Why question 'why'? or 'Who wants to know anyway.'

[Guest guest]

--- Chittaranjan Naik <chittaranjan_naik

wrote:

> opinion that it is not the question but the attitude

> of questioning

> that leads to ahamkara. But I also realise that this

> amounts to a

> tautology in so far as the attitude is itself the

> working of

> ahamkara. Maybe ahamkara is ahamkara and question is

> question and

> avidya mixes it all up.

 

Namaste Chittaranjaniji,

Thank you for your quick reply. I am totally with you

on the importance of questioning...as a teacher(now

retired)of mathematics and religious studies the

effort was always to stir the idle-minded into

questioning, for the love of the subject rather than

to acquire just enough understanding to pass exams.

There is no doubt that we must start from a position

of apparent attachment but any question will have in

it an echo of the answer. In that echo is the next

question and answer.

Could it be that alongside every question there should

be a companion that asks,'Whose intention (attitude or

tataparya) impels this question?' This may be

demonstrated in the old practice of the 'Who am I?'

question with the companion 'Who wants to know?'

As you state so clearly:

>Thus every seeking is generated by a

> presence that is

> hidden, and the seeking is the journey back to that

> within to break

> the crust of darkness that hides it.

>

The transformational journey from a basic superficial

question unfolds naturally through that initial

discrimination but we then need knowledge and

devotion...in the single-minded sense....to hold to

firmer ground. Maybe this is no more than dislocating

the first attachment and reattaching it to some aspect

of saguna brahman but there is expansion in the

process. Again, I fully support your next step:

>But if I ask the

> question with

> humility, then I dissolve the question "why" by

> realising that it is

> maya -- because the question assumes causality and

> entraps itself

> into the unending chain of the seed and the plant.

 

This has always been my question as to the efficacy of

'Neti, Neti.' Other than through direct experience I

cannot see how the removal of ever finer veils can

ever come to an end, it's like empirical scientists

trying to measure the first moment of the 'Big Bang'.

> and in these meanings

> lie the answer to

> the question "why" because I realise that the seed

> is not the cause

> of the tree and neither is the tree the cause of the

> seed; that they

> are both in the self and shown forth within the play

> of Maya as a

> causal chain.

 

And so we are lead to 'Self reveals its Self in

Itself' and we are back with the Kena Upanishad and

with Indra who 'stayed in that very place' to have the

vision of UmA, tasmin eva AkAShe.(Kena 3.12)

>it must be dissolved.

 

Kena 4.5-6

'Then is the instruction through analogy in the

context of the (individual) self: This known fact,

that the mind seems to go It ( Brahman) and the fact

that It ( Brahman) is repeatedly remembered through

the mind; as also the thought (that the mind has with

regard to Brahman).

The Brahman is well known as the one adorable to all

creatures; hence it is to be meditated on with the

help of the name tadvana.'

 

Certainly Indra overcame his conviction in his own

strength and power to work it all out; humility, as

you so rightly said in your mail, is a necessary

virtue and a companion of direct experience maybe.

 

Wonderful to have your conversation and good company,

 

Best wishes

 

ken Knight

 

 

 

 

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