Atmananda's "witness" teaching different from idealism

[Guest guest]

Hello Greg and all Advaitins,

To justify continued discussion of this aspect

of Shri Atmananda's teaching it must be remembered that Sankara considered it

important. It was central to an influential school of Buddhism viz.

Vijnanavada and he devoted a chapter of his closest and most acute reasoning

to showing its incoherence. So in fact it's far from being a Western

obsession or indeed my obsession. B.S.B.II.ii.29 Don't expect to grasp it in

one reading. However I think it's worth working at because the position

which it impugns is regarded highly by western intelligentsia today whereas

Advaita is barely considered.

 

Greg you say that "idealisms don't usually question the reality of ideas,

minds or mental phenomena". Well that could be said of Realism also. (Note

to A.Goswami: Realism is not the same as Materialism) What distinguishes

Idealism from other metaphysical views is not whether futher vicara is done

on the presentations to consciousness but on the ultimate status which is

granted to those presentations. What do we know when we know. Is the triad

'the knower, knowing and the known' or is it 'knowing, knowing and knowing'.

Does it matter whether if everything is ultimately in Consciousness (the

Absolute), the individuals consciousness is of an external object or

indirectly of that external object via a state of consciousness. Yes Sankara

would say it is. (op.cit)

>From the excerpts which you offer from the writings of Shri Atmananda one

can't be sure what his position is eg.

 

Atmananda: Experience and knowledge are inside- How can the objects be

outside?

 

But then he says " 'Inside' strictly means not separate from the Self.

Therefore experience is the Self."

 

That is true in the sense that everything is the Self but the first statement

if it in fact is an idealist view I hold to be false.

 

Ask yourself what is the difference between

(a) I see a chair. (object in front)

(b) I am conscious of a chair

© The chair is in my consciousness

(d) Chair consciousness is my consciousness.

 

Then ask yourself which is the most primitive and basic observation. Could

you go without the capacity to report b, c or d? Could you report them

without (a)?

 

Best Wishes, Michael.

ea

[Guest guest]

Hello Michael,

 

You wrote to Greg and all Advaitins (3 Dec):

 

"What do we know when we know? Is the triad 'the knower, knowing and

the known' or is it 'knowing, knowing and knowing'? Does it matter

whether if everything is ultimately in Consciousness (the Absolute),

the individual's consciousness is of an external object or indirectly

of that external object via a state of consciousness. Yes Sankara would

say it is. (op.cit)

 

"From the excerpts which you offer from the writings of Shri Atmananda

one can't be sure what his position is ..."

 

On the status of mind and objects, Shri Atmananda's position is very

clear. It is summarized in Atma Darshan, 3.1: 'Consciousness going out

towards objects is called mind. That which turns towards the Self is

pure Satva.'

 

As the first sentence indicates, it is through mind that objects are

known. An object is never known directly, but always through mind.

Hence, in the triad, 'knower, knowing, known', the mind is always

implied in the middle term of the triad. And it makes knowledge of an

object indirect, thus distancing the known object from the self that

knows.

 

This distancing of knower and known is dvaita or duality. The way to

advaita is indicated in the second sentence: 'That which turns towards

the Self is pure Satva.' The outward-going mind is found to be

misleading and inadequate. What it takes for knowledge isn't really

knowledge in itself. Instead, it is a confusion of knowledge with

ignorance, which produces a compromised and misleading appearance of

truth mixed up with falsity. Not satisfied with this outgoing show, of

seeming knowledge through the mind, the pure sattva or higher reason

turns back toward the self that knows.

 

By turning back toward the self, the middle term of the triad is cut

out. Knowing ceases to be indirect. It ceases to be out through mind.

Instead, it stays within, as the non-dual knowing of true self. There,

known and knower are identical. By cutting out the middle term, of

dualistic mind, the triad becomes a dyad -- of knower and known, with

nothing in between to distance them. The dyad then collapses of its own

accord, into a truth of inmost self where no duality is known.

>From the standpoint of that final truth, both outside world and inner

mind are unreal. The relative reality of outside world depends on inner

mind, through which the world is known. Standing always in the mind,

the outside world is shown to be an inner artefact, conceived inside

the mind.

 

But then, having thus no outside, the mind has no inside either. The

mind turns out to be unreal and self-contradictory. It takes itself as

consciousness going out to world. And that same world is never 'out',

as mind imagines it to be. Thus consciousness does not in fact go out,

and mind is self-deceived. It is an unreal show, a misleading trick of

false appearance that its self-deception makes it seem to be.

 

This position is the same as Shri Shankara's, so far as I can see. In

the end, the idealist position is shown to be incorrect. Strict advaita

is not idealist, but completely realist. But paradoxically, that

non-dual realism is attained by a completion of the mind's idealistic

dualism. Where the knower is completely separated from the known -- so

that their confusion is eradicated utterly -- there advaita is

attained.

 

Having gone out to seeming world through self-deceiving mind, the only

way of getting back to truth is to return through mind, so clarifying

mind's mistake that it dissolves into that truth where self is always

found at one with all reality.

 

Where is the difference here, with Shri Shankara and classical advaita?

 

Ananda

[Guest guest]

Hi Michael,

 

I'm always wary of commenting on any of your learned posts and even more so

in this instance since I find myself questioning Shankara too! Still, here

goes.

 

B.S.S.II.ii.29 seems to be lacking the usual intellectual rigour and

(presumably I must be missing something!) appears to use false logic.

Shankara says that we cannot use the dream state as an analogy because it is

sublated upon waking. And so it is. But I thought that this was precisely

the point. Namely that the things dreamt appeared real at the time we were

dreaming but, upon awakening, are realised to have been false. I thought

that the analogy was that, although we appear to see separate objects,

people etc. whilst in the waking state, this will be sublated upon

enlightenment and will be realised to have been false.

 

When he says that the perceptions of the waking state cannot be classed with

those in a dream, surely that is so only from the vantage point of the

waker. From the vantage point of the Self, the analogy is perfectly valid. A

thing 'seen in the waking state is not sublated under any condition' *of

waking*. Furthermore, dream vision is 'only a kind of memory' from the

vantage point of the waker. The vision was real enough to the dreamer.

 

Please explain. (If the last part of this sutra provides clarification,

please clarify, since although I have read it several times, I still do not

follow it!)

 

Best wishes,

 

Dennis

[Guest guest]

Hello Ananda,

I posted in reply to Greg before I spotted your delineation of

the position of Shri Atmananda. "it is through mind that objects are known.

An object is never known directly, but always through mind..... And it makes

knowledge of an object indirect, thus distancing the known object from the

self that knows."

 

This position is technically known as mediate realism and it is an

inherently unstable one. Under pressure it tends to degenerate into

Idealism and likewise Idealism tends to mutate into it. Putting it bluntly,

if all you know is a mental appearance how do you know that there is

anything 'outside' corrosponding to it. Nothing in your data tells you so.

 

I have scanned B.S.B. II.ii.28 (not 29, sorrry Dennis) into

http://homepage.eircom.net/~ombhurbhuva/vijnanavada1.htm

and there you can read for yourself what Sankara's position is (Swami

Gambhirananda's trans. Advaita Ashrama publ)

That it is different from what you are saying is obvious to me but I could

be wrong and maybe I'm missing something.

 

You say "This distancing of knower and known is dvaita or duality". In

these discussions I always took non-duality to be the non-duality of atman

and Brahman and duality by extension to mean a transcendent Braham. Roughly

a transcendent/immmanent opposition. What you propose is a topic for

epistemology.

 

You say: "The outward-going mind is found to be misleading and inadequate.

What it takes for knowledge isn't really knowledge in itself. Instead, it

is a confusion of knowledge with ignorance, which produces a compromised and

misleading appearance of truth mixed up with falsity."

 

Can you give examples of this. They help to focus the mind and mitigate the

tendency to bounce off the abstract.

 

Please don't think I am being importunate and a pest. This is what is known

as the rigour of peer review which entering into print exposes you to.

 

Best Wishes, Michael.