James' Varieties

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sankarramamji and all Advaitins,

 

Sankarramamji asked whether James had anything to say about Advaita in his

'Varieties' (Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion delivered at Edinburgh

University). It can be definitively stated that he would have found its

metaphysical preoccupations meaningless. As he says in Lecture XVIII on

Philosophy: "....and that the best method of discussing points of theory is to

begin by ascertaining what practical difference would result from one

alternative or the other being true. What is the particular truth in question

*known* as? In what facts does it result? What is its cash-value in terms of

particular experience? (pg.434) Does the world really exist? Is there such a

thing as 'matter', such questions if their answers make no difference to our

behaviour are meaningless. There is no specially distinct dharma for the

satkaryavadin as against the asatkaryavadin etc.

 

He says: "(434) For what seriousness can possibly remain in debating philosophic

propositions that will never make an appreciable difference to us in action?

And what could it matter, if all propositions were practically (i.e.in practice)

indifferent, which of them we should agree to call true or which false?"

 

Applying the rigourous touchstone of Pragmatism much of the speculation

attached to Deity by whatever name you call him, her or it is dismissed. "Take

God's aseity, for example; or his necessariness; his immateriality; his

'simplicity' or superiority to the kind of inner variety and succession which we

find in finite beings, his indivisibility, and lack of the inner distinctions of

being and activity, substance and accident, potentiality and actuality, and the

rest; his repudiation of inclusion in a genus; his actualised infinity; his

'personality', apart from the moral qualities which it may comport; his

relations to evil being permissive and not positive; his self-sfficency, self-

love, and absolute felicity in himself: - candidly speaking, how do such

qualities as these make any definite connection with our life? And if they

severally call for no distinctive adaptations of our conduct, what vital

difference can it possibly make to a man's religion whether they be true or

false?" (pg.436)

 

You will occasionally find the dimmer type of Bhakta in all religions saying

this sort of thing but as a criterion of meaning it is surely quite false.

Where does this leave Pure Mathematics or even History? History is Bunk said

Henry Ford. If you begin to try to show Pragmatism's inadequacy on its own

terms you are lost. Like, it doesn't work! One of the slogans of Pragmatism

was - we believe in what works. It's a pervasive aspect of the more muscular

wing of Modernism.

 

So bye bye Sankara and Madhva and Nagarjuna. His stream of consciousness theory

is still influential but must close:

 

Best Wishes,

Michael.

 

P.S. 'Varieties of Religious Experience' is available to down load on the net.

[Guest guest]

Sri Sankararaman asked:

 

(Sankarramamji asked whether James had anything to say about Advaita

in his 'Varieties' (Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion delivered

at Edinburgh University).

 

and our omji responds

 

(It can be definitively stated that he would have found its

metaphysical preoccupations meaningless. As he says in Lecture

XVIII on Philosophy: "....and that the best method of discussing

points of theory is to > begin by ascertaining what practical

difference would result from one alternative or the other being

true. ..............etc etc )

 

Then Omji says

 

(So bye bye Sankara and Madhva and Nagarjuna. His stream of

consciousness theory is still influential but must close:)

 

NOT SO FAST, MY FRIEND !

 

i have heard of King James version of the Bible .... but now we have

a James version of ADWAITA also !

 

at Least James is fond of Walt Whitman- me too ! ?( THE BIBLE WOULD

NOT HAVE APPROVED OF WALT WHITMAN-smile)

 

Everyone's opinion counts

 

However to study the vedas and upanishads in depth and in detail one

needs greater sensitivity to time honored faiths rooted in indigenous

culture ... and indigenuous forms of knowledge .

 

'BHAKTI IS NOT THE GRAMMAR OF THE HEAD ; IT IS THE POETRY OF THE

HEART '

 

om ji writes :

 

(P.S. 'Varieties of Religious Experience' is available to down load

on the net.)

 

Here it is

 

http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/james/toc.htm - 25k - Cached

 

My grandson always tells me 'Patti ( grandma) ! Don't say bye bye ! i

want to talk ? "

 

would you all rather talk or 'walk the talk ' OR 'TALK THE WALK' ?

 

Love is all there is!