Metaphysics

[Guest guest]

Sri Ananda-ji wrote:

This modern twist is a confusing restriction in the meaning of the words

'nature' and 'physical'. These words are now taken to describe an external

world

outside our thinking and our feeling minds. Reflection back into our minds

is

thus unthinkingly assumed to be essentially unnatural.

 

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Namaste Ananada-ji,

So much metaphysics in that short extract

and so many assumptions that require justification. Is the concept of an

external world coherent? How are we acquainted with it? 'Reflection

back' is a theory that needs clarification. Start with something simple,

the perception of a chair that is before me. What role does 'reflecting

back' play in that event? How is 'reflecting back' related to core

advaita theory of upadhi and vritti?

 

In this way we will gain a picture of your system of projection and its

advantages like a Mercator's projection of the world, metaphorically

speaking.

 

Best Wishes,

Michael

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[Guest guest]

Namaste Shri Michael,

 

In message #44672 of Mon Apr 20, you wrote:

 

<<So much metaphysics in that short extract and so many assumptions that require

justification. Is the concept of an external world coherent? How are we

acquainted with it? 'Reflection back' is a theory that needs clarification.

Start with something simple, the perception of a chair that is before me. What

role does 'reflecting back' play in that event? How is 'reflecting back'

related to core advaita theory of upadhi and vritti?

 

<<In this way we will gain a picture of your system of projection and its

advantages like a Mercator's projection of the world, metaphorically speaking.>>

 

We seem to be using words in different ways. For me, the word 'metaphysics' is

not basically concerned with the justifying of assumptions. Nor with the

construction of coherent concepts or theories or pictures of an external world.

 

And, by 'reflection back' I do not refer to any theory whose ideas and

constructions need to be clarified. For me, 'reflecting back' is an inward

questioning, towards that common ground of knowing which is essentially implied

by all justifying of assumptions and all coherence of our many concepts and

theories and pictures.

 

Let's take your example of perceiving a chair. Suppose that I see it somewhat

carelessly shifted, away from its usual place at my dining table. This may well

offend my sense of order a little bit; so that I shift it back where it belongs,

thus restoring a sense of coherence in my home. This coherence is largely formal

and external, so that no deep reflection is explicitly involved.

 

But, on the other hand, suppose that someone very dear to me has tragically

passed away. And that beloved person's empty chair is what I see at the dining

table. Then, this perception may result in a much deeper disturbance. It may

throw into question far more deeply held beliefs, from which I have formed my

ideas and theories and pictures of the world.

 

As the questioning gets deeper, it keeps digging up the ground from underneath

the questioner's own feet. Accordingly, the questioner keeps falling

ignominiously, and has to keep searching for deeper ground. Such deeper ground

has to be sought repeatedly, beneath all forms and names and qualities that keep

showing up in our formed and reformed pictures.

 

So far as I understand the term 'upadhi', it refers to a limited expression,

which serves as an apparent medium for what is thus expressed. The knowing

ground is what's expressed; and what shows up in our pictures are its limited

and doubtful expressions. The expressions have been formed and named and

qualified, by our limited and doubtful faculties of personality.

 

The expressions have thus risen up through personality, so as to appear in our

world pictures. In order to find out what they express, we have to reflect back

in, beneath all varied picturing. We have to question differing appearances, in

search of common principles that have been differently shown.

 

The differing appearances have been produced by changing acts of nature, in

personality and world. The common principles are found by a reflective

questioning which asks its way back in. That way returns from outward show of

superficial world, through mediating personality, back down into an actionless

knowing at the inmost ground.

 

There is accordingly a cycle of expression and reflection: through which all

nature functions, in everyone's experience. First the expression rises up --

through feeling, thought and action -- into objective appearance in some

pictured world. And the appearance is then taken back in -- through perceiving

its form, through interpreting its meaning and through judging its quality. Thus

perceived and interpreted and valued, each appearance is taken into

understanding at the inmost knowing ground.

 

I would say that the term 'vritti' refers to this cyclic functioning. In

Sanskrit, 'vritti' literally means 'turning' or 'revolving' (from the root 'vri'

which means to 'turn' or to 'revolve' -- there is an etymological connection

here with the English words 'verse', 'reverse', 'diverse', 'inverse',

'converse', 'evolve', 'revolve', 'devolve', 'involve').

 

It is in this way that I would relate the reflective enquiry of true philosophy

to the Sanskrit terms 'upadhi' and 'vritti', as specifically used in Advaita

Vedanta.

 

But such an analysis is most certainly not meant to " gain a picture " or any

" system of projection and its advantages like a Mercator's projection of the

world " . Not in the way that you seem to describe, at the end of your posting.

 

Any such attempt to gain objective pictures or projections is rather contrary to

the spirit of Advaita questioning, so far as I am concerned. That spirit is

essentially to go beyond all pictures and projections, and to leave them utterly

behind.

 

I am a little puzzled as to whether you would or would not agree with me here.

Perhaps we can agree to disagree.

 

Ananda