RE: Spinoza & Advaita

[Guest guest]

Namaste, Patrick!

 

I find your comparative explorations regarding Spinoza and Vedanta

very interesting. I must confess that I only briefly studied Spinoza

during my undergraduate years, focusing my energies instead on Kant

and post-Kantian thinkers. I now must revisit Spinoza, both because

of your contributions here and also because a contemporary Jewish

existentialist (Emil Fackenheim) finds Spinoza of great importance.

 

 

In response to a question, you write:

>Greetins Vijaylakshmi,

>

> > I am very eager to know what you mean by "all things follow

> from the necessity of the divine nature".

.. . .

>Spinoza (a 16th century excommunicated Dutch Jew of Spanish ancestry) is unique

among western

>philosophers in that his philosophical project is to trace a path to

enlightment.

>His method consists in what he calls the 'intellectual love of God'.

>He shows how we can train our minds to see everything

>'under the form of eternity', as being 'in God and following from the necessity

>of the divine nature'. In particular we can bring ourselves to the realization

>that all of our thoughts, feelings and actions

>are thought, felt and acted by God through us (so you can see why I don't share

>the Vedantist perspective on Karma). For Spinoza, God Nature and

>Man are all the same thing (no dualist he!)

 

When you suggest that the Vedantic conception of Karma is not

compatible with Spinoza's concept of "the necessity of the divine

nature," are you suggesting that Spinoza had no conception of

being alienated from the divine nature and acting out of harmony

with divine nature? Or that there is no causality separate from

the necessity of the divine nature? Does this imply a "universal

divine will" concept of causality, such that all that happens is

the "will of God?"

 

The idea that "all of our thoughts, feelings and actions are

thought, felt and acted by God through us" suggests a wonderfully

profound intimacy of God with us, but does Spinoza yet see in this

some type of relationship between God-as-God and God-in-us-as-us?

 

Thanks for being here with us.

 

Namaste,

-- Max

 

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