Q: Does the mind play a causal role in enlightenment? If not, then it seems that no change can actually happen. But then we say that there is now Self-knowledge where before there was ignorance. If the mind is neither cause nor instrument, then surely there can be no Self-knowledge because no change can have occurred.

Furthermore, if the mind isn’t a factor, preparatory practices can be dispensed with and ultimately the understanding isn’t something which takes place in time. Is that what’s meant by the mind having no causal role? That realization isn’t something which happens in time? Am I missing something here please?

A: I think that your problem here is failing to differentiate absolute and empirical reality. The bottom line is that there is only Brahman or Consciousness. And you cannot say anything more. (Even that is too much.)

From the standpoint of empirical reality (vyavahāra), there certainly is causality. Enlightenment is the ‘event’ in the mind when the above is realized to be true beyond any shadow of a doubt. And there are certainly causes for this. The first of these is the preparation of the mind – sādhana catuṣṭaya sampatti. Then there is śravaṇa – listening to a qualified teacher or reading very good books; and manana – clarifying doubts by asking someone who knows the answers to your questions. These are all causes, hopefully leading to eventual enlightenment. Being enlightened is having knowledge of the Self. Not being enlightened is not having that knowledge. (Beware of thinking that there is a positive thing called ‘ignorance’ – I have just written a book about this.)

Whether you say that the mind is a cause or an instrument depends upon how you think about it. There has to be a decision to investigate Advaita at some point, which is something taking place ‘in buddhi’. You could certainly think of that as a cause, if you want. But I really wouldn’t worry about things like that. It’s the sort of point that post-Ṥaṅkara writers probably argued about!

I don’t know where you have heard or read that “…the mind has no causal role” or that “realization isn’t something which happens in time”. How can it not be a happening in time? Before, you do not have Self-knowledge; after, you do. Surely, ‘before’ and ‘after’ are the identifying factors for elapsed time? Probably what you are thinking of is those ‘teachers’ who say things like “we are already enlightened; we just do not know it”. What they are pointing to (although do not necessarily know it themselves) is the fact that we are always the Self (since there is ONLY the Self). This is certainly true, but it is also true that most do not know this.

Also, things ‘continue to happen’ for a jñānī just as they do for the ajñānī. The world is still seen and the jñānī still apparently ‘acts’ in it. The crucial difference is that the jñānī now knows that it is all mithyā.