VIA NEGATIVA as a "pathless path" to Self

[Guest guest]

VIA NEGATIVA

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In all philosophical, spiritual, religious and mystical traditions

and literature, apart from many other approaches, there are two

distinct ways or methods to the realisation of the Ultimate Reality,

Truth, God, True Self, Reality, Brahman, Tao, Oneness, Enlightenment,

Nirvana, Consciousness: the Via Affirmativa and the Via Negativa –

the Way of Affirmation and the Way of Negation.

 

Let me put your mind at ease right from the beginning: contrary to

some people's belief, the Way of Negation is only "negative" (in the

sense of being "destructive") to that which is false and unreal.

Since all genuine spiritual enlightenment must involve a total

transformation, not just an improvement of one's personality — and

that can happen only through the destruction of all false notions and

delusions we have about the Self, God, Reality… — the Via Negativa

and its iconoclastic approach is, in my opinion, the most positive,

therapeutic and enlightening intellectual and practical means

available to anyone seriously interested in such a transformation.

 

Some Vedantic teachers have used the way of negation (Neti Neti = Not

This, Not This) as their exclusive means to point to the Unknowable,

Undescribable, Ultimate Reality, Self, Brahman. Abhava is a form of

Yoga in which the Yogi sees himself as zero, nothing, void of all

pride and vanity. Buddha's basic teaching is the negation of

personal "self", ego or soul, as a thing or entity (anatta = no

permanent self). The Heart Sutra is a classical example of Buddha's

profound teaching via negation, as well as Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka and

many Tibetan teachings on Void (Sunyata). Most enlightened Taoist,

Ch'an and Zen masters, past and present, have been teaching the way

of negation as the supreme means to enlightenment, e.g. Wu (non-

being), Wu-hsin (no-mind), Wu-nien (no-thought) and Wu-wei (non-

acting). In Dionysius the Areopagite, Meister Eckhart and St. John of

the Cross, Christianity has had the most eloquent exponents of the

Via Negativa, expounding union with God through self-negation.

Advaitists, Nihilists and other philosophers and mystics (e.g.

Sartre, Nishitani, Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Wei Wu Wei, Meher Baba,

Osho, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Krishnamurti, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Ramesh

S. Balsekar, etc.) spoke about negation very eloquently. For example,

Krishnamurti often asked his audiences: "Is it possible to live in

this world and be nothing, to negate one's knowledge, to be empty of

thought and of one's conditioning, of one's idea about one's `self'?"

 

Even the modern science is now confirming the insights of the Via

Negativa mystics and philosophers, by finding out and pointing out

that the substratum of all that exists, the cause of all that is

manifest, of the phenomenal world, lies hidden in the all-pervading,

ever-present creative "empty" space, field of infinite possibilities,

the so-called Zero-Point Energy, Void. Sub-atomic particles are

observed to pop-out of "nowhere" in a total vacuum of an

acceleration chamber — and interact with the observer's mind, thus

demonstrating beyond any doubt the essential Unity between the

observer and the observed, subject and object, thinker and thought,

inner and outer, energy and matter, phenomenon and noumenon, This and

That, One and Many, All and One, One & None…

 

The Via Negativa, whether realised and practised through one's

meditation, contemplation, religion, philosophy, art, mysticism or

science is (due to some ignorance and misconceptions) still very

seldom used and often avoided spiritual highway towards

enlightenment, i.e. towards the realisation of the essential Oneness

of ALL THAT IS.

[Guest guest]

To add to Ivan's survey article on the via negativa. Here's an endorsement

of the via negativa, a small Tibetan Buddhist quote from Dzong-ka-ba, a

spiritual descendent of Nagarjuna and the founder of what became the

Ge-luk-ba order, the order of the Dalai Lama:

 

In summary, with respect to those two modes of teaching,

those which teach in the manner of "does not exist, does

not exist" are instances of the mode of teaching the

ultimate. Those which teach in the manner of "exists,

exists" are instances of the mode of teaching conventionalities.

 

In spite of this via negativa approach (often thought more severe than

Advaita Vedanta's), it's not that nothing exists at all. Rather, there is

conventional existence, as the quote continues:

 

Furthermore, not existing in "does not exist" refers to

not existing ultimately and existence in "exists" refers

to conventional existence.

 

From Dzong-ka-ba's GREAT EXPOSITION OF THE STAGES OF THE PATH

 

With metta,

 

--Greg

 

 

At 05:38 AM 11/9/00 -0000, Ivan Frimmel wrote:

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VIA NEGATIVA

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