Belief and faith

[Guest guest]

Anandaji 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!

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Namaste Anandaji,

An interesting excursion into

the Attic byways but at some point I do not know

where the emphasis moved from religious faith

which you may recall was a stumbling block for

the Greeks to doxa or the evanescent phantasms

of sensation. They recovered those for Realism

by means of Forms in the thought of Plato and

the active and passive intellect which

both makes and discerns forms in the

philosopy of Aristotle. Advaita has the

same difficulty that is supposed to be

the knock down refutation of realism:

How do you step outside yourself to know

anything? Add to that the dictum 'Nature

does not speak, nature causes' and you will

be left with the opinion that Realism is a

naive absurdity. This is the opinion to

be countered by dialectic or vicara.

 

Madathilji is a very Greek for intellectual

discernment but would I be correct in saying

that a component in advaitin shraddha is the acceptance

of sabda as a pramana. It would be regarded

as purely rational to do so. Fideists within

the Christian tradition, a minority, would say

that accepting something without evidence of

the empirical sort is not rational.

 

The 'noein'/'dianoein' business comes from

'Being and Time'."The way to get a genuine grasp of

what really is has been decided in

advance: it lies in noein is beholding

in the widest sense; dianoein or 'thinking' is

just a more fully achieved form of noein and

is founded upon it."

 

'dia' emphasises or strengthens

or makes thoroughgoing its root 'dia-gnosis',

dia-kalo, keneos/empty dia-kenos quite empty/

hollow. Heidegger's etymology may be faulty

for all I know, his purpose is to get at

the basic roots prior to the accretion of

concepts which obscure fundamental 'suchness'.

In that section he is criticizing Descartes'

notion of the physical as 'res

extensa'. I find the reading of Heidegger

brings a cumulative understanding whilst

individual passages remain entirely opaque.

 

 

Best Wishes,

Michael.

[Guest guest]

ref post 30105

 

Michael-ji comments :

 

( Madathilji is a very Greek for intellectual

discernment but would I be correct in saying

that a component in advaitin shraddha is the acceptance

of sabda as a pramana. )

 

With all due respects to you , Michael-ji, i do not honestly know how

much of a 'Greek ' Sri Nair-ji is but if past discussions are to be

taken as a 'udharana' (example) Sri Nair-ji is certainly a Sanskrit

scholar and he does have a keen and discriminating intellect for

Sanskrit words.

 

Here i would like to recall a 'thread' sri Nair-ji started not too

long ago on a verse on Gita Bhasya that was feautured on the group

page. I am of course referring to the word 'atma-bhutam' and Sri

Nairji's SPECIFIC OBJECTION was to the hypen that separated atma and

bhutam. At that time even i was wondering why he was making such a

fuss over the hypen! However , as it turned out later in the thread ,

Sri Nair-ji was proved to be absolutely right when Sunderji quoted the

actual verse from sri Allady Mahadeva shastrigal ! I did learn a lot

from that discussion and told myself that in quoting a verse, we do

need to take into account all factors including seperating words with

a hypen. THe particular message number WAS 28963- the title was

'shankara gita bhasya 18-50' and the verse was

 

"avidyA-kalpita-nAma-rUpa-visheshha-AkAra-apahRRita-buddhitvAt

atyanta-prasiddhaM suvijneyaM Asanna-taraM Atma bhUtam-api

aprasiddhaM durvijneyaM atidUraM anyad-iva cha pratibhAti avivekinAM."

 

Sri Ananda-ji has also pointed out how the word 'atma' in Atma-katha

(AUTO BIOGRAPHY) is different from the 'atman' as in atma gnana! :-)

 

 

While i do agree that 'devotion' goes beyond logic and language ( as

Felipe would say) , Knowledge is a different kettle of fish altogether

! By knowledge i do not mean atma-jnana , i also mean knowledge of

words and their etymology. Shraddha is a very unique word. Compared to

the sanskrit word Shraddha , 'faith' trust' 'pistis' etc are weasel

words -

 

There is a lot of 'shakti' in words . The Divine mother Kali herself

wears a Garland of 51 skulls as a girdle around her waist. These 51

skulls reprsent the 51 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet ! This is not

the place to discuss the importance of the Garland of letters! but ,

it is enough to say that without the 'vowels' the consonents are

useless! ! The 51 letters are 51 tirthas in the human body. The human

body itself is the temple of divine mother and in it are all the

rivers and mountains! Jai maa!

 

Thank you one and all

 

May the Goddess shower her choicest blessings on one and all !

 

 

Jai gurudeva!

 

Jai ambe bhavani durge maa!

[Guest guest]

Namaste Michaelji.

 

At the outset, I am not very familiar with the thoughts of Aristotle,

Plato et al. I have only dabbled in them in my young days. The

profundity of your, Anandaji's and Chittaranjanji's analyses might

therefore go over my head.

 

Now to attend to the part of your post quoted below - I would

summarize my stand as follows:

 

1. A component in advaitin shraddha is the acceptance of shruti as

pramANa after asertaining its rational and logical validity. This

obviously is absent in 'faith' the way we are made to understand it.

 

2. There is no question of empiricism in the above ascertainment

simply because the issue concerns my Fullness where empiricism

plagued by objectivity has no place. In Fullness, there is no

objectivity or subjectivity as a pair of opposites. Let us,

therefore, ignore the Fideists.

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair

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

> Madathilji is a very Greek for intellectual

> discernment but would I be correct in saying

> that a component in advaitin shraddha is the acceptance

> of sabda as a pramana. It would be regarded

> as purely rational to do so. Fideists within

> the Christian tradition, a minority, would say

> that accepting something without evidence of

> the empirical sort is not rational.