Questions by Peregrinus

Posted on by

[Reference: https://www.advaita-vision.org/life-is-a-dream-the-world-is-real/#comment-3266 ]

Gary Crowley 2006Dear PtN,

Great Questions!

In providing answers to those very  questions, volumes have been written, several concepts have been floated and related downstream issues have been under constant debate from several centuries (if not millennia) ago up to even now . The positions taken are so extreme and contradictory to each other that protagonists of different propositions do not see eye to eye.  Unable to wrap their minds around the Advaita concepts and unconvinced by the Advaita models, some people (Tatva vadins – followers of the 13th century Madhvacharya) ascribe as much reality to the individual as to brahman but deny the identity of the two. The fights between them and the Advaitins are legendary. And there are notorious disagreements even within the Advaitins also on subtle details of the theories they propose as answers. Hence it is quite safe to say at the outset that there are no straight answers to any of these fundamental questions, as you may be already knowing from your voracious reading. Hence, switching on all caveats and disclaimers …… …… ……, I stick my neck out.

Q: “ …. how such a finite entity (and not the delusions it is capable of) can arise in the first place – even if the entity and its experience are a mere appearance.”

The FIRST origin of a finite entity is an “Explanatory Gap.”

Neither scriptures nor any Acharyas have been able to answer in a manner that is convincing to the human mind. Some even wave away their hand to say that ‘the human mind’ can never understand. Some wrap it in euphemism (words like anAdi = beginningless) or in mesmerizing words like ‘mAyA,‘ instead of plainly saying “I do not know.” [mAyA in Vedic times simply meant ‘magic.’ It is only in post-Shankara times it reached a different connotation.]

If it helps:

Suppose there is a huge water body. A few bubbles have formed in it due to turbulence (turbulence is also from within the water body and it is not apart from or extraneous to it). That means the bubbles or bubbling is not separate from the water body. The whole system is One.

To answer other subquestions:Think yourself as one of the bubbles. The bubble may consider its thin film as a solid and substantial wall separating it from the rest. Then that bubble becomes a finite, separate individual and the rest of the water body its world.  Its life and destiny are not in its control and it feels limited and constrained. If it has no such thoughts of separation, it will remain just as a modulation within the total water body (which has within it the turbulence + whatever other things).

So two POVs are possible – one POV is as a single separate bubble and the other is as the totality.

The British Non-dualist author G. Crowley says it best illustrating with a Necker cube. He explains that “Enlightenment is the direct result of freedom from the illusion of a separate self.”

Please see the figure at top left. Clicking on it will enlarge it.

(It is slide # 38 from the PPt presentation Re-engineering your ‘self’ at Beyond Advaita Blog http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/ )

View 1 (Finite individual): Can you see the black cube securely tucked into the corner?

View 2 (The Entirety): Now see it as a large white cube with the front corner cut out.

Nothing really changes in “what IS,” whatever may be the view, 1 or 2.

Q:  “Another problem that I simply cannot get my head around is that of reincarnation.”

The concept of reincarnation is a “teaching device” for one who begins the ‘seeking’ with the belief that s/he is ‘born’ and he is a separate individual.

There is no truth to reincarnation. (Please see: Infirmities in karma theory: http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/karma_ramesam.htm )

If you subscribe to ajAti vAda (nothing whatsoever is born) of Advaita, where is the question of ‘rebirth’, when birth itself is not there?

Further, as you suggested, dying and being born is a daily affair – I would say not even daily, it is a moment to moment affair. You (an “I”) is born with each thought (of ‘me-mine’) and dead with the end of that thought!

Q: “… what are the consequences for one who fails to attain enlightenment in this life?”

Is there any “one” separate out there at all?

Death is non-existent in Advaita.

The physical matter constantly gets reformed/recycled.

‘Death’ is only the disappearance of a particular form/configuration.

Q: “ … ignorance of an individual is born and dies with that individual ….”

The concept of ‘Ignorance’ itself is ignorance! Ignorance is illusory.

Q: “ … even if that individual fails to become Self-realized.”

Self-realization itself is a myth – remember GK II-32!

regards,

4 thoughts on “Questions by Peregrinus”

  1. I find the Advaita-Dvaita debate fascinating. There’s the story of Trivikrama Pandita, an Advaitin philosopher who challenged Madhva to a debate, which lasted 7-8 days and resulted in Trivikrama conceding defeat and becoming Madhva’s disciple. There is a contemporary Advaitin who, in a hilarious, denunciatory rant, asserted that Dvaita Vedanta was “Christianity in disguise.” Incidentally, it was from him that I learned of Madhusudana Sarasvati and his Advaitasiddhi. I also find it interesting that Madhusudana started off as a proponent of Dvaita (Nyaya school) before studying Advaita in earnest and subsequently converting.

    My intention is to read the works of Madhva and his disciples before reading Madhusudana.

    A student of Madhva denounced Shankara as a “demon born on earth.” (Incidentally, Nichiren denounced Zen Buddhism as the “spawn of demons.”) I also take note of a present-day Dvaita proponent who stated that Advaita is “the worst philosophy” and “deserves to be condemned.”

    Interestingly, Advaita seem to be more tolerant of Dvaita than vice versa. For starters, the present Advaita website views Dvaita as a valid, albeit preliminary stage of understanding. (Naturally, Dvaitins disagree and believe that the reverse is true!) From the Advaitin perspective, mAyA means duality, and duality means a manifestation of multiplicity, and such a manifestation must encompass all conceivable opposites, no? So it would be natural that Advaita would be more accepting of its antithesis (if indeed Dvaita is truly the antithesis of Advaita) than the other way around.

    Mohandas Gandhi, taking a cue from Jain ontology, is a case in point:

    I am an Advaitist and yet I can support Dvaitism (dualism). The world is changing every moment, and is therefore unreal, it has no permanent existence. But though it is constantly changing, it has a something about it which persists and it is therefore to that extent real. I have therefore no objection to calling it real and unreal, and thus being called an Anekāntavadi or a Syādvadi. But my Syādvāda is not the Syādvāda of the learned, it is peculiarly my own. I cannot engage in a debate with them. It has been my experience that I am always true from my point of view, and am often wrong from the point of view of my honest critics. I know that we are both right from our respective points of view. And this knowledge saves me from attributing motives to my opponents or critics. The seven blind men who gave seven different descriptions of the elephant were all right from their respective points of view, and wrong from the point of view of one another, and right and wrong from the point of view of the man who knew the elephant. I very much like this doctrine of the manyness (sic) of reality. It is this doctrine that has taught me to judge a Musulman (sic) from his standpoint and a Christian from his. Formerly I used to resent the ignorance of my opponents. Today I can love them because I am gifted with the eye to see myself as others see me and vice versa. I want to take the whole world in the embrace of my love. My Anekāntavāda is the result of the twin doctrine of Satyagraha and ahiṃsā.

    Krishnananda Saraswati (who was born into an orthodox Madhva Brahmin family), seemed to have taken “ekam sat, viprAH bahudhA vadanti” to an extreme:

    A Spanish professor wrote a doctorate thesis on my writings under the title The Philosophy of Swami Krishnananda. He tried to emphasize that I am a follower of Advaita though I personally told him I am not such. I do not reject any school of thought, because I consider that each doctrine, each philosophy, each phase of religion is a developmental difference in the evolutionary process of every one and everything to the Absolute. Be all and end all. I agree with Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka and Vallabha, the Pratyabhijna system. I agree with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, as well as Kant and Hegel and their offshoots, F.H. Bradley and Bosenquet, and Josiah Royce. I see no contradiction. Every spectrum of the crystal is beautiful, every petal of the rose is charming, and every ray of the rising sun is a call to life and rejuvenation.

    I would think that Advaitins would see the rise of Dvaita and its clash with Advaita as a natural and inevitable part of lIlA.

    If Gaudapada’s dictum is correct, then my questions are irrelevant, of course. But as Dennis points out in Advaita Made Easy, Advaita acknowledges the appearance/experience of duality and addresses it accordingly.

    But there is really no end to the questions, is there?

  2. With respect to your points on reincarnation, here is some more Nisargadatta (from The Ultimate Medicine), which I think sheds further light on the issue while affirming a number of your statements:

    If your next birth is decided because of your past actions, then what about your very first birth? I do not believe in reincarnation. However, I do not want to discuss that either, but if one insists and says the shastra says so, I will say yes, the shastras, the scriptures state it like that. …
    … That knowledge “I am” is not there after death; so where is any individuality left? So how can there be any question of further births? The fact is that nothing is born. There is no world. The world appears but it is not there. So you are talking about the next birth. But there is no birth at all; even now there is no birth. Understand Krishna! Krishna or any of the avatars is merely a happening, which has come and gone. You are not affected. So who is it that needs enlightenment? There is no entity that needs enlightenment. There is no such thing as enlightenment! After the body’s death, there is vijnana, the absolute state. In spite of the body, I am in the vijnana state. Worlds come and go. I am the original being.
    Enquire only about your own self. When your very birth is disproved, non-existent, where is the question of rebirth? Don’t worry about the world, worry about your own self, about your own birth. These concepts—reincarnation, etc.—are meant for the ignorant. Once you settle this issue of the incarnation of Lord Krishna and yourself, everything is over.

    Regarding your statement

    You (an “I”) is born with each thought (of ‘me-mine’) and dead with the end of that thought!

    That makes sense. As a concept, “I” is changing every instant, not unlike the way that the map of the universe is being redrawn every instant. Your statement also brings to mind the following exchange between Nisargadatta and a questioner:

    Q: The entire world is a stain.
    M: Yes, it is.
    Q: How awful! So the universe is of no value?
    M: It is of tremendous value. By going beyond it you realize yourself.
    Q: But why did it come into being in the first place?
    M: You will know it when it ends.
    Q: Will it ever end?
    M: Yes for you.
    Q: When did it begin?
    M: Now.
    Q: When will it end?
    M: Now.
    Q: It does not end now.
    M: You don’t let it.

  3. re individualized existence, limited consciousness, and bubbles of water — and realization.

    Unfortunately the reference I give at the end is not correct, at least not the exact sloka. Hope it helps.

    “These elements, transformed into the body, organs and sense-objects, from which the self comes out as an individual . . . are merged like rivers in the ocean, by the realisation of Brahman through the instruction of the scriptures and the teacher, and are destroyed. And when they are destroyed like the foams and bubbles of water, this individualised existence too is destroyed with them . . . After attaining (this oneness) the self, freed from the body and organs, has no more particular consciousness . . . How can the knower of Brahman, who is established in his nature as Pure Intelligence, possibly have any such particular consciousness? Even when a man is in the body, particular consciousness is sometimes impossible (e.g. as in deep sleep); so how can it ever exist in a man who has been absolutely freed from the body and organs? So said Yajnavalkya – propounded this philosophy of the highest truth to his wife, Maitreyi” Karika, II,36?

  4. Martin

    Your quote comes from Sankara’s commentary to Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, 2.4.12.

    Best,

    Ven

Comments are closed.