Philosophy and sadhana

[Guest guest]

Hello Ananda,

In response to your wide ranging post of the 12th. I would

begin by moving from the particular to the general. You ask in your closing

considerations:

 

"Here, a crucial question is at stake, about the basic purpose of

philosophy. Is that purpose system-building or enquiry? Must philosophy

proceed by building major systems that explain the physical and mental

world, or can it enquire more directly from a sadhaka's everyday experience

into truth?"

 

I hold that none of these alternatives are mutually exclusive so your

supposed dilemmas are false. It is self-evident that this is so if you

consider the biographies of many great seekers in both the Western and

Eastern traditions. In Indian thought particularly it is axiomatic that

schools of thought will bear the names of their founders or chief

proupounders. Nagarjuna's Madhamika, Vasubandhu's Yogacarya, Prabhakara

Mimamsa, Ramanuja's Visistadvaita, Sankara's advaita etc.

 

Coherence and consistency and the individual approach within the confines of

a tradition will in practice almost automatically issue in a system. The

study of a variety of systems is good discipline and helps us to avoid the

varieties of error and slipshod practice that are commonly encountered.

When Benjamin for instance declares that he has 'the overwhelming

impression' of something or other my tutor super-ego says 'well I'm

underwhelmed, give me chapter and verse, reason and argument'. It's as

simple and stupid as preparing a piece of rough lumber to make a chair

rail. First you plane a face perfectly flat and smooth (a plane). Then you

plane an edge perpendicular to your face, testing with a try square. Each

operation registers the next. Then using a gauge you scribe to width.

Square that edge and now you can reduce to finished thickness. Those of you

given to analogy can easily fill in the analogical processes in philosophy.

 

In your summation you state:

"Its only as a spiritual sadhana, of questioning enquiry, that any

philosophy is genuinely practised. And then it is essentially an individual

enquiry, carried out by individual sadhakas and teachers, in search of a

truth in which all intellectual systems must dissolve."

 

Sadhana I have always taken to be inclusive of enquiry and not identified

with it. The chapter headings of a book called 'Sadhana - the Inward Path'

by a well-known teacher include Physical, Mental and Vocal Thapas, Diet

Discipline, Steady Faith and Devotion, The Significance of Hindu Festivals,

Bhakti Karma and Jnana Sadhana. There is not the slightest hint that

sitting meditation is a snare and a delusion as at least some voteries of

the Direct Approach suggest. Perhaps I am wrong in this or the precise

position requires clarification.

 

The earlier part of your post does not I think deal with the substantive

issue of 'objects'. The six levels as delineated in Shri Karunakaran's note

are a concise summary of Shri Atmananda's thinking on the matter. At least

I take that to be the case from your inclusion of them in a previous post.

They must be the subject of a separate post from me.

 

Best Wishes, Michael.

[Guest guest]

Hello Michael,

 

You wrote (14 Dec):

 

"I hold that none of these alternatives [between system-building and

enquiry] are mutually exclusive so your supposed dilemmas are false."

 

Thank you for the clarification. Yes, here we seem to have uncovered

one basic source of disagreement. Here I can unequivocally say that I

flatly disagree with you. To me, system-building is specifically the

work of scholars and polemicists who are giving some external account

of philosophical ideas. The actual business of philosophy is enquiry.

And it is specifically an enquiry that must completely dissolve all

constructed systems, in order to find the truth that is sought.

>From this point of view, there is no dilemma involved in seeking truth,

beyond all systems that may be constructed to account for it. No more

than there's a dilemma for a businessman to seek the achievement of a

genuine business goal, beyond the paperwork that accountants must

prepare for various regulations and for management of money and

resources. Truth is the only proper goal of philosophical or spiritual

enquiry, and all the ideas and systems that get made up on the way are

only various forms of accountancy.

 

The forms and the accountancy have value only in so far as they help to

reach the goal. They only mediate towards a goal in which no trace of

them remains. So, on the way, they must be left behind, completely and

utterly. Where are the two horns of a dilemma here? Can mere accounting

forms be seriously considered as a cherished alternative to the goal of

truth that gives them all their seeming value? How can this rightly be

considered as a genuine dilemma?

 

And I'm afraid the disagreement isn't mitigated when you say:

 

"Sadhana I have always taken to be inclusive of enquiry and not

identified with it."

 

Look, I can agree that enquiry has always a yogic aspect, in that the

enquirer gets led through a succession of contemplative states. The

states may not be formally prescribed as in the discipline of yoga, but

they occur in ways that may be similar and may even be complementary to

yogic practices. Moreover, I would agree that enquiry is utterly

dependent on a deeper bhakti aspect of love for truth. So, yes indeed,

enquiry is only one aspect of sadhana, along with the other aspects of

yogic meditation and devotional bhakti.

 

But each of these three aspects must be present in all sadhana. Just as

enquiry implies the other two, so also meditation and bhakti each imply

an aspect of enquiry. There is no genuine sadhana without a search for

something truer that the sadhaka is seeking. And in the end, that

something truer must eventually lead on, beyond all mediating forms, to

unconditioned truth. That is essential to all strict advaita, Shri

Shankara's advaita in particular. So again, no matter what forms of

sadhana may be used, there is no question of any genuine dilemma

between mediating forms or systems and the final truth that's sought

through them.

 

And again, when you speak of "the substantive issue of 'objects'", I

have to disagree. As I understand advaita, it does not treat 'objects'

as substantive. It treats objects as changing appearances, whose only

substance is the one, non-dual subject. All the substantiality of

objects comes from that non-dual subject. It's only by returning to

that subject that the reality of objects can be found. From any

physical or mental standpoint in the objective world, reality cannot be

found. Except by standing in the inmost subject, things cannot be known

with any true objectivity. Objects have no substance that is not

completely and purely subjective. That is what the word 'advaita' means

to me.

 

I am underlining these differences because I think they are ones where

it is best that we agree to differ. And we need to recognize them

clearly. Otherwise we shall keep arguing at cross purposes.

 

Ananda