THE PLACE OF PRACTICE IN ADVAITA-VEDANTA

[Guest guest]

Madathil wrote:

Namaste Dennisji.

 

Your post has me here pondering.

 

I am meditating. There is the thought of a

car. An image of a car

appearing on the mental screen corresponds

that thought. I, the

witness, am seeing that thought is our

conclusion. However, when

seeing actually takes place, right at that

point of time – let us say

microsecond, am I, the witness, there? I

think no. Only the car-

image (car thought) is there. Later, only

when I search around for

the one who saw the car-image, does the

thought of a witness (I)

arise. Mark it please – it is yet another

thought and, as such, it

is just an image or an idea of a witness.

Who sees that image or

idea? Infinite regress, eh? Advaita can't

buy that.

 

This applies to the external world of

objects and experiences too.

 

So, where does all this take us? I look at

it this way. Every

thought or everything objectified is me

simply because if I am not

there, they too are not. They come and go

with me. They need me as a

prerequisite for their apparent existence.

As such, all that are

objectified are *essentially* the same, i.e.

me. My seeing them as

other than me in such striking diversity is

the mistake. This

attitude brings in a wholeness to

meditation. The thoughts then have

to disappear leaving that wholeness which is

the floodlighting that

lights up this cricket stadium of

experienced phenomena encompassing

external objects and internalizations. The

light shines on even

after the players and cheering spectators

have left because its

*nature* is lighting up. That light should

be the THAT of your post

and it is everything including me, who

falsely assumes `witnessship'.

Nothing is excluded here – even the thought

or apprehension of an

infinite regress. In other words, that light

is the

only `everything' there. Reality is One,

therefore, both in the

absolute and transactional senses. It is

just One despite the

diversity in the latter. Discerning this

truth should be the purpose

of meditation.

 

We can't go beyond this point with language.

The finality of the

wholeness is never communicated, is

impossible to describe. Yet, we

are sure of that finality which is our whole

being beyond the realm

of inert words.

 

I believe I have pointed out this here

before. Yet, I thought your

post presented an opportunity for a

repetition. If you think I am

wrong, please let me know.

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair

 

 

Namaste Madathilji,

When the word 'witness' is mentioned in

relation to Advaita one immediately thinks of the saksin of

the classical teaching. In this the Witness is Pure

Consciousness with the individual mind as limiting adjunct

(upadhi). The witness that you mention is more akin to an

ego or to the spectator of the inner theatre. In

B.S.B.II.ii.28 (again) the Buddhist interlocutor rejects

this position which he wrongly imagines to be the Vedantin

one. Instead he proposes the idea of self-luminous

cognition. This he supposes will avoid the falling into

infinite regress that Self-awareness initiates. By the way

this is a continuos point of misunderstanding on the part of

Buddhists re the Advaitic position and I will admit that it

has a surface persuasiveness about it that seems to tie in

to modern Philosophical Psychology. (Another topic another

time) Sankara impugns this view of self-awareness as of

course he holds that the mind is merely an organ and as such

is insentient. As to infinite regress, once the Witness

knows something then it stays known because it is pure

consciousness that is knowing it with the individual mind as

upadhi. There is so to speak nowhere else for it to go.

The mere mind knowing something he likens to 'a thousand

lamps shining unknowingly within a massive boulder'.

 

The topic of upadhis can be linked to the month's topic and

to the invocation which you yourself considered. Commenting

on it in Brh.V.i.1 Sankara says:

 

"Then knowing itself (the Self) as the supreme, infinite,

Brahman, so as to feel, 'I am that infinite Brahman,' and

thus taking its infinitude, i.e. removing by means of this

knowledge of Brahman its own limitation created by ignorance

through the contact of the limiting adjuncts of name and

form, it remains as the unconditioned infinite alone."

 

As long as we are in the domain of that limiting adjunct,

the mind, then Pure Consciousness with Maya as its limiting

adjunct namely Ishwara or God by any other name will be due

worship. Further down in his commentary on V.i.1

 

"...for certain aids, to be presently mentioned, viz. Om,

self-restraint, charity and compassion, have to be enjoined

as steps to the knowledge of Brahman - aids that, occurring

in this supplementary portion, form part of all

meditations."

 

Best Wishes, Michael.

[Guest guest]

Namaste Michaelji.

 

Thanks for your post 24475.

 

In my previous message here, I quoted Sankara's Vakya Vritti (12) as

follows:

 

"Give up the intellectual misconception that the Self is the body,

etc., and always meditate upon and think yourself to be the eternal

Knowledge-Bliss – the Witness of the intellect – a sheer mass of Pure

Knowledge". (Translation: Sw. Chinmayanandaji)

 

The notion of witnessing, the apprehension of infinite regress, all

our internalizations and externalizations, intellectual misconception

of the Self, meditating and thinking oneself to be Knowledge-Bliss

etc. are all in this "sheer mass of Pure Knowledge". Divested of

diversity, they all resolve and abide in that Knowledge without forms

or names. That is where language fails to communicate and I have no

means of telling another one what that Knowledge is. The best I can

do is to say: "I AM THAT" like Dennisji did.

 

I have seen teachers advising meditation enthusiasts to look at the

blank between thoughts. That can mislead and give rise to

unnecessary expectations, because if at all there is a blank, that

again is an objectification. Without a proper advaitic vision, we

will then have the meditator blank-hunting. The thoughts are as

important as the blank as both have to find their resting place

ultimately in the Knowledge that I am - the wholeness of the whole

scenario - is the vision required. That was the point I was trying to

illustrate in my post. If this is understood, then I have no

objection to calling that Knowledge by any name - like 'witness' or

John.

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair