The Waves in the Total Mind (MTS-5)

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

I see a tremendous discussion of topics peripherally

related to Raju's paper, but very little on the paper

itself. I will limit myself to discussing the paper

itself, and those are the messages that will be posted

on the blog at http://advaitamath.blogspot.com/

 

Raju says that the OET is the world of the "seen",

where cause and effect sweep along inexorably.

This is samsara, a big river that would seem to be

carrying us helplessly along, if there were not an

escape promised by the scriptures.

 

The escape is in the "seer", the counterpart to the

"seen", which is much neglected by modern science

and materialistic philosophy in general, with its

obsession with the seen. The seer thus merits

a second vertical axis to complement the horizontal

axis of the OET or seen. (Of course, the OET axis

is multidimensional in its own right, with the 3

dimensions of space and one of time. I'm not so

sure about the vertical axis of the Self. We'll see.)

 

Now one question one might ask is whether the

distinct axis of the seer or Self violates the advaitic

unity of Brahman. Are seer and seen not ultimately

identical? Perhaps "reality" is not even an axis but

a mere point. Or even less. Is Brahman not "without

parts"? To a considerable extent, this depends on

whether we are speaking from the phenomenal or

vyavaharika level or from the higher level of

paramarthika.

>From a spiritual point of view, Raju surely wishes to

have another axis than samsara, or there would be

no moksha. But bondage only exists from the

level of ignorance, which seems to confirm what I

said above.

 

The quadrant enclosed by the two axes is called the

Space of Experiences by Raju. The cause and effect

chain of the horizontal axis becomes spreading

waves in the quadrant. What does this mean?

 

For one thing, each wave marks an instant of "cosmic

time". (So don't think of time as being one of the

axes, as an engineer or physicist might be inclined

to do!) The origin is the beginning of creation, and

from there the waves radiate. Each successive wave

represents all possible states that might result from

the preceding wave, considered as a cause. Only

one of these possibilities becomes true on the OET

axis, due to the will of Ishwara.

 

Now one question immediately arises. Consider one

such wave. It will be like a quarter-circle. The

projection on the horizontal axis is well-determined

by R cos(theta), where R is the radius of the wave

and theta is the angle from the origin to some point

on the wave. Thus each point of the wave is associated

with one point on the horizontal OET axis, and it would

seem that each moment of OET corresponds to one

and only one possibility, assuming that each point

along the circular wave represents a possible state.

This would deny Ishwara's freedom, so I must be

missing something.

 

What do you say Raju?

 

Hari Om!

Ben