God and the World - Part 2

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 1 with the following:

 

(P.151) " The next stage was that 'brahman' and 'atman' came to be conceived as

'purusha', the cosmic Person. What distinguishes the person is

self-consciousness. 'Brahman' and 'atman' are pure consciousness. Both are

expressed in the term 'saccidananda', where 'sat' is being, 'chit' is

consciousness and 'ananda' is bliss. 'Saccidananda' is the experience of

absolute Reality in pure consciousness and perfect bliss. That is what the

Upanishads gradually reveal as the ultimate Reality. But in the later

Upanishads, particularly in the Svetasvatara Upanishad and then in the Bhagavad

Gita, this 'saccidananda', absolute Reality, is conceived in terms of a Person,

Vishnu and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, Shiva in the Svetasvatara Upanishad. A

person is a self-conscious being and the understanding is that ultimate Reality

is self-conscious; it is capable not only of knowledge but also of love. Krishna

says, " Give yourself to me, offer yourself to me, because you are dear to me. "

The idea is that there is love in the ultimate Reality. "

 

Here now is Part 2.

 

Enjoy!

 

violet

 

 

God and the World - Part 2

 

(P.151) The Upanishads expressed these profound mystical experiences in

marvellous language but they did not systematise the knowledge attained. A

beginning of systematisation took place in the 'Brahma Sutras' of Badarayana in

about 100 BC. Later this was completed in the Vedanta, the various systems of

philosophy developing between the eighth century and the fifteenth century AD.

There were at least five different systems of Vedanta, all exploring the

question of the relationship between the ultimate Reality, the personal God and

the created world, each conceiving it differently.

 

The first system of Vedanta is that of Shankara in the eighth century and it is

this that is most popular among intellectuals in India. Shankara based his

philosophy on the experience of non-duality. (P.152) For him that is the key to

everything. The ultimate Reality is experienced in consciousness as absolute

non-duality. The non-dual experience of absolute Reality is, of course, the

authentic mystical experience which is found in all other religious traditions.

Shankara, however, found it very difficult to account for the created world, for

matter and life, time and space. His tendency, in brief, is to say that all that

we experience in time and space in our present mode of consciousness is

ultimately illusory. We ourselves " superimpose " all the appearances we

experience of this world upon the one reality. In Shankara's understanding we

are constantly superimposing, for instance, the form of the building in which we

are, our own bodies, trees, earth and the sky outside, upon the one absolute,

infinite, eternal Reality which is always present beneath all the

superimpositions. Consequently when we awaken to pure consciousness, when, that

is, we get beyond our sense consciousness, all this disappears. All distinctions

and differences disappear and we experience only the one Reality as pure being,

pure consciousness and pure bliss. This doctrine has a certain beauty and many

accept it fully, but it does mean that ultimately this world has no reality. The

whole thing is only an appearance. It means also that each of us as a human

individual, a 'jivatnam', has ultimately no reality. That too is an appearance

of the One, valid as long as we think in these terms but losing its validity

when we go beyond. Finally, in Shankara's view even 'purusha' is a projection of

the mind, useful and helpful in the present state but also to be transcended

until we reach the absolute Reality which has no differentiation whatsoever.

When speaking of Shankara, one must always remember that he was a mystic and

wrote from mystical experience. He realised that to know reality the mind must

transcend all images and concepts, that is, all duality, and realise the unity

which underlies all multiplicity. (P.153) But in affirming the transcendent

unity he found no place for the multiplicity, and for this reason his doctrine

was questioned by all subsequent doctors of Vedanta.

 

The advaitic doctrine of Shankara is held today by most Hindu professors but has

never been accepted in India as a whole, and all the other systems of 'advaita'

oppose Shankara. This is very interesting in itself because it shows that there

is something lacking in Shankara. It is not satisfactory when this world,

ourselves and God are all ultimately lost in an undifferentiated Absolute.

Shankara's system is opposed by all the schools of Vaishnavism which believe in

a personal God. The first great School was that of Ramanuja, who lived in

Tiruchirapalli in south India in the eleventh century. Over against 'advaita',

the non-duality of Shankara, he proposed 'vishistadvaita', which is qualified

non-duality. He held that the supreme Reality is not simply a kind of impersonal

or super-personal 'brahman'. It is the personal God, Vishnu, and Vishnu is the

supreme Lord, the great cosmic Person. The world comes out from him and the

world qualifies 'brahman', hence the term 'vishishtadvaita', qualified

non-duality. 'Brahman' is qualified by the world in the sense that, for

instance, there can be different colours of the lotus, blue or yellow or red,

but the same reality is present under all these different accidents. Similarly,

the one Lord is ever the same but he appears in all the different forms of the

world which qualify his being.

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith), Pgs. 151-153

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0