Belief and faith

[Guest guest]

Anandaji wrote:

The same subjective and spiritual inclination is described by the

Greek word 'philosophia', which indicates a love ('philo-') of true

knowledge ('sophia') that is sought by reflective questioning of

'doxa' or 'belief'. That love of truth implies a relentless

spiritual commitment -- which will not give up until all trace of

falsity has been discovered and removed, on the way from confused

and misleading appearances to unmixed reality. I would say that such

a commitment is the essence of the English word 'faith' and the

Sanskrit word 'shraddha'.

 

Ananda

 

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Namaste Anadaji,

Martin Heidegger who like yourself found great

inspiration in etymology as he felt that there

was a deep ground in the Greek words which

could reveal the being-value out of which they

grew also held that before the philosophers there

were the thinkers who were more profoundly in

touch with what he called dasein or being-there.

You could say that they were on the cusp

between mythos and logos. The phenomenon

and the object had not separated for them.

'noein' is a root of phenomenon (showing)

and 'dianoein' (thinking) (dianoema/thought)

is a more fully achieved form of noein. In

so far as I can understand him, in so far as

anyone can, he means that the object

which shines within the firmament of the

individual consciousness is the identical same

that appears outside. This mystical experience

was the regular mind of the pre-Socratic thinkers.

 

In the matter of faith/shradda if we renounce

the temptation of metaphysical dominoes I

believe that it is probably the case that a

whole spectrum comes to be signified by a

word which is a position on the spectrum

itself. Those two positions are different

but perhaps the spectrum is not. Experience

is subjective, to me the immersion in that

sea was a matter of grace.

 

Best Wishes,

Michael.

[Guest guest]

Dear Michaelji,

 

Some comments on your response to Anandaji....

 

advaitin, ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva@e...> wrote:

> Martin Heidegger who like yourself found great

> inspiration in etymology as he felt that there

> was a deep ground in the Greek words which

> could reveal the being-value out of which they

> grew also held that before the philosophers there

> were the thinkers who were more profoundly in

> touch with what he called dasein or being-there.

> You could say that they were on the cusp

> between mythos and logos. The phenomenon

> and the object had not separated for them.

 

The bicameral mind.

 

> 'noein' is a root of phenomenon (showing)

> and 'dianoein' (thinking) (dianoema/thought)

> is a more fully achieved form of noein.

 

Eric Voegelin, the philosopher of history, makes the same

distinctions, and he says that differentiated thinking began in

Greece. He had of-course failed to connect with the dianoema of

Indian philosophy. Still, I would say that he occupies a unique place

among the modern philosophers of history.

 

> In so far as I can understand him, in so far as

> anyone can, he means that the object

> which shines within the firmament of the

> individual consciousness is the identical same

> that appears outside. This mystical experience

> was the regular mind of the pre-Socratic thinkers.

 

This subject is treated beautifully in Kashmir Shaivism. The

archetype and the object are not different. Abhinavagupta was a

phenomenal philosopher who combines the hermeneutics of Heidegger's

Being-in-Time and the nous of Plato's Being-not-becoming in One

Being.

 

> In the matter of faith/shradda if we renounce

> the temptation of metaphysical dominoes I

> believe that it is probably the case that a

> whole spectrum comes to be signified by a

> word which is a position on the spectrum

> itself. Those two positions are different

> but perhaps the spectrum is not.

 

I would say that there is a position in the spectrum where one is

being-there in noetic rest and there is another position where one is

being-there in noetic unrest. The former may be termed repose in the

truth and the latter the disqueit in the hiddenness of truth.

 

 

Warm regards,

Chittaranjan

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sri Anandaji,

 

advaitin, Ananda Wood <awood@v...> wrote:

> The same subjective and spiritual inclination is described by the

> Greek word 'philosophia', which indicates a love ('philo-') of true

> knowledge ('sophia') that is sought by reflective questioning of

> 'doxa' or 'belief'. That love of truth implies a relentless

> spiritual commitment -- which will not give up until all trace of

> falsity has been discovered and removed, on the way from confused

> and misleading appearances to unmixed reality. I would say that such

> a commitment is the essence of the English word 'faith' and the

> Sanskrit word 'shraddha'.

 

Thank you for a beautiful article. The twain does meet after all.

 

Warm regards,

Chittaranjan

[Guest guest]

Namaste Anandaji.

 

Thanks for your brilliant etymological analysis (Post # 30066).

 

May I submit the following observations:

 

Belief may be objectively directed as you conclude. But it also

implies, like faith, a subjective ground of knowing. Anything for

that matter encountered or entertained by us, internally or

externally, has that subjective ground of knowing. So, belief is

not completely or independently external.

 

In your conclusion, you seem to have equated faith to shraddhA. But,

I perceive an essential difference between the two, which I think is

very important. ShraddhA, as I said here before, is irrevocable.

Faith can be forsaken.

 

ShraddhA in the advaitic sense implies and involves an irreversible

commitment to a vision built on solid logic and methodology. It is

with this vision that the vedantin gets down into the process of

enquiry, the end result of which is `being' the vision which he

already is. He has no doubt about what he is set on to accomplish.

We call the goal self-realization. Thus, shraddhA is not faith. In

the latter, there may be a commitment but that resolve is neither

irreversible nor built on bullet-proof logic. Yet, as you point out,

it may be subjectively directed, but, most often, in the wrong

direction.

 

Hope this may not be misunderstood as advaitic self-righteousness! I

am only pointing out the difference.

 

One may counter me by pointing out that in the advaitic quest also

there are people who commit to enquiry for some time and then forsake

their goal. Well, my answer would be that they didn't have shraddhA

and their logical conviction was faulty. Perhaps, they had only

faith. In a nutshell, whether one had shraddhA will be known only

when the goal is attained. At that `stage', the question itself

becomes irrelevant.

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair

[Guest guest]

Ref. post 30066;

 

Namaste Ananda-ji;

> In this second sense, the objects of experience are what faces against the

>knowing subject. As they are perceived and interpreted, they face

>against the consciousness whose knowing light makes them appear. As

>each of them appears, its appearance is reflected back, through

>perception and interpretation, into the knowing subject from which

>they all appear.

>Reflecting back into that knowing subject, it is the one reality of

>all the objects which appear. It thus turns out to be what every

>object truly is. In truth, there is no difference between subject

>and object, no matter what seems to appear. The duality of subject

>and object thus turns out to be unreal.

 

May i please request of your kindness to ellaborate on this particular

points of your article?

I believe that this particular issue directly relates as a next step in

analyzing reality through the light of dialectics (adhyaropapavada) - pure

concepts (samanya) and the unexplainable nature of what is beyond concepts

(anirvacanya). Furthermore, i believe it relates to the aphorism "where

there's smoke there's fire", approached by Sadananda-ji in his Adhyasa

Bhashya notes, given that the notion of particular familiarity with an

object prior to its systematization in the logical apparatus appeals as a

hint of the path to be treaded.

>That final non-duality is

>what Advaita seeks, through all its turned-back questioning.

 

I have had some thoughts brewing about the direction of perceived time in

the frame of sensorial perception and its relation to the establishment of

cognitive thought, and should be writing on the issue as soon as thoughts

become clearer.

 

My warmest regards...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_____

doce lar. Faça do sua homepage.

http://br./homepageset.html

[Guest guest]

Dear Michael, Shri Chittaranjan, Shri Madathil and Shri

Dhyanasaraswati,

 

Thank you for your thought-provoking remarks on European and Greek

notions of belief and faith.

 

In a way, these notions can be traced back to the Greek philosopher

Parmenides, who distinguished between two ways of learning -- one

called the way of 'doxa' ('belief, appearance') and the other called

'aletheia' ('truth').

 

Shortly afterwards, Socrates elaborated the distinction a little, in

his famous analogy of the divided line -- as recorded in Plato's

dialogue, 'The Republic'. Here, Socrates is asked about 'agathon'

(the 'Good', the ultimate principle of value). He replies that he

cannot answer this question directly, but only through analogies.

The first of these analogies is the divided line.

 

He asks his listeners to consider a line that is divided into two.

One part of the division he calls 'doxa' ('belief, appearance') and

the other is 'episteme' ('knowing, understanding'). Then he says

that the same division can be applied again to each of the two

parts. The result is a division of learning into four kinds, which

can be seen as a progression of four stages.

 

The lowest kind is 'eikasia' or 'illusion'. This is a deceptive

appearance, created by fanciful imagination. Here, poetry and myth

can sometimes help indirectly, by explicitly admitting that their

interpretation must be metaphorical. Then they can inspire the

suggestion of an underlying reality, beneath the illusion that is

outwardly described. (At the risk of being a little provocative, I

would suggest that this tricky appearance of 'eikasia' might also be

described by the Sanskrit word 'maya'.)

 

The second kind of learning is called 'pistis' or 'customary faith'.

This is the habitual faith of long-accepted common sense. It's to

this settled faith that people return, when they sober down from

fanciful fights of imagination. This kind of learning helps correct

obvious errors of imagined fancy. But it depends on customary habits

of belief that are not properly examined, and so it still remains in

the realm of 'doxa' or 'believed appearance'. (For a Sanskrit

equivalent to the habituated faith of 'pistis', I would suggest

'mata'.)

 

The third kind of learning is called 'dianoia' or 'formal science'.

Here, learning is formalized by making its assumptions explicit, as

in geometry and mathematics. The assumptions are stated formally, as

axioms or postulates. And reasoned argument is used to deduce

results which may be tested against actual observations. Thus, the

merely fanciful or habitual beliefs of 'doxa' are left behind, and

we enter the realm of 'episteme' or 'investigated understanding'.

(For a Sanskrit equivalent to the formalized systems of 'dianoia', I

would suggest 'shastra'.)

 

The fourth kind of learning is called 'noesis' or 'clarifying

reason'. Here, the direction of argument turns back, from observed

results to accepted assumptions. Whenever observations show that

what's assumed is incorrect, a further reflection is then needed, to

uncover the offending falsity. As falsities are thus shown up and

clarified repeatedly, the aim is a progression towards knowing what

is true. For Socrates, this is the highest kind of reason, on the

way to truth. (For a Sanskrit equivalent to the enquiry of 'noesis',

I would suggest 'vicara'.)

 

This fourfold analysis provides me with a way of replying to some of

your comments.

 

In reply to Shri Madathil and and Shri Dhyanasaraswati, I would

point out that in the simile of the divided line, when the Greek

'pistis' is translated by the English 'faith', then we imply a

lesser and somewhat degraded sense of the English word. Many words

are used like this, in two ways -- one profound and the other

degraded. In Advaita, a central example is of course the word 'self'

or 'atman' -- the profound sense referring to the true subject and

the degraded one to a personal ego.

 

If someone should object that the word 'atman' refers always to the

true subject, just think of the habitual use of 'atma-katha' to mean

a personal autobiography. Similarly, the English 'faith' and the

Sanskrit 'shraddha' each have a lesser sense, as indicated by the

phrases 'blind faith' and 'andha shraddha'.

 

Like most members of the Advaitin group, I tend to use Sanskrit

terms to emphasize the profounder meaning of English words like

'self' and 'faith'. In this sense, I agree with Shri Madathil when

he says: "I perceive an essential difference between the two [faith

and shraddha]... Shraddha is irrevocable.... Faith can be forsaken."

 

But I would also point out that when the truth of any faith is

reached, then that true faith turns out to be irrevocable. A

westerner can no more revoke the final truth of her or his faith,

any more than someone who has a genuine faith in the Sanskrit or any

other tradition. True faith can never be restricted to the

changeable conditioning of any physical or mental expression

anywhere.

 

In short, I would submit that an unconditioned and unchanging depth

of faith can be sought by reflecting back into the English 'faith',

just as by a similar reflection into the Sanskrit 'shraddha'. In

either case, the reflection must go utterly beyond the cultural

conditioning of words and ideas, to the languageless truth that they

express, no matter in which tradition.

 

In response to Michael and Shri Chittaranjan, it might help to look

at the Greek words 'noein' and 'phenomenon', to which Michael draws

attention.

 

In the simile of the divided line, the highest kind of learning is

'noesis', which is a form of the Greek word 'noein'. 'Noesis' or

'clarifying reason' is closely related to the words 'nous' and

'noumenon', which are other forms of 'noein'. 'Nous' means

'intelligence'. In particular, it describes an inner intelligence

that discerns common and invariant principles (the Platonic 'forms'

or 'universals'), in the particular appearances and the varying

phenomena which are perceived through our external senses and our

outgoing minds.

 

The word 'phenomenon' is the present participle of the Greek

'phaein', which means to 'show' or to 'make appear'. A phenomenon is

thus a 'showing', and hence it refers to a particular appearance

that is manifested to our faculties of sense and mind. In Greek,

this word 'phaein' is elaborated to form 'phantazein', which means

to 'render visible' or to 'put on a show'. From there comes

'phantasma', meaning an 'apparition', a created or imagined

appearance. Hence the Latin 'phantasia' and the English 'fantasy',

'fantastic, 'fancy', 'phantasm', 'phantom'.

 

To Parmenides and Socrates, the world of phenomena is one of created

appearances and make believe. The make-belief is obvious in flights

of fancy that may be called 'eikasia' or 'illusion'. But it is also

there, unadmitted, in the somewhat degraded and prejudiced faith of

'pistis', which most of us accept habitually as common sense.

 

To put it briefly, belief is something that gets made up, through

our senses and our minds. True knowledge and true faith can't be

made up, by any act of sense or mind. Instead, true knowledge must

be found by examination and enquiry. And faith is, in truth, a

confidence and trust to which we return, in the course of correcting

mistaken beliefs and prejudice.

 

That correction is described by the Greek verb 'noein', which can be

translated by the English verb to 'know'. But 'noein' is not an

outward knowing that perceives a variety external phenomena, through

body, sense and mind. Instead, it is an inner knowing that discerns

and realizes the noumenon, the invariant principle of underlying

reality, beneath the variations of its many appearances.

 

As Socrates uses the word 'dianoia', he means by it a lesser kind or

stage of knowing, on the way to noesis. Here, the prefix 'dia-'

implies distinction and transition through. Here, we begin to

clarify the confused conceptions of our minds, by carefully

distinguishing their parts and then relating the parts into formal

systems of explicit reasoning. This exposes our beliefs and

conceptions, so that they may be scrutinized and opened up to a

corrective questioning.

 

'Noesis' is the actual questioning, which reflects back deeper into

the true knowing of 'nous' and the reality beneath appearances. As

knowing is thus purified, it turns out to be identical with all

reality. That non-dual conclusion is summarized by Parmenides, when

he says that 'Knowing [noein] and being [einai] are one and the same

thing.' And Aristotle hints at it (in De Anima 3.5) when he speaks

of a changeless and unaffected nous that is separate and unmixed, as

an actual knowledge that is identical with the fact known.

 

Six hundred years after Aristotle, Plotinus is more explicit. He

speaks of three hypostases (standpoints), called 'psuche', 'nous'

and 'oinos'. 'Psuche' is creating mind - proceeding through

successive perceptions, thoughts and feelings to create our pictures

of the world, and to breathe life and meaning into them. 'Nous' is

pure consciousness - illuminating everything from beyond time, and

thus knowing each manifestation as an appearance of itself. 'Oinos'

(the 'one') is the underlying one-ness of non-duality, where all

differences and attributes dissolve.

 

This is how I read the old Greek conceptions. But I am a little

puzzled by Michael's reporting of Heidegger to the effect that "

'dianoein' (thinking) ... is a more fully achieved form of noein."

For me, this seems to be quite the reverse of what Parmenides,

Socrates, Aristotle and Plotinus say. But then, there are so many

different ways of interpreting the old conceptions!

 

Ananda

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sri Anandaji,

 

Thank you for another beautiful article on faith and the etymology of

words.

 

advaitin, Ananda Wood <awood@v...> wrote:

> This is how I read the old Greek conceptions. But I am

> a little puzzled by Michael's reporting of Heidegger

> to the effect that " 'dianoein' (thinking) ... is a

> more fully achieved form of noein." For me, this seems

> to be quite the reverse of what Parmenides, Socrates,

> Aristotle and Plotinus say. But then, there are so many

> different ways of interpreting the old conceptions!

 

 

You are right. In a sense, Heidegger says quite the opposite of what

Plato says. Heidegger believed that Plato didn't go deep enough into

the hermeneutics of Being. To me it appears that it all relates to the

question of essence and existence. For Parmenides and Plato, essence

and existence were one (as in the case of Advaita). This equation of

essence and existence has been the cause of much perplexity that

continues to this day in Western philosophy with regard to the

existence of universals. In Aristotle, there seems to have been a break

in the unity of essence and existence, and the idea that essence is

prior to existence first makes its appearance (in his opposition to the

existence of universals). Universals become nomina rather than

existentials. In much of Scholastic philosophy, the idea that essence

is prior to existence is taken for granted i.e., the existence of

things may come and go, but their essences remain for ever. The

twentieth-century Existentialists were the first to propose the

opposite - the (prepostrous) idea that existence precedes essence. In

other words, things don't have natures, they are merely temporal and

vacuous forms (i.e., they are essentially 'nothing'). Now, there is

another existential idea that we have to keep in mind here: that

consciousness is necessarily intentional. What it means is that

consciousness is 'nothing' without the meaning conferring acts that

present phenomena (this is somewhat similar to the vijnanavada

position). Thus noein is 'nothing' except through phenomena. When the

two ideas are combined together, it translates to a progression of

consciousness actualising itself through phenomena in which

differentiated thinking reflects back upon phenomena through

transcendental philosophy to find the noetic fulfilment of the meaning

conferring acts of the intending consciousness. Thus, 'dianoein'

(thinking) becomes the more fully achieved form of noein. I don't know

if i am making much sense in saying all this, but when i speak about

existential philosophy it often results in speech of this kind. :-)

 

Warm regards,

Chittaranjan