Mind and sleep

[Guest guest]

Dear Benjamin,

 

In your message (20166) of 16 Dec, you wrote: "... frankly, it does

seem to me that 'nonduality' is logically the same as 'monism', in some

sense, but perhaps I am being too prosaic."

 

Here, I would say that you are not being 'prosaic' enough, if by

'prosaic' one means 'dispassionately analytical and skeptical'.

 

Prosaically, 'non-duality' means just what it says. It refers to a

dispassionate examination of the idea that there is any second thing

which is different from that which knows. And the examination points to

a fatal flaw in any such idea of a second thing. The problem is that

knowing any second thing implies a mediating action between that which

knows and that which is known.

 

That mediating action is called 'mind'. It is a differentiating action

that distinguishes a second thing which is conceived to be apart from

consciousness. And in doing so, it necessarily implies a further

distinction -- of its own differentiating action, as a third thing

which is different both from consciousness that knows and from the

second thing that's known.

 

In Sanskrit, this differentiating action is called 'vijnyana' or

'discernment'. The prefix 'vi-' means 'differentiating' or 'apart', and

'jnyana' means 'knowing'. So 'vijnyana' implies the differentiating

action of 'discerning' or 'knowing apart'. And once this

differentiating action is conceived, as mediating between consciousness

and a differentiated object, the very nature of the action goes on to

differentiate itself as a third something. And from there, further

things are differentiated as fourth and fifth and sixth, and so on and

on.

 

So, the very nature of the mind is to imagine differentiated ideas that

inherently keep multiplying their imagined differentiation,

indefinitely. The result is an indefinite and indeterminate confusion

that we call a 'world' or a 'universe'. In short, the mind and each one

of its ideas are inherently a mess. This is said from the plain,

prosaic view of skeptical analysis.

 

It's from such a prosaic analysis that advaitins are skeptical of

'idealism'. In particular, they are skeptical of the phrase 'idealist

monism'. For all the mind's ideas inherently imply a multiplication of

diversity. So long as 'one' remains an idea, it implies 'two' and

'three' and 'four' and hence more and more diversity. So long as terms

like 'consciousness' or 'all' or 'nothing' represent ideas, they too

stand for an inherent mess of confused and indeterminate diversity.

 

For an advaitin, no grand statement like 'All is consciousness' can be

enough, so long as that statement is a matter of poetic imagination or

of any ideation or belief in mind. To find what's ultimately true, the

mind and every one of its ideas have to be left completely and utterly

behind. And that is achieved by turning the idea of 'discernment' or

'vijnyana' back upon itself, so as to attain a complete dispassion.

 

As discernment analyses itself, it turns out that its differentiating

action is not the true nature of knowledge. The differentiating action

of so-called 'discernment' is not knowledge at all, but only an

objective action of one imagined object upon another. Here, the mind is

no more than an object that is imagined to be discerning another object

of imagination. And the imagination is inherently false, because it

wrongly identifies this objective imagination with subjective knowing.

It wrongly imagines that its partial act of imagined differentiation

can amount to consciousness, which is the subjective light of true

knowing.

 

No amount of poetic imagination, no matter how high-flying, can correct

this mistake, so long as even the slightest trace of name or form or

quality remains conceived or perceived or felt by any slightest hint of

mental activity. It's only when imagined picturing is utterly dissolved

that true poetry is reached. As Tennyson puts it in the poem 'Ulysses',

even the poetic way is:

 

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 

In order to correct the mistaken confusion of mental differentiation

with illuminating consciousness, advaita proceeds by clarifying the

mind's confused duality. All dualistic acts of mind are analytically

examined and shown to be objective acts, belonging to what is known. In

effect, this examination shows that the mind keeps cheating, in its

application of duality.

 

The mind applies a double standard -- one for its investigation of

objects that it thinks are 'outside' its knowing, and another for

privileged ideas and intuitions that get taken for granted as 'inside'.

The investigation is thus incomplete; and it stays compromised by

unexamined assumptions. To complete the investigation, all ideas and

intuitions are treated as 'outside' -- in the sense that they are no

longer to be left unquestioned within. They are then treated as

manifesting acts of mind, and hence they are included in the

'objective' realm of questionable manifestation.

 

So long as the slightest cheating remains, whereby some mental act of

ideation or intuition remains exempt from questioning, that manifesting

act remains mistakenly confused with the pure knowing of consciousness.

And so a compromising and confused duality remains as well.

 

Thus, advaita proceeds through a completely thorough distinction

between what knows and what gets known. That which knows is pure

consciousness, unmixed with any change or difference. That which gets

known is a differentiated world of changing activity, including all

objects and ideas that are perceived and conceived through body and

through mind.

 

As that distinction is fully made, it completes the duality of knowing

subject and known object. In doing so, it utterly dissolves the

manifesting mind, which previously appeared to go out in a partial and

confused way towards perceived and conceived objects. As the mind

dissolves, it is reflected back, into its originating consciousness.

Pure consciousness alone remains, as the sole reality of all objective

appearances.

 

Thus, in the end, through a completion of mind's duality, it turns out

that what knows is in truth identical with what is known. Hence the

name 'advaita' or 'non-duality'. The name indicates a final resolution

that is approached, paradoxically, through a completion of the duality

between what knows and what is known.

 

You went on to ask:

 

"Well, if you don't remember deep sleep, and if all that you write and

say is done during the waking state, then how can you talk about it at

all? Again, I am perhaps being too dull and prosaic..."

 

The basic question here is how we know the experience of deep sleep.

Since the mind does not appear in deep sleep, its experience is not

known by mind. In particular, that experience cannot be known through

the mental act of remembering an occurrence in the past. And so you

ask, if it is not remembered from the past, how can it be spoken of

now? The answer is very simple. The same experience that was present in

deep sleep is still present now. It is present as the non-dual truth of

consciousness, which has no object other than itself.

 

For consciousness is just that principle whose very being is to know.

Its knowing is no act towards something else, but just a

self-illumination that is identical with what it always is. That is a

self-illuminating knowledge in identity -- which each of us knows, by

simply being what it is. In the waking and dream states, that simple

knowing is confused by falsely believing that it is an activity of mind

towards objects and ideas. From the deep sleep state, no such activity

is remembered. So in speaking of experience of the deep sleep state, a

question is inherently raised, about a knowing that is utterly unmixed

with any mental activity. That knowing is each person's true identity,

experienced always in the living present, beneath all ideas of changing

time. In speaking of deep sleep, attention is reflected there, to one's

own non-duality, which each one of us shares in common with all else.

 

Deep sleep is thus a natural symbol of that non-duality, for anyone who

can throw into question our habitual assumption that knowing is a

changing act of physical and mental personality.

 

Finally, you asked about the necessity of a guru:

 

"But what is a guru? Can faith and sincerity substitute for a guru?

Must it be a guru of flesh? Must one be an 'official' sanyasin,

complete with orange robe? Can attending satsanghs with a good teacher

do it? What must be said during these satsanghs? Must the teacher

specifically choose you for grace, at least silently in his own mind,

or is it enough that he simply be speaking on the right topic to any

general audience?"

 

And here I can at last say that I think you are being much too prosaic.

You are trying to reduce to petty rules what can't at all be ruled by

mind. A final teacher must be one who acts from beyond the mind, and so

it is absurd for you and me to speak of rules by which such a teacher

must be governed. Better instead to keep on asking what is true; and

leave the rest to truth beyond the mind, however it may come to be

expressed, in course of time.

 

Ananda