A Course in Consciousness

[Guest guest]

Hi Patrick,

 

"Scientifically trained Westerners" -- I wouldn't say this is good

evidence! In fact, Berkeley's arguments on immaterialism, which you say is

irrefutable, entails that monistic materialism is inconsistent...

 

Regards,

 

--Greg

 

At 01:23 PM 9/5/00 -0000, Patrick Kenny wrote:

Also I don't want to defend the charge that

monistic materialism is not 'consistent' (Raju) because I think the

fact that most scientifically trained Westerners adhere to it is

evidence enough that it is.

[Guest guest]

Ram asked:

As a part of my

concluding remarks, I want to ask you

the following question:

"What do you think are the

primary concerns of

Upanishads and Gita?"

 

Dear Ram,

 

I imagine that if one of your brain

cells were to become self-conscious

it would immediately fall into a

depression and

start agonizing about the nature of its

'true self'.

So it would be necessary to sit it down

explain to it

that it doesn't have a self

of its own --- its true self is none

other than Ram Chandran.

 

Regards,

 

Patrick

[Guest guest]

Dear Patrick:

 

I like your lessons to the brain cells on 'Vedanta'

and I hope they listen!

 

Ram

[Guest guest]

> Thank you for taking the trouble to answer my question in detail.

> As your first sentence suggests, I do have an agenda namely to point

> out that buying into monistic idealism is not a pre-requisite to

> understanding the Upanishads or the Gita and the reason for this is

 

Patrick, I think you are on the right track, but only because the

concept of "monistic idealism" is later than the Upanishads and

has been developed in a different society and culture. But this does

not necessarily imply that the Upanishads teach the opposite.

> that I find a materialism which views matter itself as intelligent

is

> more plausible than idealism. (It is a tribute to the standards of

 

If you think of "intelligence" as a mental attribute, the questions

you need to address first, in any Indian philosophy, are these - Is

the mind conscious? Or is it material? You also need to address -

Does intelligence arise out of matter, or is intelligence inherent in

matter? If the former, would it make sense to say that intelligence

existed at the time of the Big Bang? If the latter, is intelligence

something other than matter, and are the two somehow inextricably

linked to each other? If none of the above, would it be equally valid

to say, "intelligence itself is material" as it would be to say,

"matter itself is intelligent"?

 

Advaita is better thought of as non-dualism, rather than monism. The

two terms carry different meanings, which is not very obvious to most

Indians. Acute minds like Radhakrishnan were aware of the

distinction, but they chose to ignore it, in favor of a philosophical

syncretism that saw both Hegel and Bradley in Advaita and Advaita in

Hegel and in Bradley, not to mention all the august members of a

wide spectrum, including Socrates, Lao Tzu, Plotinus, Thomas Aquinas

and others.

> this list that nobody has thought to accuse me of the knuckleheaded

> varieties of materialism such as B.F. Skinner's.)

>

> In opting for this view I am more or less consciously in revolt

> against the Christian view that the material world is a 'fallen'

> world standing in need of 'redemption' (the second coming) so that

the

> best we can hope for is a nuclear Armageddon to make way for the New

> Jerusalem. A similar strain of world-negation can be found in

Advaita,

> namely the tendency to deny the reality of the material world (and

 

The central spirit of Advaita is not to deny the reality of the

material world, but to adopt a retiring attitude towards it, because

identification with the material world *as perceived* results in

bondage of one kind or the other. But then, this bondage is not

because the world is a 'fallen' entity that is somehow in sin, but

only an outcome of ignorance. As was quoted from Vivekananda

recently, Advaita does not think of sin as an ultimate entity, for

sin can be overcome through appropriate means. But we do talk of

error. And it is a sign of freedom, to choose to retire from an

erroneous identification from the world (again, *as perceived*). This

is not the same as the ascetic Christian variety of world-negation

and self-flagellation.

 

Also, the point is not whether the material world exists or not.

Advaita starts from the premise that since we perceive it with our

senses, the world exists, in common-day parlance. The question we ask

is, what is the nature of existence itself? In the non-dual

realization, it is not that the material world is revealed as a void,

that vanishes into nothingness, but that the world itself is seen as

merged in, and as having lost separateness from, Brahman.

 

What is usually translated as pure consciousness is beyond

"intelligence" or "awareness". It is called "consciousness", only to

dispel the wrong idea that the non-dual Brahman may be a purely

material, or even non-existent, entity. It is called "pure bliss" not

because the realization is some pleasant sensation, but only to

dispel the wrong notion that it may be painful. Since the only way to

"characterize" it is to go beyond all characterization, in reality,

it is beyond the distinction of material vs. non-material, or

intelligent vs. non-intelligent, or pleasure vs. pain.

 

If you think about it, the spirit vs. matter debate is itself rooted

in a dualism. When traditional Advaitins say that the world is

illusory, the statement is about the world *as perceived*. What they

are driving at is that when the sensory perception and inference that

we take for granted in daily life are subjected to the light of

reason (and revelation), even this dualism disappears.

 

Vidyasankar

 

ps. A minor correction to Sunder Hattangadi's post on another thread

- brahmasUtra "AnandAdaya.h pradhAnasya" is to be numbered III. 3.

11, not II. 3. 11. This sUtra has to be taken along with the next

one, "priya-SirastvAdy aprAptir upacayApacayau hi bhede". It will be

a long time before Sadananda comes to this portion of the text, but

it would be useful to refer to the commentary on this sUtra when

discussing the commentary on the Anandamaya topic (I. 1. 12-19).

[Guest guest]

Shri Vidyashankarji,

 

I have a few questions regarding your answers to Shri Patrickji (I know I am an

outsider to this thread, but the questions are very generic and with regards to

your posting):

 

The central spirit of Advaita is not to deny the reality of the

material world, but to adopt a retiring attitude towards it, because

identification with the material world *as perceived* results in

bondage of one kind or the other.

 

Question: Is this *retirement* the highest Truth (or state) ? Is not the

realization that "vAsudeva sarvamidam" more *final* in attainment ? In the

latter, retirement is not the attitude, lIla is the attitude. For if every

enlightened person retired, the Guru-shishya parampara would have stopped !

 

It is called "pure bliss" not because the realization is some pleasant

sensation, but only to dispel the wrong notion that it may be painful. Since the

only way to

"characterize" it is to go beyond all characterization, in reality,

it is beyond the distinction of material vs. non-material, or

intelligent vs. non-intelligent, or pleasure vs. pain.

 

Question: Is realization mere disappearance of clouds or does it also require

*seeing* the sun ie., is it mere absence of pain ? There has to be a more

positive aspect to it. For is not the *pure bliss* the basis of pleasure and

pain ?

 

 

Regards.

 

S. V. Subrahmanian.