What is the point - conclusion

[Guest guest]

I will briefly comment on any further points made by the group and would

like to make this my last post on the topic. I am most grateful to everyone

who responded and humbly acknowledge the many wise observations that have

been made. I feel that to prolong the discussion further would be

counter-productive. After all, no firm conclusions can ever be reached and

the purpose of the list is to provide stimulating and informed input

hopefully to enable buddhi to exercise some discrimination and not allow

manas free rein (reign?) over a mass of opinion. I feel that these aims have

been achieved here - a perfect example of how such a list should operate!

 

Jaishankar's further elaboration of pramaana and the importance of

sampradaaya was helpful. It is clear that only a sage who has studied the

shruti can be qualified to interpret their content, given that this content

is partly determined by the teaching tradition itself and the manner in

which it was agreed to try to interpret reality for the mind of a seeker. I

suppose the use of Sanskrit words is an example of this. It only makes sense

to use those terms when both speaker and listener have encountered them in

previous reading and teaching and have a clear understanding of what they

mean. I prefer Sadananda's more liberal view, however, in respect of what to

do when a sage contradicts the shruti. As long as one accepts that sage and

follows his teaching, it is fine to ignore the shruti altogether and thus

not encounter the contradictions. Fallacies in thinking cannot really apply

when the material is beyond mind and logic anyway. However, if your nature

is to regard the shruti as infallible and a sine qua non, then that is fine

too.

 

Unfortunately, although I have accepted Francis Lucille as a living teacher,

my mind still seeks to understand the traditional teachings too. I welcome

Sadananda's posts on the Brahmasutras. I have long regarded this as

something I should really make the effort to look at. We did once study the

introductory paragraphs for some weeks (couple of hours a week) at my old

school but did not progress further - and then I left. Please restrict to no

more than 1 post per week though or I will never keep up!

 

 

I like Frank's point about embracing contradiction. Clearly this is a viable

technique since Zen is so successful! It is certainly true that there is no

end to questions from the mind, even when there is the certain knowledge

that the truth is beyond the mind. Ridiculous, isn't it? There are certainly

claims to many different paths (or to no path being possible, which I think

Greg pointed out is still effectively a path). I conceded that, given the

ineffable nature of things, any could be helpful but all are ultimately only

thorns or boats to be discarded as merely temporarily useful metaphors.

 

Patrick has picked up my comment about 'doing'. I think that this is

something we could treat as a new theme and I would be very interested to

continue this dialogue - perhaps we could entitle it 'Doing - me or God' or

something to differentiate it from the previous thread. You say that you

have not encountered so strong a determinism as that of Spinoza in Advaita.

But Ramesh has the metaphor of life and the universe being a huge painting

on a wall, stretching to the left (= past) and right (future). Because we

are so close to it, we can see very little but, if we could step back far

enough, we could see the entire thing laid out irrevocably now. This must be

about as hard as it gets! But as for God's free will, presumably if He

doesn't like this painting, He can easily do another one!

 

I think I'm running out of questions on this topic now, Greg, which is one

of the reasons for calling a halt. As indicated above, I think I am now

happy with the contradictions. Yes, I agree with the statement that truth is

reality *within the context of discussions on Advaita*. If you try to pin me

down too much on what exactly I mean by this, I may flounder and escape by

saying that the ultimate nature of these is beyond description or even

conceptual understanding. They're only words after all!! (Tongue in cheek

remark.)

 

Sadananda's further remarks on pramaaNa beautifully summarise all that has

been said on the relative status of the sage and the shruti and the ultimate

need for shraddhaa. I am relieved that you do not consider the statements of

the shruti to be axiomatic. Your reference to the explicit statements about

reincarnation in the giitaa is useful. This was the traditional view to

which I was referring and is precisely the sort of description which makes

no sense to me, having taken on board the hard, Direct Path, definitions.

However, less we all embark on further arguments about this, the giitaa is

not strictly speaking shruti, is it?

 

Gummuluru asks me to explain the dilemma again. I ask that, bearing in mind

what I have said above, if you are happy to discontinue this topic, let us

do so now. I was not being disrespectful to either sage or shruti, merely

pointing out again that reality is intrinsically beyond mind or intellect so

no words can ever explain anything so must necessarily be untrue, however

well they try.

 

I see that the discussion about Strong Determinism has begun now from

Patrick's posting. I will not make any further comments on this for the

moment other than the implied one when I made the original statements. How

can God be 'absolute' if He has no free will?

 

Thanks again to all for an excellent discussion.

 

Namaste,

 

Dennis