Vishishtadvaita Ontology

[Guest guest]

> As

> > I see it, the dream people within my dreams are pure images with

> no

> > consciousness of their own. They are like the images on a movie

> > screen. To argue that they somehow 'inherit' their own

> > consciousness by being within my consciousness does not seem

> correct

> > to me. They are only images, no different from cartoons.

> >

> > However, I believe that the images of people that I see in my

> waking

> > state are associated with other streams of consciousness which

are

> > having similar images of me (and of the illusory world we both

> seem

> > to see

 

Namaste All

Much discussion has flown under this subject since i first saw the

post above. A question still pops up specifically on the extract

above.

 

I'd agree with this version of dream people except for the fact that

these dream people sometimes do unexpected things to the dreamer very

much like in the waking world?

 

In the context of dreams, bhagwan Ramana says that even the dream

world is elaborately ordered and structured with laws and all of

that.However, events move much faster in dreams and the waker's

recollections could be incoherent.

Thus there may not be a case to say that dream world and dream people

are not affected by consciousness?

 

Many thousand namaskarams to all advaitins

Sridhar

[Guest guest]

Benjamin wrote:

"How can a man's words be acceptable who while himself perceiving an

external object through sense-contacts still says, 'I do not perceive, and

that object does not exist', just as much as a man while eating and himself

experiencing the satisfaction arising from that act might say, 'Neither do

I eat, nor do I get any satisfaction'?"

 

Here Shankara acknowledges nothing but the *experience* of eating and the

*experience* of satisfaction from eating. In no way does he postulate a

world external to consciousness. The very words 'who while himself

perceiving an external object through sense-contacts'

is nothing but the 'esse est percipi' of Berkeley. The experience of eating

is entirely within consciousness; it is nothing but the sense of taste,

which is clearly within consciousness. The actual satisfaction of eating

is, if possible, even more in consciousness.

 

Hello Benjamin,

Your diligence in the defense of immaterialism and your

capacity to wring agreement with your position from what seems self

evidently a contrary view evokes awe. With no desire to change or cause you

to modify your position but merely to place on the record my own

interpretation of Sankara's position I offer you a further point from the

locus classicus B.S.B. II.2.28. You appear to be able to draw everything

from the single all encompassing stream o' consciousness. Sankara demurs.

"Therefore an object and its knowledge differ". He makes various points to

support this of which the most interesting one is that a single perception

may contain elements which cannot be delivered by the senses alone. In the

mental act of considering the 'knowledge of a pot' and 'the knowledge of a

cloth' the cloth and the pot may present themselves in sensation but

'knowledge' as a concept is an inner reflection. Is 'whiteness' as such

delivered in sensation as in 'white cow' or 'milk'. If we put it in

Platonic terms for a moment what causes us to 'carve nature at the joints'

in precisely that manner. Why are not white cow shaped objects or white

animals linked together for instance? Or milk pail shaped objects?

 

Similar divisions in the economy of the mind are noted in the distinction

between "the seeing of a pot and the remembrance of a pot". The pot is the

same in both cases but the action is different and the grounds for reliable

reporting also differ.

 

How can the single stream of consciousness carry as inner cargo alone what

is normally distinguished as mental modifications, sensations, memories,

dreams, reflections etc.? "Moreover as regards two cognitions occurring

successively, which vanish after self-revelation, there can be no logical

apprehension of the one by the other. And in that case will be nullified

all the assertions made in the Buddhist scriptures themselves about the

difference among cognitions, momentariness and other attributes, individual

characteristics, common characteristics, bequathing of tendency by one

cognition to the other, true, false or mixed attributes arising from contact

with nescience, as also about bondage, liberation, and so on.

Again if one admits a distinction between knowledge and knowledge, why

should not one admit external objects such as a pillar, a wall and so on?"

 

The specific points made against the Vijnanavadin may not apply to you but

the general one does I think hold - we make distinctions between inner and

outer and indeed within inner and outer, why then not accept that this is a

true reflection of reality and not an 'as if' we were making those

distinctions. Why add another mental layer which is in effect espousing a

realist epistemology in conjunction with an idealist ontology?

 

Best Wishes, Michael.