless to say, have a role to play, chiefly for exposition and analysis.
However, after two long, dense paragraphs RB contends: “If the tarka required to examine anubhava is itself completely dependent on ´sruti, then by no means is anubhava the ‘kingpin’ of pram¯an.as.”
Prior to this, SSS was quoted as maintaining that “for this unique tarka all universal anubhavas or experiences (intuitive experiences) themselves are the support.” The author states that this affirmation involves circular argumentation, and that to say that Shankara interprets the Vedas as being consistent with anubhava is wrong, the truth being the other way around, anubhava is consistent with the Vedas: “it should be clear that according to Sure´svar¯ac¯arya, the direct realization is directly from just ´sruti itself, thus satisfying the criteria for it to be a pram¯an.a…. The direct realization of the self is from ´sruti alone.” Continue reading
Under the section ‘Tarka vs Sruti’ the more or less unconscious devise (upadhi) of removing the subject from the ‘picture’ aimed at understanding the world is broached, and the author (RB) quotes E. Schrödinger in that connection: “It became inherent in any attempt to form a picture of the objective world such as the Ionians made”. And so, “…the desire for understanding the world through our imperfect sensory knowledge invariably leads to certain, frequently overlooked, assumptions”.
It is curious that the first sleight of hand – by ‘primordial man’, the demiurge of mythology and Platonic philosophy – consisted in carrying out a scission within reality so that subject and object would emerge in opposition to each other: God and man (the Garden of Eden), the One and the many. A second scission was done by philosophical, or ‘thinking’, man, by removing the human subject altogether – provisionally, for the Ionian ‘physiologoi’ knew what they were doing, though, it is related, Thales of Miletus fell once into a ditch while absorbed looking at the firmament’s stars in utter wonder. Certainly, this device – or both combined – made possible all the empirical sciences, literature, art, and everything we know about the world. If there were no division or separation (no adhyasa and it’s attending ‘names and forms’), there would be no ‘world’. Allusion was made to this parallel mythological account previously, as well as to the kind of ignorance that became knowledge (with small case). Continue reading
Eskimo story — In the eternal darkness, the crow, unable to find any food, longed for light, and the earth was illumined.If there is a real desire, if the thing desired is really light , the desire for light produces it. There is a real desire when there is an effort of attention.
Vasanas (predispositions)* can be obliterated. It is done by concentration on that which is free from vasanas and yet is their core.
Ramana Maharshi
RB: “Now the error in calling avidy¯a as something epistemic should be obvious. The following extract, from [SSS], is clearly putting the philosophical cart before the horse:
‘Avidy¯a is subjective and has been explained by ´ Sa ˙ nkara as the natural tendency of the mind to superimpose the self and the not-self on each other.’
When the conception of j¯ıva itself is due to avidy¯a, how can avidy¯a be the ‘natural tendency of the mind to superimpose the self and not-self’?” (*) Continue reading
‘A New Approach to Understanding Advaita as Taught by ´Sa ˙ nkara Bhagavadp¯ada’ – by Ramakrishnan Balasubrahmanian – 2
We saw in the 1st part of this Review the primary or prior, not to say exclusive, importance that the author, RB, gives to the superimposition of a subject, individual mind or jiva, on the self: “the superimposition of an observer is avidy¯a and is prior to the reverse superimposition” – not mentioning that Shankara does not talk of a ‘reverse process’, as if it was something happening through time, but of mutual superimposition of self and non-self. Period.
As we noted in the first part of this Review, RB ‘half’ concedes the point: “It is not completely incorrect to say that avidy¯a is the mutual superimposition of the real and unreal. ´ San˙ kar¯ac¯arya and Sure´svar¯ac¯arya do mention this … the superimposition of an observer on the inner-self naturally leads to the reverse process of superimposing the inner-self on the inner organ”. His objective in maintaining this priority of the subject in this ‘act’ seems to be to show that SSS is guilty of circularity (petitio principi, in logic). Even so, and rather surprisingly, he claims that avidya is not something subjective (neither is it ontic nor epistemic – see below). Continue reading
It is too much to try and learn by heart the list of qualifications (sadhana chatustaya) before one can be considered an aspirant to liberation (moksha), unless it is learnt at an early age (which would be useless). Anyone could think of a way to reduce the number of items in the list (3 + 6 = 19) to something practical. If ten people would try to do that, none of them surely would come up with the same list, or the same number. Which ones of the qualifications have priority, and in what order?
For Sri Atmananda -Krishna Menon, the primary qualifications are sincerity and an intense desire to know the truth – these two are sufficient. Elsewhere he made a list (“roughly”) of four requirements:
1. The aspirant should know for certain that there is ‘something’ beyond the appearance of the world of objects.
2. The aspirant should steadfastly keep away from all personal predilections, notions and information about the object of his enquiry.
3. The aspirant should be free from all kinds of religious hankering.
4. The aspirant should have a firm determination to overcome all obstacles to the Truth. (‘Notes on Spiritual Discourses ‘-1426)
That also is difficult to retain, though easy to understand.
Another alternative: To do karma yoga for an undetermined period of time. This is from Sri Atmachaitanya.