What is the point - Part 4

[Guest guest]

I don't really want to open up another discussion of pramaaNa - I expect

someone can refer me to some earlier archive on this - but my understanding

is clearly deficient in this area. I was aware of the authority of the vedas

referred to by Sadananda but I thought that agaama encompassed also the

words of the sage. After all, despite all cries of objection from the

fundamentalists, it seems obvious that words translated and commented on by

all and sundry will lead to ambiguity if not occasional misrepresentation.

The sage on the other hand is here now to answer questions and explain

further until the point is fully understood. I am bound to say that, when it

comes to the words of a realised sage or the words of one's favourite

translation of the Upanishads or Brahmasutra (which is extremely difficult

to understand anyway), I know which one I would go for! (I do acknowledge

the objection that the sage in question just might not be enlightened.) He

can speak to this body-mind, aware of its precise needs and limitations; the

scriptures, set in stone, can never do this.

 

I accept the point about not taking the words of a sage out of context.

Although I did this in the post, the words did come from a complete dialogue

so I don't think I have misunderstood what he was saying. Similar points are

continually made in other discussions so that any opportunity for

misunderstanding gets much reduced when one has read many. Surely, anyway

the same argument must apply to the sruti? You cannot use the argument in

only the one case. I can certainly agree that there is a danger of

misunderstanding either the words (translated from Marathi or whatever) of

Nisargadatta or the words (translated from Sanskrit) of ABC Upanishad. There

is also a danger of misunderstanding the words of a living sage speaking to

one disrectly. The big difference in the last case is that, by further

discussion, he can correct that misunderstanding.

 

I agree that I do have some confusion about 'doing'. The original source of

teaching I had on the subject was that 'only the guna act', the Self does

nothing at all. I have also use the metaphor of the petrol in the car - the

petrol enables the car to move but does not itself actually 'do' anything.

Similarly, the Self enables things to happen but does not itself act. More

recently, Francis Lucille has made statements to the effect that the Self

can 'do' whatever it likes. Obviously, the Self cannot be limited in any

way. Wayne Liquorman says, of course, that our problem is the belief that

we, as body-mind mechanisms, are 'doers' and that, losing this sense of

personal doership is what constitutes enlightenment. He says that all action

is God acting through these body-minds. There is clearly some inconsistency

here that I have still fully to clarify in my own mind. You imply a belief

that Brahman does not act or have free will - this is surely a limitation?

 

You saw some contradiction in my statement about not having any choice but

to wait for the random event of enlightenment. We cannot choose whether to

wait or not. (Who would choose to wait if we had the choice?) But it is not

random that we 'choose' to wait. As I have said, everything that we do can

be traced to cause and effect over events in which we had no free will;

which were themselves all traceable to prior unchosen events (all the way

back to birth if we were able to remember al the minutiae). We do have a

goal (enlightenment) but we can do nothing to hasten it. Our nature

predisposes us to read scripture, indulge in these discussions etc. and we

will continue helplessly so to do but it doesn't ultimately help. Was not

Valmiki the oft-quoted example of this truth? Did not he acquire

enlightenment without having studied anything or prepared himself other than

by butchering a few people?

 

Your last statement (comments on Part 2) was 'I cannot wait for the random

process to make

me detach from the flow of apparently real things.' Does this mean that you

DO believe that an individual can become enlightened?

 

Harsha, I wouldn't have said that I am looking to the 'outside' for

concensus, except in so far as words spoken or written by a sage are

necessarily outside in a sense. Surely the upanishads and the living sage

both speak from direct knowledge of truth of the Self? Should they then not,

in essence, agree? Also, I can accept that I have no choice, but that does

not necessarily make me happy about it! :>(

 

Namaste,

 

Dennis