The Unreal Can Cause the Real

[Guest guest]

Dennis Wrote:

Dear Michael,

 

 

 

Apologies for the interruption. I nearly did after your last post but

forgot

about it. I think maybe there are some deeper concerns in your questions

but, superficially at least, you ask: " If the relative plane is

irredeemably

mithyA then how can the individual seeker transcend it? There can be no

bridge between the absolute and the relative plane. "

 

 

 

Isn't this analogous to asking 'how can the dreamer wake up?'? 'vyAvahArika

speak' is for the sake of convenience only, while we are in the midst of

the

delusion. In reality, there *is* no individual just as, from the vantage

point of the waker, there is no dreamer. So there is no question of

transcendence - the seeker already *is* the real, non-dual brahman. There

is

no bridge because there is no need of a bridge - there are not two places.

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Dennis

 

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Dear Dennis,

All those words that you use illusion/delusion, real/unreal are drawn from

your experience on the everyday plane. Have you any rational grounds for

the transference of these polar concepts to a plane which is beyond

experience. If you haven't, are you not open to the charge that what you

are making is a counter-intuitive assertion that is wholly a matter of

faith? By the way is the flight to such assertions about illusion not the

basis for the mayavadin sneer? In any case the immediate appeal to the

Maya Doctrine is not the recourse of Shankara particularly in Upa.Sah. and

B.S.B. From an examination of the nature of knowledge and knowing we are

led to a view that suggests unrestricted being and consciousness.

 

Best Wishes,

Michael.

[Guest guest]

Dear Michael,

 

 

 

Yes, you are not wrong (right even)! I don't take back anything that I said

but, to avoid confusion, would add the words " according to the teaching of

advaita " .

 

 

 

I think the point is that the 'bottom line' of advaita is not derivable via

reason. (I'm pretty sure Shankara says as much somewhere in the first

chapter of the brahma sutra bhAShya.) You are right in assuming that the

initial step is one of faith. But I don't see this as faith in the

derogatory sense that is often used when talking about, say, fundamentalist

Christians. It is faith in the sense of 'trusting in the words of those who

have shown themselves to be trustworthy'. The prompting for that 'bottom

line' comes from shruti and guru and we then subject what they say to reason

and experience until the moment comes when we are certain that what they

have said is true. That is mokSha and then, providing we have also gained

understanding of the techniques of shruti and guru, we are in the position

to give prompting to others.

 

 

 

I think there are adequate rational grounds for believing this process to

work.

 

 

 

Having said all that, I still don't like your words " plane which is beyond

experience " . There is no such plane as I (think) I said before. It is rather

a case of seeing that the way we used to look at the world (assuming

separation) was wrong and that what we have been seeing all along is simply

name and form of one unchanging reality. When we realize that the mirage is

not water but only refraction of light over a hot surface, there is no

change in the plane of experience. It is simply that we see the situation in

a totally new way, realizing that the previous way was a mistake.

 

 

 

Also I don't think I mentioned mAyA, did I? mAyA is just as much mithyA as

the world that we claim as the 'caused appearance'. It is all just an

interim teaching until we can see the full picture.

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Dennis

 

<<<

All those words that you use illusion/delusion, real/unreal are drawn from

your experience on the everyday plane. Have you any rational grounds for

the transference of these polar concepts to a plane which is beyond

experience. If you haven't, are you not open to the charge that what you

are making is a counter-intuitive assertion that is wholly a matter of

faith? By the way is the flight to such assertions about illusion not the

basis for the mayavadin sneer? In any case the immediate appeal to the

Maya Doctrine is not the recourse of Shankara particularly in Upa.Sah. and

B.S.B. From an examination of the nature of knowledge and knowing we are

led to a view that suggests unrestricted being and consciousness.

 

>>>