In my last post, I promised that I would provide another (clinching?) argument as to why the world does not disappear on enlightenment. Here it is. I use this in the book that I have just completed, which provides lots of examples of how many modern teachers misrepresent the various topics in Advaita, leading the seeker on a merry path that is unlikely to lead to enlightenment. (I have only just sent this to the publisher so it will not appear until the end of next year at the earliest. It will be called: ‘Finding the Self: A Guide Through the Minefield of Modern Advaita’.
The metaphor often used by those who maintain that the word does disappear is the rope-snake. The ignorant traveler sees a snake in front of him and is afraid. When light is shone onto the object, it is revealed as a rope and, they say, the snake ‘disappears’. Similarly, the ignorant seeker initially believes that the world is real. But when the knowledge of Advaita illuminates the issue, the world disappears. (Interestingly, they do not say, by direct analogy, that what was thought to be the world is realized to be Brahman, which would be the true situation.)
But I would like to turn to a metaphor that I don’t think has been mentioned before in our discussions – the vandhyā-putraḥ (son of a barren woman). It is used as an example of something that is tuccham, something that cannot exist, like a square-circle. So it does not actually apply to the world. The ‘world deniers’ usually say that the world belongs to the prātibhāsika category, like a dream. When we ‘wake up’ from a dream, the dream-world disappears. Enlightenment is then likened to ‘waking up’ from vyavahāra. But, if we examine the logic of the vandhyā-putraḥ metaphor, it illustrates how the world deniers are ignoring the statements of the scriptures and misusing logic.
Let us logically analyze their position by comparison with the metaphor.
Step 1
- The word ‘barren’ means ‘unable to have children’.
- The word ‘anātman’ means something other than ātman.
Step 2
- It follows that the son of a barren woman does not really exist. (If it did, this would invalidate the meaning of the word ‘barren’.)
- It follows that anātman does not really exist. (If it did, there would be at least two things, which would invalidate the meaning of the word ‘Advaita’.)
Step 3
- Therefore, if I assert that ‘the son of a barren woman does not exist’, that statement is true.
- Therefore, if I assert that ‘anātman does not exist’, that statement is true.
Step 4
- If I make the statement that ‘person X is the son of a barren woman’, that statement is false.
- If I make the statement that ‘the world is anātman’, that statement is false. Note that any statement to the effect that the world is illusory, a dream, or anything else other than Brahman, means that it is being claimed to be anātman.
Step 5
- Reason, logic, and word definition lead us to the intellectual realization that there is no such thing as sons of barren women.
- Enlightenment is the intellectual realization that there is no such thing as anātman.
Step 6
- Consequently, person X is not the son of a barren woman and may continue to exist.
- Consequently, on enlightenment, the world is realized not to be anātman and does not disappear.
To summarize, without the bullet points, the term vandhyā-putraḥ is a logical impossibility – a barren woman cannot have a son, by definition. Accordingly, if we say “there is no son of a barren woman”, that statement is true. But if I were to point to person X and say that “X is the son of a barren woman”, this statement would be false. It does not mean that X does not exist; it means that our initial description of X was wrong. Applying the metaphor to the case of the world, the only way that it could disappear on enlightenment is if it is anātman. But the world is not anātman – it is Brahman, as is pointed out by the scriptures – ‘all this verily is Brahman (sarvam khalvidam brahma)’. Therefore, if I say “there is no anātman”, this statement is true. But if I say that “the world is anātman”, that statement is false. Brahman is sat – reality, regardless of its appearance. Enlightenment cannot make the world disappear; it causes us to realize that our assumption that the world was anātman, or ‘unreal’, or ‘illusory’ was mistaken.
Ah nope.
First your metaphor is setting up a straw man to demolish (irrespective of whether this straw man is the son of a barren woman). As you often say a metaphor is just a pointer.
Second it is a bit of a long-winded route, just to say that Advaita dictates that there can be no second thing, and therefore no Anatman. So we all agree that there can be no Anatman => so the question is what is the multitudinous variety which seems separate from us. Your answer to that is the world is Brahman; your ‘world deniers’ say it is an illusion.
Third, an illusion / dream does not exist – so, it can indeed be said that a dream son of a barren women does not exist. Your starting premise leads to a circular logic – you assume that the son exists, therefore you say he cannot be born of a barren woman. But the son is illusory in the first place; that is the only way he can be the son of a barren woman – because someone has made up his parentage.
Finally the ‘world deniers’ are basically holding to the Upanishads: there is only homogenous, partless Consciousness; the world and the ‘I’ that interacts in the world are both illusory, images superimposed on Consciousness. As both the world and I are the sons of a barren woman, they do not exist – only barrenness exists. Hence why both superimpositions are no more on realisation. The world cannot disappear, because it, and the ‘I’ / seer to whom it appears, never existed in the first place.
Nice try! But you are now confusing empirical and absolute reality.
It is not ‘my reply’ that the world is Brahman. What else can the Upaniṣads mean be ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’?
In empirical reality, I, you and the world exist, verified by pratyakṣa. We are talking here about waking – vyavahāra not pratibhāsa. The argument relates to logic. Reason cannot be denied, says Śaṅkara.
I am not the son of a barren woman – I am Brahman, aham brahmāsmi. If you are the son of a barren woman, then indeed you do not exist. Why am I even responding? Poof!
Again, you are defining boundaries of an argument which the ‘world deniers’ don’t acknowledge; vyavahara and pratibhasa are the same in this model; as Gaudapada says the waking world cannot be seen as different from the dream world. Both are superimpositions on Consciousness.
Back to a surrogate pregnancy for your barren woman. 🙂
What do you understand by ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’?
The answer is in my posts. When an individual has a dream, he can rightly say “all this dream is verily me”.
Why are you talking about dreams? What do you understand by ‘sarvam’?
Sorry Dennis, as always we are talking past each other.
Hi Venkat,
I do appreciate that that happens, and apologize for my part in that!
This is why I am trying to keep everything very simple this time. I do not want to bring in any Śaṅkara or Gauḍapāda. The only scriptural quotation I wanted to use was ‘sarvam khalvidam brahma’. To my mind, this is synonymous with the fact that, as Advaitins, we accept without question that absolute reality is non-dual. I did not think that this could possibly be contentious.
I thought that we could agree that in reality everything, including all appearances, whether ‘illusory’ or not, are Brahman. Because there is nothing else. Anātman does not exist. An illusion always has an explanation. A hologram is light diffracted through special optics; a movie is light projected through a film; a magic trick is skillful misdirection or whatever; a rope-snake we all know about. None of these things, including the subtle perceptual and thought processes involved in our interpretation of them, are anātman. There is no anātman. Everything is Brahman.
Brahman, being absolutely real, cannot disappear – ever, under no circumstance. I have never disputed that the world is an appearance, but it is name and form of Brahman. Only anātman could disappear. Since there is no such thing, the conclusion necessarily follows.
I see no straw men here. Please explain the deficiencies in this argument, keeping everything very simple and not bringing in any other material.
Best wishes,
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
Sorry for the delay. I have been more focused on writing about Gaza and the West’s slow-motion collapse.
I don’t disagree with what you have written above.
My understanding of your position is that the universe has a ‘relative reality’, in which our body-minds live and die. It does not have to disappear, as it is all Brahman.
My understanding of Dr̥ṣṭi-Sṛṣṭi-Vāda is that an illusory jiva and the world simultaneously. And so self-realisation, which is equated to destruction of the ego, means there is ‘nothing more to see here’.
I’m not advocating one or the other – I was previously interested in finding out which was “true”, hence my taking the challenging position; I took the contra position with Michael James in a discussion.
I’m still more inclined to the latter, but it is of no consequence.
What I would be interested in, is that as you subscribe to the former, what does that mean to you in terms of:
a) Substative attenuation of the ego as the sine qua non of realisation?
b) The actions of a jnani. This in many ways relates to (a) – does s/he see all beings as of the same importance as himself and his dearest ones – and therefore works for the benefit of the world. Or does he continue in his life / career, irrespective of the suffering of others?
VS Iyer (the teacher of the early Ramakrishna monks) wrote:
“A jnani will see the world and get to know it is only an appearance. He is not blind; he sees every thing or object as it is, but he knows it is only an idea. Just as you see a mirage, the jnani sees the mirage of this world too, but he is not deceived by it . . . the jnani sees every object and person as of the same essence as himself, the Atman.”
He also wrote:
“The goal of Vedanta is to see the other man’s sufferings as your own. Because in dream all the scenes and all the people are made of the same essence as yourself, they are as real as you are. Do not treat other people as mere ideas but your own self as real. If they are ideas, so are you. If you are real, so are they. Hence you must feel for them all just what you feel for yourself”
Best wishes,
venkat
Thanks for that, Venkat. You raise some interesting points here but could I ask that you post them as a separate topic so we keep this post to the simple logic of the barren woman metaphor? If you do that, I will respond to your points at the end of the week (I am away for a few days first).
Give it a title of ‘Jnani and the world’ or something.
Best wishes,
Dennis
I’m with Denis on this contra extreme illusionism. The way I would approach it is via the unity of the substratum. How does that object ‘out there’ appear ‘in here’ as it is; what in ‘Vedanta Paribhasa’ is called its perceptuality. The upadhi i.e. the object is a limiting adjunct of pure consciousness i.e. Brahman, the vritti is the object grasped by the mind also a limiting adjunct of pure consciousness. That is what enables the subject and object to flow together or how the object can be carried into the mind.
This does not rule out what in Brh.Up.II.iv.11 is called dissolution or the dropping back into pure consciousness.
“When through these successive steps, sound and the rest, together with their receiving organs, are merged in Pure Intelligence, there is no more limiting adjuncts, and only Brahman, which is pure intelligence, comparable to a lump of salt, homogeneous, infinite, boundless and without a break, remains.”
The roots of illusionism lie in subjective idealism. The vritti/mental modification remains cut off from the object. All we are acquainted with is the mental object and anything outside that is an inference. This sort of thinking puts dream on the same basis as waking perception. No one acts in real life as though this were the case. Very many dreams would leave us with a bad case of PTSD.
I appreciate the support, Michael, but as soon as I hear the reference to ‘Vedanta Paribhasa’, my mind shuts down! We have had so much discussion on this topic in the past that I wanted to keep it very, very basic so that everyone could follow it and not open it out into potential distraction. Hence the stepwise points that I thought unarguable. (Silly me!)
Well, V.P. is a difficult text.
Your own reflections are not straightforward either. I agree with you that the concept of anatman is self-refuting. ‘Who is it that states that there is no self’? Is the unanswerable question. However there are ingenious Buddhists who hold to the anatman theory along with ‘annica’/momentariness who would say that the notion of self is constantly renewing itself along the ever flowing stream of consciousness. They are realists about the world also. Their arguments are dealt with in B.S.Bh II.ii.18. So it is not simply a matter of self-contradiction or self-refutation like the barren woman’s son. The puzzle of how a series of conscious states is conscious of itself as a series remains particularly when you look within and find nothing but these states.
If I have understood you correctly your step 5 is problematic, your claim that ‘anatman’ annihilates the world is not immediately self refuting like ‘I ate my lunch, but no one ate it’.
Śaṅkara and Gauḍapāda overwhelmingly refute the kṣaṇika vādins in the kārikās. But, as I keep trying to emphasize, I want to keep this so simple that there can be no argument. I got into endless arguments with Venkat and Ramesam last year or the year before, once we began quoting and ‘interpreting’ from traditional sources.
Could you elaborate (in words of one syllable!) your problem with step 5, please.
Isn’t keeping it simple the problem with neo advaita? There are no simple knock down arguments like ‘advaita’ means ‘not two’, if you follow ‘advaita’ then … It’s like saying ‘atom’ means ‘not splittable’, there you are, it can’t be split. In the word ‘anatman’ (no self) is lurking a complex position that must be argued for and against. It doesn’t automatically anihilate itself like the barren woman’s son. I can’t put it simpler than that.
Adhiropa/Apavada is the dialectical method of Vedanta. Manana is also enjoined. A little light philosophy is hard to avoid in Advaita.
I think you are missing the point, Michael. This is simply an argument between people who already accept that the ‘bottom line’ of Advaita is the truth – that reality is non-dual. If you like, you can assume a ‘Step 0’: The absolute truth is that reality is non-dual.
If we call this non-dual reality ‘ātman’ then it immediately follows – and we are bound to agree – that there is no such thing as ‘anātman’. If you are questioning this, then it seems that language serves no function!
Please explain in very simple terms if there is something here with which you have a problem.
Hi Denis,
I don’t think that your son of a barren woman, that idle wretch, is doing any work in your argument. You are simply unpacking what you mean by Advaita which you stipulate as true and contrasting it with anatman which therefore must be false because of the non-difference of Atman and Brahman. How does that make the self-realized person continue to experience the world or not experience the world? Some say the realization of the unity of being makes the world wink out of existence, others say the jnani has seen through duality and is not confused. Your argument does not show which.
I am aware that you are trying to get away from the over interpretation of the snake/rope analogy as a vivarta analogy. Like when the snake disappears the world disappears carries the analogy too far. As I understand it the advaitin seeker may believe that the world is an appearance according to the doctrine but actually experience the world as a free standing, subsistent, independent entity. As a realized person, a jnani, he now knows that the world is an appearance of Brahman but his experience remains the same as a mere experience without the accompanying interpretation as subsistent etc.
Plainly stated this may be as assimilable as the barren woman’s son. The world as you say is not anatman for that would leave us with two things, the world and Brahman which is contrary to Advaita. This is as repugnant as the barren woman’s son. O.K. but is not the long form more informative. The problem with analogies is that people lose the sense of their narrow focus.
As you will know Sankara uses the barren woman’s son trope in his dismissal of Vijnanavada B.S.Bh II.ii.28 in the sense that nothing can be like an impossibility. Your different use may create confusion. Just saying.
I don’t disagree with you, Michael. The follow-on issues you raise are similar to Venkat’s comment. All these are addressed in the book. As I said, we discussed all these things before (actually 4 – 5 years ago and not the 2 I estimated!). It was at least partially the result of throwing all this into the discussion at once that no conclusion was ever reached.
My intention here was simply to show, using the barren woman metaphor (which I don’t believe was previously mentioned in those discussions), that the world could not be anātman and therefore could not disappear. I agree that this conclusion begs further questions. I also agree that it seems to be obvious, given that one accepts the premise (indeed, definition) of Advaita. But that didn’t seem to work before!
I make the same suggestion that I made to Venkat: Raise these points in a separate post and I will be happy to respond at the end of the week.
Scriptural texts have been quoted for disappearance and non-disappearance of the empirical world for a jnAni. I try a simple logic. Mind and body system (MBS) is a part of the world. If the world disappears on enlightenment, will it not mean that the MBS disappears on enlightenment? If yes, there cannot be a jivanmukta.
Bimal
And what about exhausting prArabdha?
Hi Bimal.
I’ve used both of those before and argued with Ramesam and Venkat. I don’t recall what was said – you need to check back if you have the patience! But I am not entering into all those discussions again (as I keep saying). I want to keep this thread focussed on simple, basic logic and hopefully agree a reasoned conclusion.
If you don’t want to search through the archives (from around Oct. 2020 – Dec. 2021), You can wait for my next ‘Confusions’ book to emerge from India. (Confusions in Advaita Vedanta: Ignorance and its Removal’). In that, I devote around 15,000 words to looking at all of the arguments on both sides, examining all of the quotations from scriptures and Śaṅkara that have been cited by the ‘opposition’ and showing why they are interpreting them incorrectly. The book has been with the publisher for over a year but is now only held up by the printer. I hope to see it within the next couple of months.
Excuse the double post. I’ll place this in its correct position in case anyone else wishes to comment on it:
(I don’t know where this might usefully go so I’ll tack it on to the end of this thread)
One of the problems of philosophy said Wittgenstein somewhere is ‘the restricted diet of examples’. We need to get away from the standard analogies which can educe ways of thinking about a problem which short circuit understanding. Long established commentary, itself following a template, can block insight producing a rote answer. Dennis Waite is correct in holding the snake/rope analogy to be a prime example of mistake about mistaking. The nature of analogy itself can lead to gross misunderstanding. Let me break that down a bit and sketch my own perspective on this master analogy which no doubt will not conform to Dennis’s.
In clearer light we come to know that it was a coiled rope. The snake has gone…poof. Likewise and similarly it is held that for the jnani the world disappears. No it doesn’t, you have overextended the analogy which was meant to have a narrower focus or to illustrate a particular point. What precisely was that point? It all depends on the context in which it is placed. In the preamble to the B.S.Bh. the analogy is very restricted, in other contexts of confusion and delusion its use is looser.
Dennis wanting to get away from the vanishing world scenario introduces that elusive creature ‘the son of the barren woman’ who is also probably a married bachelor. I think this is a welcome strategy but can any analogy be immune to being taken wrongly. To convict myself I thought ‘anatman’ was referring to the Buddhist doctrine of anatman/anatta. No, and I may be wrong again, anatman meant the world, contrary to Advaita, was not one with Brahman or non-different from Brahman. You have denied that that inscrutable unity. The world in other words was a true appearance of Brahman and could no more disappear than Brahman could. The world then does not have the same status as ‘the son of the barren woman’ i.e. an impossibility. Have I gone awry again?
I was using the logic of the vandhyā-putraḥ (son of a barren woman) metaphor to point out that it would be false to claim that the world is other than Brahman and that, therefore, it could not disappear.
I’ve read through the 6-step analysis again and I don’t think I can make it any simpler. Anātman simply means not ātman. I don’t know what the Buddhists mean by it but I never talk Buddhism!