Chaudhuri text: "Not So Fast, Boys..."

[Guest guest]

....as you are patting yourselves on the back, believing that, a) you have

read and understood Chaudhuri's arguments, and; b) that you have effectively

offered 'counter-arguments' (counter-comments, counter-sarcasms?) to support

your own views.

 

Gentlemen: Has just one of you acquired the full essay and read the entire

text so that you could better understand the context of Chaudhuri's

comments? Did you stop and think, "Now wait a minute, this is a cutting

from the piece, perhaps Madhya might offer more of the text for further

clarification. Before I rip it to shreds, I'd like to be absolutely certain

that I understand Chaudhuri's arguments and can then successfully offer an

effective critique."

 

Gentlemen: You are so emotionally attached to your beliefs! Not one of you

took the time to actually understand the text, and formulate arguments that

actually counter what Chaudhuri is claiming. Greg, bless your heart, you

tried, and you get a 'B+' for structure, but a 'C-' for analysis. For

purposes of brevity, I'll jump to the heart of the discussion:

>From Greg: Chaudhuri is expecting experiential evidence

>to point to an eternal self *as an object or entity*. And of course, he's

>right that no *object* can be eternal, transcendental, etc. But what the

>mystics write and sing about is not an object, but a an immanent,

>transcendent, and non-dual Self. This kind of Self is source and substance

>of EVERY experience. No experience can disconfirm it; every experience

>confirms it. Because all experience it is the Self experiencing.

 

Greg, Where in the text can you support your claim that Chaudhuri 'expects'

experiential evidence to reveal an eternal Self as an 'object or entity?'

The irony of your claim is that Chaudhuri is suggesting precisely the

opposite! From elsewhere in the same essay: "But to hold, as Shankara and

all other Vedantists do, that the blissful Self is an eternally

self-existent entity or reality is to commit the metaphysical fallacy of

substantializing a mode of experience or poise of consciousness." Herein

lies the real jist of Chaudhuri's comments. What can Experience say of

Experience? Chaudhuri continues: "The metaphysical fallacy is a persistent

refusal to acknowledge the finitude of human consciousness." He goes on to

say:

 

"The basic experiential datum of samadhi is the experience of freedom,

immortality, transcendence of subject-object dichotomy, inexpressible bliss,

boundless expansion of consciousness. There is no questioning or denying

this immediate datum of the highest kind of spiritual or mystic experience

that has ever fallen to the lot of man.

 

But then the question arises: What is the metaphysical or philosophical or

psychological significance of this experience? What conclusions can be

reasonably drown from this indubitable experiential situation?

 

Both during the duration of this samadhi experience and also while

describing it later on in verbalized form, every mystic or sage does some

unconscious interpreting of his own. A metaphysician or philosopher waxes

even more eloquent with his own tacit assumptions and interpretations.

 

For instance, some draw the conclusions that the individual soul or self is

immortal and that God, a determinate mode of spiritual or supernatural Being

is also undoubtedly immortal. This is what both Buddha and Shankara denied

as intelletual constructions of the basic experience. The ultimate as

revealed in that experience was declared by Shankara as indeterminable Being

(nirguna Brahman). Buddha thought that even the word "Being" was a

determination and so referred to the ultimate as Void or Emptiness. But

both Buddha and Sankara further agreed that samadhi or nirvana reveals one's

individual empirical existence as evanescent and unreal.

 

I am inclined to agree with Buddha and Shankara on most of the major points

of philosophic importance. However, I cannot accept their unfortunate use

of the words "unreal" and "illusory" as adjectives of individuality or

empirical personality. Individual, empirical existence is no doubt

transitory and evanescent. Whatever is temporal is certainly

mortal--destined to be dissolved in the unfathomable vastness of Being

sooner or later. But it was the unconscious, uncriticized, but

unwarrantable assumption that "whatever is impermanent is unreal" which

produced the world-negating attitude of these two great spiritual masters."

(Transpersonal Psychologies, pp 245-6)

 

The point around which all statements regarding spiritual experience turns

is this: What can I say about what I have experienced? How can I use words

and grammar to elucidate the nature of that Experience? Indeed, "How does

my primordial, context of language, culture, historicity, gender, value,

individuation, etc., influence both the character of my experience and my

interpretation of the experience."

 

When one experiences the Absolute, one is inclined to (ex)claim: I have

experienced that that has no time, nor space nor personal referent. That

that I have experienced is absolutely permanent, unchanging and over against

'That' all other experience is impermanent and mutable. At least that is

one interpretation by a finite mind of an experience being described as

'not-finite.' The beauty of this marvelous 'friction' that characterizes

the finite/non-finite interface is its marvelous creative diversity. One

might dissolve the sense of self in the Absolute and 'awaken' to describe

that experience not in absolutistic, metaphysical terms at all. Rather, one

might say, "I have seen the Face of God, and that Face is Pure (unqualified,

unlimited) Love. Or, "I have seen the face of the Absolute and it looks

like the giant oak tree in my backyard. But I saw its roots stretching

downward and grasping the center of the earth and I saw its limbs raise up

into the Heavens until I realized that I, myself am a huge, giant oak tree

in my backyard that encompasses the depths of the earth and the heights of

the heavens." One might experience the Absolute and say, "I discovered that

Christ is everywhere and in everything, that I and you are Christ, that all

Being is Christ, and also that Christ is not any particular person or being,

but a Pure, (unlimited, unqualified), experience of Life as perpetual Joy."

I might experience the absolute and say, "It is utter and complete Silent

Stillness. It is absolutely Nothing." The marvel of spiritual experience

is that It Can Be Spoken--Expressed. But what it cannot be, is ABSOLUTIZED.

From my poetry collection, The Peterson Chronicles,

 

 

 

What is a personality,

Peterson asks,

not whispering,

but shouting,

not caring but

demanding?

 

It¹s the ol¹ in and out.

Self-recognition is

onto-theological masturbation:

beings sliding against Being:

Zeit jacking off Sein,

Yin blowing Yang.

Outside screwing Inside.

One hell of an

auto-ontological fuck-fest.

 

And it just don¹t matter,

nothing matters,

you cut off your head

to free your body,

you slaughter the sovereignty

of your thoughts to

liberate the personality

of your Self.

 

Freedom is like

being Yertle the Turtle:

You see the world

from a heightened

vantage, only the

height is not higher

but utterly Present:

Now.

 

 

 

What does this mean? My experience of the absolute may be absolute in

character, but when I undertake to claim that only passive, inert Non-being

is Real and all else unreal, then I overstep the boundaries offered by my

'transcendental experience' and enter into the realm of finite speculative

metaphysics. When I make absolutistic claims regarding the status of any or

all experience, I substantialize, or 'hypostasize' my experience--I 'reify'

the experience--and make it into a 'thing.' When I undertake to claim that

'this reality is real' while this other reality is not 'real', then I am

creating a separation that warrants at the least, explanation, if not

'proof.' Proof will difficult, since one cannot separate finite

consciousness from infinite consciousness to claim that either one or the

other is less intrinsically 'real.' To make the claim that an single

infinite Self is experiencing all the activities of Reality, is to

substantialize the infinite Self and render that experience inert of the

very qualities that it bestows in the first place: freedom and unlimited joy

of creative agency. For is this not the true and astonishing beauty of

spiritual Experience: freedom to experience and freely express the

astonishing marvel of Experience?

 

Thus, I claim, there shall never be a single 'universal' state of 'Awakened'

consciousness characterized by precisely the same shared experience.

Chaudhuri's comments assert this very observation. Characterizations of the

Absolute will always be marvelous and infinite in variety because there is

only the Experience of the Absolute, not an absolute experience of 'the' or

'an' absolute. I believe that 'evolution' of consciousness shall not arrive

characterized by a mass 'graduation' of all persons to a 'headless' state of

experience. Rather, I believe that an evolved humanity will see a society

where many, many more citizens explore the nature of Experience and evolve

into increasingly more compassionate, peace-loving and creative persons by

virtue of their Experiences. The nature of Experience will multiply, not

consolidate. Ways of expressing the astonishing wonder of the Experience of

the Absolute will find new forms and modes of expression. The Evolution of

Consciousness will alway signal creative diversity rather than homogenized,

hypostatized 'absolutism.' It is the actual fact of Experience as such, the

'divine' if you will, friction or interface of finite/nonfinite that shall

guarantee this quality of Evolution. If the Experience of the Absolute has

any value at all, it must be in its capacity to bestow upon the experiencer

a healthier, more wholistic, and intrinsically more compassionate Nature.

 

Chaudhuri says: "The Self is not a substance endowed with consciousness as

an attribute. It is pure consciousness itself, eternally perfect,

absolutely free, and intrinsically luminous." Thus 'consciousness' and

'experience' are not, at least for Chaudhuri, (and for me, as well),

different. The burden of proof, when it comes to metaphysical speculation,

is squarely on the shoulders of one who claims that not one, but two forms

of reality exist: Absolutely transcendent Nonbeing, or utterly passive

Brahman--and immanently unreal, manifest reality. I can experience 'pure'

consciousness in samadhi. The nature of this experience may be that I

discover, in my experience, a quality of consciousness--and of myself--that

I am absolutely still, silent, absolutely full of compassion and altruistic

rapture--utterly serene and tranquil, ecstatically blissful and motivating

as the Muse--and on and on. And, I cannot separate the nature or value of

my experience from the context of experience from which this experience of

'absolute' consciousness is birthed: twentieth century, english-speaking,

American, went to such and such University, works here, plays there, et

cetera. The finite context of non-finite experience is more experience of

my self, not this experience as opposed to or over against 'that'

experience.

 

Hence Chaudhuri's words: "The ultimate goal of yoga discipline is true

transcendental self-realization and peaceful self-sufficiency." Can any

more glorious and liberating freedom exist than the realization that that

'pure, undifferentiated consciousness' that one has experienced, in samadhi

or by other means, is not in any form or sense different from one's own

experience of one's self as a finite/infinite, mutable/immutable, creative

actor on the stage of Life? I can describe the experience of my self as a

continuum that includes both experiences of temporality and nontemporality,

spatiality and nonspatiality, form and formless, full and empty, void and

satiate. Finally, Chaudhuri says:

 

"The psychology of integral yoga derives its unique characteristics from the

practice of integral yoga in the original Aurobindonian sense of the term.

A restructuring of the priorities of value consciousness is at the heart of

this practice. Total psychointegration implies not only realization of the

mystical or transcendental dimension of the Self. It also requires

actualization of psychic potentials of the individual as a creative unit of

the evolutionary process. A newly developing technique of integral

self-realization is the delicate balancing of reason, sexual libido, and

transpersonal Being-energy (logos, eros, and ontos; brahma, visnu and siva

sakti)." (Ibid, pg 239.)

[Guest guest]

At 01:09 PM 6/2/99 -0700, Madhya Nandi wrote:

 

<excerpt>

>Gentlemen: You are so emotionally attached to your beliefs!

>Not one of you took the time to actually understand the text,

>and formulate arguments that actually counter what Chaudhuri

>is claiming. Greg, bless your heart, you tried, and you get a

>'B+' for structure, but a 'C-' for analysis. For purposes of

>brevity, I'll jump to the heart of the discussion:

 

 

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

 

Thanks! Pls let me add that there's no attachment here, because (1) I

don't believe any of what I said, or any of what Chaudhuri said. I don't

even believe this paragraph! But I did take the time to carefully read

and try to understand the entire segment you quoted. But no, I did not

read farther than that, find his book, etc.

 

Now, to the points....

>>>>

 

<excerpt>

>From Greg: Chaudhuri is expecting experiential evidence

>to point to an eternal self *as an object or entity*. And of course,

he's

>right that no *object* can be eternal, transcendental, etc. But what

the

>mystics write and sing about is not an object, but a an immanent,

>transcendent, and non-dual Self. This kind of Self is source and

substance

>of EVERY experience. No experience can disconfirm it; every

experience

>confirms it. Because all experience it is the Self experiencing.

 

 

Greg, Where in the text can you support your claim that Chaudhuri

'expects' experiential evidence to reveal an eternal Self as an 'object

or entity?'

 

</excerpt>

 

<<<<<<<<

 

Where in the text? Right here:

 

 

"There is no experiential evidence to support the theory

 

of an eternally self-existent and absolutely perfect,

 

unchanging, and unchangeable Self, finite or infinite,

 

individual, universal, or transcendental."

 

 

For Chaudhuri to say that there is no experiential evidence to support

the theory seems to imply that he thinks that it should do so, or that it

is trying to. In other words, it sounds like Chaudhuri is taking science

to task for something science never claims to be able to do. Objects or

entities are the only thing science can point to. In this way, he is not

really disagreeing with scientists.

 

 

Your next quote:

 

 

<excerpt>Chaudhuri continues: "The metaphysical fallacy is a persistent

refusal to acknowledge the finitude of human consciousness." (several

paragraphs snipped)

 

</excerpt>

 

<<<<<<<<

 

This is a cogent sentence that leads into his arguments that the finite

cannot know or substantiate or make valid claims about the infinite. He

seems to be saying that someone, maybe Shankara or Buddha, is making a

claim/inference/interpretation about the infinite (or ultimate existence)

based on finite (or empirical) human consciousness. I agree with him

(and you, Madhya?) that this would be a TERRIBLE intellectual mistake.

But I don't think that either one of these great teachers makes this

mistake. I think Chaudhuri is pretty fairly interpreting them on the far

end (that is, on what is experienced), but misinterprets them on the near

end (what experiences). To make this clear:

 

 

It seems clear from what you quote of Chaudhuri that he would agree with

these two sentences:

 

 

(i) Samadhi-type experience-datum is one of freedom, bliss,

 

limitlessness, etc.

 

(ii) The experiencer is limited human consciousness.

 

 

If I am mis-interpreting Chaudhuri here, then the rest of what I am

saying is wrong. But if he would agree with (i) and (ii), then let's

continue...

 

 

I agree pretty much with (i), but (ii) itself is something for which

there is no evidence. Is it really an observation that the experiencer

is limited? There certainly are limitations that are experienced (all

the psycho-physical stuff), but what could ever substantiate a claim that

the experiencer is/or/is-limited-by these limitations? THAT would be an

unwarranted assumption. ANY limitation at all is something that is

experienced, is it not? Then what evidence could there be that THAT

WHICH EXPERIENCES the limitiations is itself limited??

 

 

Chaudhuri is very careful to say that we shouldn't make claims about the

identity or characteristics of that which is experienced. But the same

caveats apply on the near end, the experiencer. If we don't make any

attributions on either end, then we don't impute limitations to either

side.... Then there is no attribution of the experienced and the

experiencer being different.

 

 

Another quote, from you, Madhya:

 

 

<<<<<<<<

 

<excerpt> I might experience the absolute and say, "It is utter and

complete Silent Stillness. It is absolutely Nothing."

 

</excerpt>>>>>

 

<excerpt>

 

</excerpt>What is the evidence that we have experiences that ARE NOT the

absolute?

 

 

Regards,

 

 

--Greg

[Guest guest]

 

Madhya Nandi [madhya]

Wednesday, June 02, 1999 21:10

Re: Chaudhuri text: "Not So Fast, Boys..."

 

 

[...] From elsewhere in the same essay: "But to hold, as Shankara and

all other Vedantists do, that the blissful Self is an eternally

self-existent entity or reality is to commit the metaphysical fallacy of

substantializing a mode of experience or poise of consciousness." Herein

lies the real jist of Chaudhuri's comments. What can Experience say of

Experience? Chaudhuri continues: "The metaphysical fallacy is a persistent

refusal to acknowledge the finitude of human consciousness." He goes on to

say:

 

"The basic experiential datum of samadhi is the experience of freedom,

immortality, transcendence of subject-object dichotomy, inexpressible bliss,

boundless expansion of consciousness. There is no questioning or denying

this immediate datum of the highest kind of spiritual or mystic experience

that has ever fallen to the lot of man.

Samadhis do exists in several types. If nirvikalpa samadhi gives the

idea of freedom, inquire what happened to the freedom when the samadhi is

over. Samadhis are not a solid basis to discuss the nature of reality.

 

But then the question arises: What is the metaphysical or philosophical

or psychological significance of this experience? What conclusions can be

reasonably drown from this indubitable experiential situation?

For some, that experience took place just a few times. What conclusions

can one draw from experience that is left as content of memory?

 

Both during the duration of this samadhi experience and also while

describing it later on in verbalized form, every mystic or sage does some

unconscious interpreting of his own. A metaphysician or philosopher waxes

even more eloquent with his own tacit assumptions and interpretations.

Which makes them no "better" than the witnesses of accidents who have to

tell their experience to the interrogator: all stories are different.

 

For instance, some draw the conclusions that the individual soul or self

is immortal and that God, a determinate mode of spiritual or supernatural

Being is also undoubtedly immortal. This is what both Buddha and Shankara

denied as intelletual constructions of the basic experience. The ultimate

as revealed in that experience was declared by Shankara as indeterminable

Being (nirguna Brahman). Buddha thought that even the word "Being" was a

determination and so referred to the ultimate as Void or Emptiness. But

both Buddha and Sankara further agreed that samadhi or nirvana reveals one's

individual empirical existence as evanescent and unreal.

One cannot compare samadhi and nirvana. From nirvana is no return but

from nirvikalpa samadhi there is. The proper comparison would be moksha and

nirvana. For a philosopher who wants to score, a lethal error

 

I am inclined to agree with Buddha and Shankara on most of the major

points of philosophic importance. However, I cannot accept their

unfortunate use of the words "unreal" and "illusory" as adjectives of

individuality or empirical personality. Individual, empirical existence is

no doubt transitory and evanescent. Whatever is temporal is certainly

mortal--destined to be dissolved in the unfathomable vastness of Being

sooner or later. But it was the unconscious, uncriticized, but

unwarrantable assumption that "whatever is impermanent is unreal" which

produced the world-negating attitude of these two great spiritual masters."

(Transpersonal Psychologies, pp 245-6)

Real and unreal are opposites. The crux of the matter of course, is that

one's "real nature" has no opposites. If that becomes a "fact of life" as in

the case of Buddha and Sankara, terms like unreal and illusory have to be

interpreted with the "era of utterance" in mind. So there has been a time,

when "unreal" meant that "life as a party" wouldn't last forever. There also

has been an era, when "unreal" meant householder's life and "real" meant

happily meditating hermit in the woods. So there has been an era where the

entire physical life was depicted as "illusory" too. "Virtual" would be a

proper term. After all, what is life without interpretation taking place in

the mind?

But isn't that what a psychologist ought to do??? Find the perspective

where the "questionable one" is right so one can understand? So if one can

acknowledge the veracity of both teaching and life of someone "claiming"

realization, wouldn't that be the logical procedure to follow?

 

The point around which all statements regarding spiritual experience

turns is this: What can I say about what I have experienced? How can I use

words and grammar to elucidate the nature of that Experience? Indeed, "How

does my primordial, context of language, culture, historicity, gender,

value, individuation, etc., influence both the character of my experience

and my interpretation of the experience." [...]

When an experience is over, one can only say something about the content

of memory. So anyone endowed with a little logic would describe something

analogous to a roadmap, to arrive at that experience oneself. The principle

of "Be a light onto yourself but with a good map you can go faster".

Because one is "there" already, it means recognition can take place and

a clever analogy could serve a purpose as well.

So how about describing the experience of no-experience; is that

possible, not possible or neither of the two

If that is too difficult, describe the color of consciousness without

content (but describe without using negations), with the reminder that the

color of consciousness containing passion is red

 

Jan