bAdha

[Guest guest]

Hi Dennis,

'sublate' as I've probably mentioned several times is a term from Hegelian

logic. It was brought into Advaita by Radhakrishnan. I believe it is a

happy borrowing. It has implicit in it the notion of both destroying and

preserving. Thus it is not mere contradiction. The notion of the

illusion as a veridical perception is destroyed but it is preserved as a

conscious experience. The notion of dream as adventures that happen to us

is destroyed on awaking but is preserved as consciousness as such. On one

level it is destroyed but it is drawn up to a higher level of more

comprehensive truth.

 

Best Wishes,

Michael

 

Dennis Waite wrote:

Weekly Definition - bAdha

 

(The following is extracted from Back to the Truth, Dennis Waite, O

Books, 2007, ISBN 1905047614.)

 

The process of bAdha is defined in Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English

dictionary as " a contradiction, objection, absurdity, the being

excluded by superior proof (in logic one of the 5 forms of fallacious

middle term) " The word used in English is " sublation " (or occasionally

" subration " ), which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as

" assimilate (a smaller entity) into a larger one. " But these

descriptions confuse and over-complicate what is actually a simple

process. All that it means is that we held one explanation for a

situation in our experience; then some new knowledge came along and we

realized that an entirely different explanation made far more sense.

 

For example, people used to think that the earth was flat†. If a ship

sailed as far as the horizon, it would fall off the edge. Then some

new knowledge came along – the earth is spherical. Now we can

understand that the ship is moving further around the sphere and thus

out of our sight. This new explanation has the added benefit of being

able to explain how it is that a ship can return after having fallen

off the edge! And it even explains why the horizon seems to be curved.

So the old explanation – that the earth is flat – is said to have been

" sublated " by the new one. It is said to be bAdhita – negated or shown

to be contradictory, absurd or false.

 

The example always used in Advaita is that of the rope and snake. We

see the rope in poor light and erroneously conclude that it is a

snake. Once a light (i.e. knowledge) has been shone onto the

situation, we realize our mistake. If we encounter the situation

again, we may still imagine we see a snake but the likelihood of being

deceived is now much reduced because we no longer accord the same

level of authenticity to our perception. It is this process of

rejecting the appearance in the light of our experience or new

knowledge that is called sublation or bAdha. This also provides a

useful definition of " truth " in that the less able we are to sublate

an experience, the truer it must be.‡

 

† I've since discovered that this is a commonly-held myth and actually

untrue - but it still serves as a useful example.

 

‡ Thus, one definition for reality is that which cannot be sublated.

 

Dennis