The post ‘Duality is mithyA’ (see here) is based on the verses 19.20 -22 of Upadesa Sahasri (US). Swami Parmarthananda has discussed (transcripts of his talks on Chapter 16 of US) the same topic with a different reasoning which according to him has scriptural support though he has not cited it.
Advaita Vedanta acknowledges six means (Pramana) of knowledge of which direct perception and inference are important. I see red colour and green colour and say that the two colours are different which is my experience too. If asked whether I see the ‘difference’ as an object, my answer is in negative. That is to say, there is no direct perception of the ‘difference’. It also means that the ‘difference’ cannot be inferred, because for inference, there should be a previous direct perception. Other means of knowledge, namely, comparison, postulation, non-cognition also do not prove difference. Sabda Pramana i.e., scriptures, affirm that ‘difference’ is not real though it is experienced. QED
2 thoughts on “‘Difference’ is not real”
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Dear Bimal,
What an interesting post! I haven’t come across this topic before. Why is it not simply a word that we use? I can see a red apple and a green apple in the same ‘perception act’ and the direct experience is that they are not the same color. ‘Difference’ is simply the word that we use to communicate this perceived fact.
It strikes me that this is another example of the pointless arguments indulged in by academic post-Shankara authors. Similar to the argument about ‘darkness’ (and, indeed, ‘ignorance’) being an actual entity. Although no doubt such authors would argue that there is an objective difference between the examples…
Best wishes,
Dennis
Dear Dennis,
You say “I haven’t come across this topic before.”
BUT you did ! 🙂 🙂
You wrote about it poking fun at the seriousness of the PSAs on those intellectual acrobatics — presumably to attain mokSa!
I am with you and I agree it is such a forgettable topic not worthy of making an effort to remember!
Some excerpts from the then Comment of mine:
To ask about the ‘color’ of the difference between two colors is either utter naivete or disingenuously clever by half depending on the person asking and the context. Paraphrasing the question in terms of ‘sex’, one may ask about the sex of the difference between male and female or the ‘length’ of the difference between 5 feet and 6 feet.
The very fact that we “perceive” an object is because of difference. Our brain is wired like that. There is no escape. We are helpless in this!
So the ‘difference’ between two objects A and B is a second order difference (like acceleration is a second order difference of motion). Hence we cannot find ‘difference’ as a component of an object. That would be, on the face of it, a futile search. Such an analysis appears to be the characteristic of a section of post-Shankara philosophers. Shankara himself desisted from such wasteful indulgence e.g. the locus of ‘ignorance.’
***
You agreed with my observations.
Link: https://www.advaita-vision.org/difference/
regards,