Fwd: To be, or not to be ...

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advaitin , Ananda Wood <awood wrote:

 

Namaste,

 

A list member has asked me to post an advaita interpretation of

Hamlet's soliloquy which starts:

 

To be, or not to be - that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them....

 

It strikes me that Shakespeare is describing here the madness of

duality.

 

Hamlet finds he cannot face things as they are, and is thus driven

mad. But, in his madness, he reflects upon its origin; so that he

comes back to its underlying cause, which is described here in this

passage. The cause is the apparent duality: 'To be, or not to be'.

In this duality, not being is imagined as an option to reality.

 

So, as the soliloquy continues, Hamlet thinks:

" ... To die - to sleep -

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache ...

... 'Tis a consumation

Devoutly to be wished. To die - to sleep. "

 

But then his mind immediately vacillates, because of a problem that

it sees with 'death' and 'sleep':

" To sleep - perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come ... "

 

And this vacillating mind goes on to lament that:

" the dread of something after death

... puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

... lose the name of action.... "

 

According to Advaita, the madness here is to treat the apparent

'non-being' of death and sleep as a real option. In fact, of course,

there is no option between the true being of 'what is' and and the

false unreality of 'what is not'. True being simply is, without any

option of false unreality that is mistakenly imagined by some

seeming mind. There is in truth no option of non-being mixed into

being, as we habitually believe.

 

Any thought of 'non-being' or of 'ceasing to be' is a confusion that

mind superimposes upon an unmixed reality. Mind thinks that its

confusion makes a difference and thus changes reality.

 

But this thinking is a mistake. Mind's confusion is not real.

Reality remains unmixed and unchanged, no matter what appears

confused with it. There is, in truth, no unreality. Each appearance

shows what is and nothing else, no matter what the mind may think.

Whatever may appear shows plain reality, unmixed with anything

besides.

 

Returning there, to unmixed being, no confusion can remain. What's

done from there is rightly done, spontaneously and naturally.

 

But what is done from mind's confusion vacillates uncertainly,

between the sanity of unmixed truth and the insanity of mind's

confused duality. In this passage, Hamlet's mind is shown caught up

in the insanity, with " resolution ... sicklied o'er with the pale

cast of thought " that makes " enterprises of great pith and moment

.... lose the name of action " .

 

The full soliloquy is reproduced below, for those members who may

wish to read it for themselves.

 

Ananda

 

 

To be, or not to be - that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them. To die - to sleep -

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die - to sleep.

To sleep - perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death-

The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns - puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

 

--- End forwarded message ---