Psychology and metaphysics-10

[Guest guest]

Psychology and Metaphysics 10

 

Let us pause a bit and reconsider the grounds we have covered and return to

the question of methodology. what I am doing may appear like the Cartesian

Meditations but not exactly for I do not conclude 'cogito ergo sum" and so forth

though I do share with Descartes that I am an autonomous individual, one who is

subject to on one ( Appar : naam yaarkkum kudi alloom), a notion also available

in the indic traditions in various ways. I have come to SEE that I am, that

enjoy PRESENCE only because in my reflection I accommodate the possibility of

DEATH not onlyof myself but the whole world and that there are Black Holes

everywhere that can bring about death but against which I live, enjoy presence

and the seeing that there are deimons who bless me with PRESENCE by fighting

off the Black Holes. This way of looking and understanding my presence is NOT

Cartesian though it can be said to be Saivite for right from the ancient days

the Saivites have been concerned with the mystery of death and because of which

they recognized the destructive-regenerative processes and also BEING as the

GROUND of these. But before we come to all these again in greater depths, let us

see some issues on methodology.

 

The SEEING and the Hermeneutic Science.

 

We must note that what I have said follows purely through a process of

REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS of the FACTICAL and hence something commonly known. In

disclosing certain truths , I do not quote scriptures messiahs, Jagadgurus,

Sadgurus and what not. The study of scriptures and the edifying words of these

socalled gurus may not be useless but they hold the danger of CLOSING my mind

for surreptitiously most of these njanies want to enjoy the pleasures of Ego

Inflation, want to enjoy the feeling of being a god-like individual by having a

large crowd of worshippers. So they are NOT objective and whatever they say may

turn out to

be an expression of the Will to Power that Nietsche observed and because of

which he became Nihilistic. In the Indian scene we have the Vedic Bramanahs and

the Vedantic community whose sole interest would be establishing the Supremacy

of the Vedas and the Vedanta texts and through claiming special rights over

them enjoy the EGO Inflation of a kind oblivious to the fact that millions are

genuinely religious without knowing a single word of the Vedas. Such

individuals exists in all religions, the mullahs of Islam, the Fathers of

Christianity , the Rabbies of Judaism and what not, people who want to be gods.

 

 

The fact is the WISDOM is already DEEP within me only that I have not been able

to SEE it so far and gain a vision of it. The Absolute Understanding the lights

up EXISTENCE for me is NOT in the Vedas Bible or Alkoran and such other

scriptures that may crop up in the future. It is WITHIN ME and I need not sit

with twigs for campfires in front of a Rishi to gain this wisdom. I just have to

THINK in a certain way so that I can SEE what I have not been to able to see so

far.

 

So the first conclusion is that the Science I am concerned with is the SCIENCE

of SEEING, of gaining visions into realms that I have bypassed or failed to see

or yet to see because hidden and concealed. This kind of science where the

practices unable the person to SEE MORE and because of that UNDERSTAND MORE is

the Hermeneutic Science, hermeneutic because it is concerned with UNDERSTANDING.

 

The Hermeneutic and Positivistic.

 

But it may be pointed out immediately that seeing is what even the positive

sciences do as they are concerned with OBSERVATIONS whether with the senses or

their instrumental extensions and hence the distinctions are not valid.

 

But this objection is misplaced for the SEEING that the hermeneutic sciences

talk about are quite different and in which the scientific instrumental

observations can be accommodated but which at the same time goes well beyond

it. But how?

 

In behaving as the positive scientist I assume the mode of Being the

dispassionate observer, one who only witnesses what transpires , one who does

NOT allow the individual prejudices to intrude into the collection of data and

their statistical analysis and so forth. My self and its concerns remain

bracketed out when I behave like a scientist and it is this pushing the self

into the background that allows me to remain OBJECTIVE and hence SEE the same as

another individual who has also buried his own self concerns. The subjectivity

is hygienically PURE , pure in terms of prejudices of the self. What are

OBSERVED are out there in the world and anyone who has reconstituted his self as

the PURE OBSERVER-SELF, can see the SAME as

MYSELF and hence be in agreement with me. I see that tree over there as the

Coconut tree and so would another person like me but not the paranoiac who would

see that tree as a ghost, the rope as a snake and what not. When the

observations are factical there is NO adhyasa or aaropitam etc., the thing is

seen as to what it is and as it shows itself from within itself so that the

vision is NOT distorted by my paranoia or phobia and what not.

 

Let us call this the sensorial seeing, the kind of seeing where only the SENSES

and their extensions that are sensitive only to the PHYSICAL STIMULI are

possible. And what is wrong in this?

 

Nothing wrong as long as the objects taken for study are PHYSICAL but certainly

something immensely wrong if the spirit of science is allowed to be imprisoned

thus and the notion of science itself becomes restricted to such a positivism.

For in this positivistic attitudes the self remains in the background , it

essential concerns forgotten and it is imprisoned to be only a dispassionate

observer , oblivious to its real needs and hence the real Understanding of self

forever beyond its reach.

 

When the scientific mood withdraws there emerges passions and all kinds the

prejudices of various sorts -- racial, linguistic, religious and what not. The

person is no ore dispassionate and objective but a fanatic, a rogue , a

megalomaniac, a terrorist who wants to bring the whole down at his fet through

acts of wanton destruction etc. etc.

 

With these possibilities as my possibilities also I see that in maintaining the

observational neutrality I have SUPPRESSED my REAL SELF which is really

immensely bestial and full of prejudices of various kinds. I see that in

becoming truly observational I can assume the attitude of a dispassionate

observer and in that attitude my self is not that which is observed but that

which does the observing. Now when that mood passes away, I SEE my real self in

that as well in the various prejudices with such I begin tofunction my none

scientific life. function. When I take my behavior as a whole and not just the

positivistic , I see that while I am

capable of the pure physicalistic seeing I am also capable of seeing MORE.

 

Most importantly I see MY SELF as that DEEP STRUCTURE of the all the manifest

Praxis that is seen by me and as well all others. The totality of my praxis,

including the positivistic scientific as well as the religious, metaphysical

poetical, shamanistic and what not becomes the TEXT with these observable

elements of behavior as the SURFACE STRUCTURE but the deep structure of which is

MY SELF.

 

I cannot see my self with the senses and their extensions but nevertheless I CAN

SEE provided I appropriate all my praxis as the Surface Structure of a TEXT and

seek my SELF as the Deep Structure of it.

 

This kind of seeing that involves INTERPRETATIONS , inferring from the surface

structural features to something present at the DEPTHS as that which CAUSES

AGENTIVELY the features of the surface structure is what I shall call

Hermeneutic Seeing and clearly it is in the course of such a seeing that the

self can be understood in its essence as it is in itself.

 

Genuine Psychology can be practiced only as Hermeneutic Science and this is

what the best of the Indians have been doing but unfortunately thrown off stage

by the Vedism of the Brahmanahs who see a threat to their Inflated Ego once

this scientific temper gains ground. For then there will NO AUTHORITIES needed

at all for attaining self-understanding, the services of the Vedas and the

Brahmanahs who claim special rights over

them and the mythology that only the VEDAS can disclose the TRUTH all fall to

ground as untruths.

 

Let me conclude this essay by saying that the hermeneutic seeing is the

beginning of a vast range seeing that all of us are capable of and in which

lies the real adventures of the genuinely metaphysical life that also becomes a

kind of Depth Psychology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

DrKL,

>The fact is the WISDOM is already DEEP within me only that I have not been

able to SEE it so far and gain a vision of it. The Absolute Understanding

the lights up EXISTENCE for me is NOT in the Vedas Bible or Alkoran and such

other scriptures that may crop up in the future. It is WITHIN ME and I need

not sit with twigs for campfires in front of a Rishi to gain this wisdom. I

just have to THINK in a certain way so that I can SEE what I have not been

to able to see so far.>

 

When the thinking stops the Wisdom dawns.

 

-- Vis

[Guest guest]

Dear viswanathan,

 

Yes, I guess you are right. But then you have to think and continue to think

till it dawns that

thinking is no more necessary and the practice of Silence is now the best.

 

Loga

 

 

 

"R. Viswanathan" wrote:

> DrKL,

> >The fact  is the WISDOM is already DEEP within me only that I have not been

> able to SEE it so far and gain  a vision of it. The Absolute Understanding

> the lights up EXISTENCE for me is NOT in the Vedas Bible or Alkoran and such

> other scriptures that may crop up in the future. It is WITHIN ME and I need

> not sit with twigs for campfires in front of a Rishi to gain this wisdom. I

> just have to THINK in a certain way so that  I can SEE what I have not been

> to able to see so far.>

>

> When the thinking stops the Wisdom dawns.

>

> -- Vis

>

>

> Discussion of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta Philosophy of nonseparablity of Atman

and Brahman.

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