Sacred texts - 1. Impersonal authority

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

As someone who is personally inclined towards skeptical questioning, I've

been worrying a little about the use of sacred texts in philosophical

discussion and enquiry. When quoting and interpreting such texts, there is

implied a personal belief in their sacred authority. But, it is just such

personal beliefs that get to be questioned, by philosophy.

In this sense, there is always a potential problem, when using sacred texts

to establish the authority of some philosophical reasoning that asks its way to

clearer knowing. The problem is potentially disruptive. It all too easily

diverts attention from impersonal reason, towards personally claimed beliefs.

Accordingly, in order to avoid such disruption, the sacred texts have come

to be protected by a variety of cultural conventions that are each specific to

their own particular tradition. It's always in some specific cultural context

that texts are quoted and interpreted. This particular context has to be taken

into account, as we quote and interpret -- especially today, in a globalizing

world.

In our Advaitin e-group, most active members speak from the context of a

Hindu convention that takes the shruti

texts as sacred. The word 'shruti' of course means 'heard'. And the shruti

texts are taken to have been directly

heard from an immediate authority that is described as 'apaurusheya'

or 'impersonal'.

In what sense is this shruti authority thus taken as 'immediate'? One sense

can be seen in the English word 'authority'. It is related to other words like 'authentic',

'author', 'auto'. These come from the

Greek 'autos', which means the 'same' or the 'self'. There is an etymological

relationship here with the Sanskrit 'an' (to 'breathe'), 'at' (to 'move'), 'asus' ('life'),

'tman' (breath), and 'atman' ('self').

In all these words, the basic sense implied is one of an inmost self or knowing

subject -- which is the true author of all life and living breath, all

meaningful expression and all animated movement.

That author is directly heard by

reflecting back to it, as one's own true identity. Just that identity is heard

reflectively, in listening to the shruti

texts. Accordingly, the Kanci Mahasvami says (in his

book, Hindu Dharma):

 

The Vedas are apaurusheya (not the work of any human author) and are

the very breath of the Paramatman in his form as space. The sages saw

them and made a gift of them to the world.

 

The Sanskrit word 'veda' means 'knowledge',

quite straightforwardly. It comes from the root 'vid',

which means to 'know'. It is thus related to the English words 'wit' and 'wisdom';

and to words like 'vision' and 'video', which come from the Latin 'videre' --

to 'see'. The knowledge thus implied is a direct, immediate

seeing. It is the seeing of pure insight: beneath theoretical constructions and

beyond abstract analysis.

Hence knowledge is conceived as both subjective (atmiya)

and impersonal (apaurusheya). Its essence is an inmost ground of pure

spirit, beyond all differences and variations of personality. From that unchanging

ground, the Vedas draw their power and their authority. They are

thus sacred speech: drawing from that ground and leading back to it. As it is said in the Rig-veda:

 

catvari vak parimita

padani tani vidur brahmana ye manishinah

The word is measured out in four.

Those steps of speech are known to them

of broad and deep intelligence.

guha trini nihita n 'engayanti

turiyam vaco manushya vadanti

Three are laid down concealed.

These three are not articulated forth.

Of speech, the fourth is what men speak. [1.164.45]

.... ekam sad vipra bahudha

vadanti ...

.... Of one same being, those who are

inspired speak, in different ways.... [1.164.46]

 

In the above quotation, the word 'vipra'

has been translated as 'those who are inspired'. A 'vipra' is a 'sage' who is moved to speak, from an impersonal depth

of inner inspiration. This word comes from the Sanskrit root 'vip', meaning to 'tremble', 'shake', 'shiver',

'vibrate', 'be stirred'. It is etymologically related to the Latin 'vibrare' and hence to the English 'vibrate'.

Here, the Vedas are describing their sages in a way that is similar to those

Christian sects that call themselves 'Quakers' or 'Shakers'. What's here

implied is specifically not any personal motivation, for the sake of achieving

some desired object. Instead, it is an impersonal inspiration, which must arise

from beneath any bodily or sensual or mental conditioning.

The Vedas also describe their founding sages by the words 'kavi' or 'poet',

and 'rishi' or 'seer'. The

word 'kavi' comes from the root 'ku',

which onomatopoeically refers to the cooing

of birds and hence to the natural spontaneity of a deeply inspired poet.

The word 'rishi' comes from the root 'rish', meaning to 'move', 'stab', 'thrust' (implying

a penetration breaking through from superficial appearances to greater depth). Monier-Williams speculates that this root 'rish' may be an archaic form of

the root 'drish', meaning

to 'see'. (I rather suspect that it may also be related to the Sanskrit 'rita', which refers to an impersonal

principle of truth and correctness in the spontaneous functioning of nature's

ordered harmony.)

But how can the Vedas so strongly insist that they are not personally

authored, while giving such importance to their founding sages? Are not these

sages personal authors, who have created the particular names and forms and

qualities that make up the sacred mantras of the Shruti texts? In the Kanci

Mahasvami's book, Hindu Dharma, this question is answered

specifically:

These mantras are not the creation of anyone. Though each of them is in the

name of a rishi or seer, in reality it is not his creation. When

we say that a certain mantra has a certain sage associated with it, all that we

mean is that it was he who first 'saw' it existing without a beginning in

space, and revealed it to the world. The very word 'rishi' means 'mantra-drashta' (one who saw --

discovered -- the mantra), not 'mantra-karta'

(i.e. not one who created the mantra).

As I understand the Kanci Mahasvami

here, he is saying that the sages do not speak to us as personal doers. We cannot rightly understand them in that way. We

can only understand them as impersonal

see-ers, who have reflected back to an impersonal seeing that their sayings

express. These sayings come from there alone, and it is only by returning there

that we can rightly understand just what the Vedic seers and other sages say to

us.

In this way, the shruti texts have been accorded an 'apaurusheya' or

'impersonal' authority, which our moderator Shri Sunder kindly explained to me

in a recent e-mail as follows:

 

apaurusheya - I take it to mean that these are utterances that emanate when

the individual ego (of the Rishi or the Apta) is wholly absent

 

But then, how is it that some special sayings and writings are chosen to be

treated as thus 'sacred'? What makes us choose which texts to believe in, as

thus uncompromised by any personal ego on the part of those who have spoken or

have written them? This choice of sacred text depends on personal and cultural

belief. So also the interpretation of what texts have been chosen.

However sacred a text may be, our choice and our use of it depends upon our

ego-ridden personalities. How then can our cultural and personal beliefs in

sacred texts be reconciled with the ultimate impersonality of truth that such

texts are taken to reveal?

This is of course a problem that arises in all traditions, each in its

culture-specific context. Essentially, the problem can only be resolved by the

deepening of all personally claimed belief (mata)

into an impersonally grounded faith (shraddha). In particular, for a

spiritual philosophy like Advaita Vedanta, an utterly relentless

questioning is intended to go beyond all narrowly personal and cultural belief

in any name or form or quality.

Here, in Advaita Vedanta, the basic aim is not to state or to formulate

belief. Instead, it is to throw all

statements and formulations into question, so as to clarify a truth that is

completely beyond all personal statements and all cultural formulations. The

questioning is meant to deepen all our personal and cultural beliefs into a faith

that is finally impersonal.

In the end, when such a faith has been attained, it shines of its own

accord, completely actionless and self-sustaining. No further action is needed to

cultivate it or to sustain it. Such a faith alone is rightly natural and uncompromised.

Of course, as Advaita has conducted its turned back questioning, it has made

use of certain cultural conventions in the choice and the use of its shruti and

smriti texts. In two further

postings, I'll try to address some of these cultural conventions and some

questions that arise in the quoting and interpreting of sacred texts.

Ananda

[Guest guest]

Shree Ananda Wood,

 

First, I must say, I enjoyed reading the article.

 

There are two aspects that I would like to stress.

 

1. Any truth - for example even in objective sciences - is impersonal since it

has to be independent of the investigator - We apply this rigor without any

hesitation to objective sciences although we give credit to the discoverer of

the laws. Hence we can say Physics is apaurusheyam - since any scientist, like a

Rishi is only discoverer of the law and not inventor.

 

2. When it comes to philosophy, which can not be objectively verified, we have

to relay on the knowledge that cannot be gained by any other means other than

the experienced- based knowledge of someone else.

 

Here there is an inherent problem - even though the truth itself is independent

of the revealer, the truth itself, being subject, cannot be objectively

established for confirmation, independent of the investigator. A subjective

objectification of the truth becomes inherent in the discovery of this truth,

which itself is independent of any investigator. A relay on faith of the

revealer, becomes intrinsic to this system.

 

apourusheyatvam of the scriptures, from my outlook, arises not that it is passed

on or revealed to a sage but constant reaffirmation of the same truth by many

sages in various Upanishads to establish the authenticity of the objective

reality of the subject making it as a science, although by itself cannot be

objectively evaluated, since it deals with the subject, I.

 

The respect for Shankara in the advaitic tradition comes in bringing this

coherency in the teaching of the sages based on their personal yet objectifiable

subjective experience or more correctly the universality of the knowledge of

their experiences.

 

Without getting bogged down by magnifying the differences of the insignificants

and thus loose sight of the essence of the teaching, if we can keep our focus on

the universality of the truth that is underlying- which is the 'I am', the

unknowable yet to be known as such, then the purpose of advaitic teaching is

fulfilled. The insistence of a proper teacher and methodology is only to

ascertain that one does not get derailed in the path of the discovery of the

universality of the truth by subjective notions that obstruct the vision of the

truth; or sometimes overemphasis on the insignificant details that can detour

the very course of investigation.

 

Just some thoughts which may appear as stray, as I was reading your post. Would

eagerly wait for the other parts.

 

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda

 

 

 

 

 

--- On Mon, 4/13/09, Ananda Wood <awood wrote:

 

However sacred a text may be, our choice and our use of it depends upon our

ego-ridden personalities. How then can our cultural and personal beliefs in

sacred texts be reconciled with the ultimate impersonality of truth that such

texts are taken to reveal?

........

This is of course a problem that arises in all traditions, each in its

culture-specific context. Essentially, the problem can only be resolved by the

deepening of all personally claimed belief (mata) into an impersonally grounded

faith (shraddha). In particular, for a spiritual philosophy like Advaita

Vedanta, an utterly relentless questioning is intended to go beyond all narrowly

personal and cultural belief in any name or form or quality.

........

Here, in Advaita Vedanta, the basic aim is not to state or to formulate belief.

Instead, it is  to throw all statements and formulations into question, so as to

clarify a truth that is completely beyond all personal statements and all

cultural formulations. The questioning is meant to deepen all our personal and

cultural beliefs into a faith that is finally impersonal.

......

[Guest guest]

Namaste Shri Sadananda,

 

Thanks for your illuminating response about objective and subjective

confirmation in science and philosophy (message #44612, Tue Apr 14).

 

Yes indeed, as you say, all sciences must seek an impersonality of

truth, to the extent that confirmation cannot solely depend on this or

that investigator's personality. In all sciences (including the creative

and imaginative disciplines that we call 'arts'), basic principles and

laws must be discovered by reflection back beneath our differences of

superficial personality.

 

In this sense, basic principles and laws are not just personal or

cultural constructions. They are instead reflective discoveries: which

have penetrated down to an impersonality that must be shared in common,

beneath our personal and cultural differences.

 

But, in all sciences and disciplines, there are always personal and

cultural differences in how the same basic principles and laws are

theoretically formulated and practically applied. And such theoretical

formulations and practical applications can all too easily go wrong,

through personal and cultural mistakes.

 

Accordingly, in each cultural community, there has to be some kind of

impersonal agreement about how different persons may verify the

correctness of theoretically formulated statements and their practical

applications to achieve specific goals. Some common standards have to be

agreed, in the testing and application of both theory and practice.

 

It's here, in testing and application, that philosophy is different from

other sciences and disciplines. All other sciences and disciplines are

partly objective in their chosen aims, and thus in their testing and

their application. They choose to achieve some particular objects of

body, sense and mind in world. And so their testing and application must

be partly objective.

 

With the sole exception of philosophy, all sciences and disciplines

depend essentially upon an objective standardization of their testing

and applying instruments. This objective standardization can be seen at

its most extreme in mechanical physics.

 

But other scientific disciplines make more use of a subjective

standardization in their testing and application. It may thus be helpful

to consider different kinds of discipline, whose testing and application

is progressively more standardized by reflection inward to the knowing

subject of experience.

 

1. Mechanical physics of external objects

 

Here, scientific instruments are taken to be standardized in an external

world that is constructed from component parts. And these parts are

interrelated mechanically, by actions that take place from one part to

another. A world is thus conceived to be made up of mechanical

components: like an enormous and unendingly complex (but purely formal)

machine. For this conception, standardization must be pursued

objectively, through common standards that are developed and maintained

by social and political and industrial institutions.

 

2. Organic sciences of living activity

 

But, such a mechanical conception cannot by itself address the living

phenomena that we understand reflectively, in a variety of living

creatures and in the meaningful and valued harmony of nature's ordered

functioning. To address these living phenomena, we need a biological

conception of organic energy, which is inspired to arise from underlying

consciousness.

 

Here, in this biological conception, energy arises of its own accord,

through values and purposes and meanings that we find in nature's

functioning. That living energy is found both in our personalities and

in the world outside. It does not act from objects in the world. It only

acts from consciousness, which is no object that anyone perceives or

thinks or feels.

 

What is that consciousness which is no object? It is the knowing

subject, in all of our perceiving or thinking or feeling personalities.

That consciousness is present always, illuminating all perceived and

thought and felt appearances, in personality and world. All these

appearances express that ever-present consciousness. Each one of them is

found illuminated by its knowing light, from underneath their differing

and changing show.

 

From this biological conception come the organic sciences: like biology,

agriculture, animal husbandry, medicine, economics, management,

politics, astrology, alchemy, ritual and pranayama.

 

In these sciences, testing and application are not just mechanical.

Mechanical instruments may of course be used to help, but only in a

subordinate role. It is our living faculties that are essential here;

and these are developed organically, through living exercise.

 

Our personalities are thus developed as microcosms of living activity,

in harmony with the macrocosm of nature's happenings in the external

universe. Here, standardization is approached through harmonizing inner

personality with outer world.

 

3. Culture studies of meaningful information (the Humanities)

 

But, in their turn, organic sciences are also insufficient. Their

instructions and descriptions need clarifying, through the systematic

reason of our intellects. We thus need intellectual disciplines that are

called by names like 'culture studies' or the 'humanities'.

 

These are disciplines in which meaningful information is usefully and

systematically and even imaginatively presented, so as to cultivate and

educate and stimulate our intellects. Examples here might be

linguistics, rhetoric, legal jurisprudence, history, anthropology,

literature and the imaginative arts.

 

Here, standardization is approached through agreed convention in a

cultural community. Thus, culturally standard words or images or

gestures or other forms have come to be accorded their conventional

meanings. And standard texts or classic works of art are studied and

interpreted, through commentaries and discussions that train scholars

and analysts and creative artists and critics, in their various

intellectual and creative disciplines.

 

4. Psychology of meditative exercise

 

As various schools of thought and art develop our intellectual and

imaginative use of cultural expression, we each depend on inner

capabilities of intuition. These inner capabilities are deeply

individual. They are accessed and cultivated individually, through a

reflective turning of attention back from outward perception towards

inner judgement.

 

Thus, culture studies and the humanities are also found to be

insufficient in themselves. Their cultural expressions need to be

complemented by a deepening of intuition and a purification of ethical

character, which must take place in their individual practitioners. Such

depth of mind and purity of character is more directly approached

through meditative practices which train mind's inner capabilities and

inclinations, as exemplified in India by the psychological science of

Patanjali's yoga.

 

Here, standardization is approached through exercising the restraint of

mind's outward going tendencies towards distracting objects. By thus

restraining dissipation, mind is intended to remain controlled, by

staying well-harnessed to its inner ground of purely subjective

consciousness. For it's from there that all proper guidance and

co-ordination comes, for all our different personalities. Returning

there, through meditative exercise, we find a common standard that can

guide our different faculties of mind and personality into a

co-ordinated harmony.

 

Philosophical enquiry

 

But what exactly is that inner ground of pure knowing, beneath our

outward faculties of personality? How can we come to know it correctly,

beyond all possibility of doubt? The only way is to question mind's

belief, so as to remove all blindness of make-belief that may obscure

what's truly known. As blindly held beliefs are thus questioned and

removed, a person naturally falls deeper back into underlying

assumptions from which we have built our cultural and personal pictures

of the world.

 

This questioning must keep on falling deeper back, until no last

remaining trace of blind belief is found. Then knowing shines completely

free, uncompromised by any blindness or obscurity of personal and

cultural belief. That knowing is self-shining light, beneath all made-up

pictures in which we personally and culturally believe.

 

The pictures have been made upon the basis of that knowing light, which

illuminates them all from underneath. That light is known directly, as

one's own knowing self, with nothing coming in between what knows and

what is known. That self is one's own identity, completely identical

with that same self in everyone. That self is thus impersonal, in every

personality, throughout all changing and differing experiences of

seeming world.

 

To know that self, even the deepest meditation is inadequate. For any

meditative exercise is meant to improve the meditator's personality, by

deepening intuition and purifying character. Thus meditation carries

always a remaining taint of personal involvement, which obscures the

impersonality of unmixed self.

 

It's only by reflective questioning, beyond all personal involvement,

that truth of self is ultimately found. Such questioning must leave all

personal involvement and all questions utterly behind, in a plain truth

where neither any personality nor any further questioning can possibly

arise.

 

That plain truth is a completely subjective standard, attained by

philosophy alone. All other disciplines depend in part upon a diversity

of objective standards, which cannot be completely verified. To verify

such standards better, they must be questioned deeper back: towards that

one, subjective standard which underlies them all. Without it, we could

not communicate; and thus we could not possibly agree on any standard

that may help to resolve our differences.

 

Where we use any texts, including the shrutis and the smritis, to help

us find agreement, we are here standardizing at the cultural and

intellectual level. We are engaged here in an intellectual exercise of

accounting for systems of ideas that are found in particular cultures

and their schools of thought.

 

But such accounting needs to be clearly distinguished from the actual

business of philosophy. The accounting can construct an imposing edifice

of logical ideas and mind-training or character-purifying exercise. But

no such construction is the business of philosophy. Its actual business

is an individual questioning. And that questioning must be turned back

upon the questioner's beliefs, in search of that one subject which is

free of all belief.

 

It's only there, beyond belief, that our faith may be confirmed in any

text or any living teacher.

 

Ananda

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

--- On Fri, 4/17/09, Ananda Wood <awood wrote:

 

..........

.....

Returning

there, through meditative exercise, we find a common standard that can

guide our different faculties of mind and personality into a

co-ordinated harmony.

 

Philosophical enquiry

 

But what exactly is that inner ground of pure knowing, beneath our

outward faculties of personality? How can we come to know it correctly,

beyond all possibility of doubt? The only way is to question mind's

belief, so as to remove all blindness of make-belief that may obscure

what's truly known. As blindly held beliefs are thus questioned and

removed, a person naturally falls deeper back into underlying

assumptions from which we have built our cultural and personal pictures

of the world.

 

This questioning must keep on falling deeper back, until no last

remaining trace of blind belief is found. Then knowing shines completely

free, uncompromised by any blindness or obscurity of personal and

cultural belief.

............

 

To know that self, even the deepest meditation is inadequate. For any

meditative exercise is meant to improve the meditator's personality, by

deepening intuition and purifying character.

 

.......

It's only by reflective questioning, beyond all personal involvement,

that truth of self is ultimately found. Such questioning must leave all

personal involvement and all questions utterly behind, in a plain truth

where neither any personality nor any further questioning can possibly

arise.

 

That plain truth is a completely subjective standard, attained by

philosophy alone. All other disciplines depend in part upon a diversity

of objective standards, which cannot be completely verified. To verify

such standards better, they must be questioned deeper back: towards that

one, subjective standard which underlies them all. Without it, we could

not communicate; and thus we could not possibly agree on any standard

that may help to resolve our differences.

 

 

.... And that questioning must be turned back

upon the questioner's beliefs, in search of that one subject which is

free of all belief.

 

It's only there, beyond belief, that our faith may be confirmed in any

text or any living teacher.

 

-----------

 

Anandaji

 

Fantastic.

 

Beautiful and the clarity of your thinking is very profound. My shaaShTanga

praNAms to that wisdom that emanated these flow of thoughts.

 

The common standards that you mentioned that required for philosophical enquiry

of truth is what Shankara calls saadhana catuShTayam - the four fold

qualification of the mind that aims for chitta suddhi, chitta ekaagrata, chitta

viShaalata that can be acquired by yoga – karma, upaasana and jnaana.

 

As the 'life' itself cannot be defined other than felt, in biological sciences;

the self-realization at absolute level cannot be defined with any yard stick or

objectification other than knowing that I am that I am. The knower knows that I

am - but listeners are left with faith in the words of the knower. Ultimately as

Krishna says - uddaret aatmanaa aatmaanam - one has to uplift oneself by

oneself.

 

The external tools including sanyaasa etc are helpful but ultimately not

necessary in the realization of the absolute truth that I am. One has to have

clear understanding of what is culturally established and/or psychological

established in relation to the absolute truth that is beyond the beliefs and

conventions. Ultimately I have to drop all beliefs and notions which is what is

implied in 'tyaagainaike amRitatvamaanasuH' to transcend and abide in that

absolute truth that is beyond any cultural and philosophical conventions

established in directing the mind towards the absolute truth. The understanding

and following the conventions are one thing but requiring as essential becomes

another cocooning with mistaken roles of means in relation to the goal. We tend

to measure our own yard sticks with those of our teachers or gurus of the past-

which itself can become a psychological bondage or attachments.

 

Thanks for the perspectives provided. Yes we need articles like these to keep

the discussion as well as our pursuit to discover the truth in perspective.

 

Could not resist from expressing what came to my mind.

 

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda