Vedanta Shastra Pramana//brian atmachaitanya/hume

[Guest guest]

Gentleman and ladies-

Brian and Atmachaitanya are truly having the discussion of a lifetime.

i salute this dialogue. where else can one meet such minds?

 

i too have thoughts about all of this to share:

 

The first discusses the truth, and the second the world of illusion --

that is, the world of the senses and the erroneous opinions of mankind

founded upon them. In his opinion truth lies in the perception that

existence is, and error in the idea that non-existence also can be.

Nothing can have real existence but what is conceivable; therefore to

be imagined and to be able to exist are the same thing, and there is

no development. The essence of what is conceivable is incapable of

development, imperishable, immutable, unbounded, and indivisible. What

is various and mutable, all development, is a delusive phantom.

Perception is thought directed to the pure essence of being; the

phenomenal world is a delusion, and the opinions formed concerning it

can only be improbable.

 

We go on to consider in the light of this principle the consequences

of saying that anything is. In the first place, it cannot have come

into being. If it had, it must have arisen from nothing or from

something. It cannot have arisen from nothing; for there is no

nothing. It cannot have arisen from something; for here is nothing

else than what is. Nor can anything else besides itself come into

being; for there can be no empty space in which it could do so. Is it

or is it not? If it is, then it is now, all at once. In this way

Parmenides refutes all accounts of the origin of the world. Ex nihilo

nihil fit.

 

Further, if it is, it simply is, and it cannot be more or less. There

is, therefore, as much of it in one place as in another. (That makes

rarefaction and condensation impossible.) it is continuous and

indivisible; for there is nothing but itself which could prevent its

parts being in contact with on another. It is therefore full, a

continuous indivisible plenum. (That is directed against the

Pythagorean theory of a discontinuous reality.) Further, it is

immovable. If it moved, it must move into empty space, and empty space

is nothing, and there is no nothing. Also it is finite and spherical;

for it cannot be in one direction any more than in another, and the

sphere is the only figure of which this can be said. What is is,

therefore a finite, spherical, motionless, continuous plenum, and

there is nothing beyond it. Coming into being and ceasing to be are

mere 'names', and so is motion, and still more color and the like.

They are not even thoughts; for a thought must be a thought of

something that is, and none of these can be.

 

Such is the conclusion to which the view of the real as a single body

inevitably leads, and there is no escape from it. The 'matter' of our

physical text-books is just the real of shankara; and, unless we can

find room for something else than matter, we are shut up into his

account of reality. No subsequent system could afford to ignore this,

but of course it was impossible to acquiesce permanently in a doctrine

like that of Parmenides. It deprives the world we know of all claim to

existence, and reduces it to something which is hardly even an

illusion. If we are to give an intelligible account of the world, we

must certainly introduce motion again somehow. That can never be taken

for granted any more, as it was by the early cosmologists; we must

attempt to explain it if we are to escape from these conclusions.

 

As might be expected, many thinkers have looked for a way out of the

paradoxes. Hume denied the infinite divisibility of space and time,

and declared that they are composed of indivisible units having

magnitude. But the difficulty that it is impossible to conceive of

units having magnitude which are yet indivisible is not satisfactorily

explained by Hume.

 

Hegel believed that any solution which is to be satisfactory must

somehow make room for both sides of the contradiction. It will not do

to deny one side or the other, to say that one is false and the other

true. A true solution is only possible by rising above the level of

the two antagonistic principles and taking them both up to the level

of a higher conception, in which both opposites are reconciled. Hegel

regarded Zeno's paradoxes as examples of the essential contradictory

character of reason. All thought, all reason, for Hegel, contains

immanent contradictions which it first posits and then reconciles in a

higher unity, and this particular contradiction of infinite

divisibility is reconciled in the higher notion of quantity. The

notion of quantity contains two factors, namely the one and the many.

Quantity means precisely a many in one, or a one in many. If, for

example, we consider a quantity of anything, say a heap of wheat, this

is, in the first place, one; it is one whole. Secondly, it is many,

for it is composed of many parts. As one it is continuous; as many it

is discrete. Now the true notion of quantity is not one, apart form

many, nor many apart from one. It is the synthesis of both. It is a

many in one. The antinomy we are considering arises from considering

one side of the truth in a false abstraction from the other. To

conceive unity as not being in itself multiplicity, or multiplicity as

not being unity, is a false abstraction. The thought of the one

involves the thought of the many, and the thought of the many involves

the thought of the one. You cannot have a many without a one, any more

than you can have one end of a stick without the other.

 

Now, if we consider anything which is quantitatively measured, such as

a straight line, we may consider it, in the first place, as one. In

that case it is a continuous divisible unit. Next we may regard it as

many, in which case it falls into parts. Now each of these parts may

again be regarded as one, and as such is an indivisible unit; and

again each part may be regarded as many, in which case it falls into

further parts; and this alternating process may go on for ever. This

is the view of the matter which gives rise to Zeno's contradictions.

But it is a false view. It involves the false abstraction of first

regarding the many as something that has reality apart from the one,

and then regarding the one as something that has reality apart from

the many. If you persist in saying that the line is simply one and not

many, then there arises the theory of indivisible units. If you

persist in saying it is simply many and not one, then it is divisible

ad infinitum. But the truth is that it is neither simply many nor

simply one; it is a many in one, that is, it is a quantity. Both sides

of the contradiction are, therefore, in one sense true, for each is a

factor of the truth. But both sides are also false, if and in so far

as, each sets itself up as the whole truth.

 

from a throne of love and kindness,

 

O. Peshtin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

advaitin, "atmachaitanya108" <stadri@a...> wrote:

> Dear Brian,

>

> You ask "Did Christ or the Buddha become enlightened through the

> study of the Upanishads?",and my answer is no. They niether studied

> the Upanishads nor were they enlightened!

>

> The Upanishadic teaching that Reality is Non Dual in the

following

> threefold radical sense:

>

> 1) Other than that Non-Dual Reality, there is no other

> Reality that is the same as it (Na Sajati Beda).

> 2) Other than that Non-Dual Reality, there is no other

> Reality that is different from it (Na Vijati Beda).

> 3) Within that Non-Dual Reality, there are no

> distinctions whatsoever(Na Svagati Beda)

>

> is the unique teaching of the Upanishads, the Asadarana Dharma. This

> was not taught by the Buddha,Christ,Mohammed,or any other

> theologian,mystic,or logician.It is found only in the Upanishads.

>

> Now as far as your claims, or rather the claims of so-called

> 'scholars' like Nakamura, Das Gupta, B.N.K.Sharma, as well as

> 'followers of Shankara' like Dr Rajmani Tigunait, as well as Swami

> Baktivedantas', Iscon site,that:

>

> 1)Gaudapada was probably a Buddhist

> 2)Shankara was a hidden Buddhhist

> 3)Shankara was the founder of 'Impersonal Vedanta' and

> before him Vedanta was 'Personalistic'

> 4)Shankaras concept of Reality was the 'same as' or 'very

> close' to the Emptiness concept of the Buddhists

>

> are very serious charges, and all those who claim to be Advaita

> Vedantins, and all those who claim to be follow Shankaras Tradition,

> shoud either provide a response to these charges or begin studying

> Nargarjuna and Chandrakirti, for they are the true representatives

of

> Sunya Vada.

> I await the rebuttle of these charges by the other

learned

> members of this site, dedicated to a Discussion of 'Shankaras

> Advaita'. I might add that if these charges cant be refuted, then

> maybe we should forget about studying Shankaras Vivekachudamani, and

> join Brian at the Hare Rama,Hare Krishna web site,in as much as the

> Dualistic Vaishnava Acaryas would then become the 'true

> representatives' of the ancient Vedantic Tradition.

>

> Hari Om

> Atmachaitanya

>

> P.S. Sorry for the 'shouting' I'll try to control myself in the

> future.

>

>

> advaitin, Brian Milnes <b.milnes@b...> wrote:

> > Dear Atmachaitanya

> >

> > Experiential knowledge is, in this as in everything, paramount to

> our development and understanding. Will your description of a glass

of

> ice cold water quench the thirst of a dehydrated man?

> >

> > " He who knows not the eternal syllable of the Veda, the highest

> point upon which all the Gods repose, what business has he with the

> Veda? Only its knowers sit here in peace and concord."

> > - Rig Veda I, 164, 39

> >

> > The usefulness of Vedanta is that it is "needed to confirm the

> experience and establish it fully".

> >

> > Did Christ, or Buddha become enlightened through study of the

> Upanishads? Guadapada was probably a Buddhist himself [A History of

> Indian Philosophy Volume I, Chapter X, Surendranath Dasgupta]. (Try

> Christ - baptism accompanied by John the Baptist, Buddha - under the

> Banyan tree.)

> >

> > Let me quote extensively from the iskon web site

> (http://www.iskcon.org/main/twohk/philo/roots/systems/vedanta.htm)

> >

> > Shankara and Buddhism

> >

>

----

> ----------

> > Sometimes Shankara's advaita Vedanta commentary is presented in

> books about Hinduism as if it is the original and only Vedanta

> philosophy. But a closer look at the advaita doctrine shows it to be

> in opposition to many of the fundamental tenets of the

Vedanta-sutra.

> In his landmark work "The Brahmasutras and Their Principal

> Commentaries" the eminent Indian scholar B.N.K. Sharma chronicles

how

> Shankara and his followers go so far as to "openly rebuff" Vyasadeva

> for his wording of the original text of the Vedanta-sutra. The

> advaitists are not shy about overturning the original sense of the

> text in order to push through their own impersonal philosophy.

> > That Shankara's philosophy is more akin to Buddhism than Vedanta

is

> widely acknowledged. A Japanese Buddhist professor of Sanskrit,

Hajime

> Nakamura, has presented strong historical evidence that the ancient

> pre-Shankara Vedantists were purusa-vadins (purusa = "person", vadin

=

> "philosopher"). Purusavadins understood the goal of Vedanta

philosophy

> to be personal and termed God the mahapurusa (Greatest Person).

> Bhavya, an Indian Buddhist author who lived centuries before

Shankara,

> wrote in the Madhyamika-hrdaya-karika that the Vedantists of his

time

> were adherents of the doctrine of bhedabheda (simultaneous oneness

and

> difference), which is personalistic. Another Indian Buddhist writer,

> Bhartrhari, who lived at the same time as Shankara, stated that

> although Shankara was a brahmana scholar of the Vedas, his

impersonal

> teachings resembled Buddhism. This is admitted by the followers of

> Shankara themselves. Professor Dr. Rajmani Tigunait of the Himalayan

> Institute of Yoga is a present-day exponent of advaita Vedanta; he

> writes that the ideas of the Buddhist sunyavada (voidist)

philosophers

> are "very close" to Shankara's. Sunyavada is one of four important

> schools of Buddhism that developed in India before Shankara's time.

> The word sunya (void) refers to the impersonal emptiness that the

> Buddhists believe pervades all things. When one attains the

> Buddha-consciousness, the forms of the world fade away like dreams

and

> only emptiness remains. In his Vedanta commentary, Shankara

maintained

> the same idea of ultimate emptiness, substituting the Upanisadic

word

> brahman (the Absolute) for sunya. Because Shankara argued that all

> names, forms, qualities, activities and relationships are maya

> (illusion), even divine names and forms, his philosophy is called

> mayavada (the doctrine of illusion).

> >

> > But it is not that Shankara himself is utterly disrespected by the

> Vedantists of other sampradayas. Shankara's purpose was to revive an

> interest in Vedanta philosophy in an India that had largely rejected

> the Vedas in favor of Buddhism. This task he accomplished

brilliantly,

> albeit by artificially incorporating Buddhist ideas into his

> commentary so as to make it acceptable to the intellectuals of his

> time. It became the task of later Vedantists in other sampradayas to

> rid Vedanta philosophy of the last vestiges of Buddhism. Though they

> attacked the mayavadi conception as non-Vedic, they owed Shankara a

> debt for having brought Vedanta to the forefront of Indian

> philosophical discussion.

> >

> > Regards

> >

> > Brian

> >

> > PS. CAPITALISED text indicates shouting