Q: I read your answer to a previous question on this topic but am still not clear. What would be the state of all the knowledge of Advaita that I have acquired? E.g. I know now that I am not the doer and I should surrender the fruits of all my actions. But how can I still know this if I wake up with Alzheimer’s?
A: As I intimated in the answer to Q. 383, you have to differentiate between paramārtha and vyavahāra. In reality, there is only Brahman. There is only the appearance of people and world. They are mithyā. Their real substrate is Brahman.
We appear to have a body-mind and that body-mind is subject to disease, decay and death. This applies equally to the body-mind of the jñānī. The difference between the jñānī and the ajñānī is that the former knows that the body-mind is mithyā, while the latter doesn’t. Just as the body may suffer disease or even lose parts through accident, so the brain also is subject to illness and deterioration. Since the mind is associated with the brain, if the brain suffers loss, the mind will also. The memory may deteriorate or fail completely. This is the case irrespective of whether the jīva had previously gained Self-knowledge.
Again, from the vyāvahārika perspective, you can say that the jñānī will not be reborn, and the body-mind will perish once the prārabdha karma has expired. Whether the mind of this jñānī will suffer Alzheimer’s prior to death is a part of that prārabdha. (Although one has to say that it does not seem reasonable to suppose that the karma of a particular jīva should be to become enlightened AND then to get Alzheimer’s!)
From the pāramārthika perspective, no one has ever been born in the first place, so death and rebirth are simply an aspect of the appearance.
Hope this is clear and not too disheartening! It was a good question and I think it is useful to have clarified this issue.
Q: Yes, thank you for clarification! My reason for asking is that I worry that, if I developed Alzheimer’s, I would go back to not knowing that I am Brahman and instead believe that I am a body-mind again, and be subject to all of the problems that go with that.
A: Here is how I addressed the question on the Advaitin List back in 2017:
The realization that ‘All there is, is brahman’ and ‘I am That’ is a realization in the mind. It is not ‘objective knowledge’ in the usual sense of the word, however, but rather of the nature of the knowledge that ‘I exist’ or ‘I am conscious’. So I would hazard that it cannot be thought of as being subject to loss in the way that knowledge of where I live might be lost, for example, in the case of someone who develops Alzheimer’s.
However, one has to conclude that, if the brain is damaged to the extent that meaningful thought can no longer take place, then yes – the jñānī will effectively revert to an ajñānī. But one has to be careful of the meaning of these terms. I am being quite specific here in referring to knowledge taking place in the mind. Clearly an Alzheimer sufferer would never be able to become enlightened in the first place because the mind is unable to function in the way necessary to be able to take on board Self-knowledge.
Does that help?
Q: So Alzheimer disease can cause a jñānī to revert to an ajñānī?
A: That is not quite what I said. Please re-read the first 2017 paragraph. Do you think that an Alzheimer’s patient would still believe that they exist?