Reason cannot fathom what the heart knows intuitively.
We are garlands of God in so far as we personify the entire universe.
Study continues on the various spiritual approaches to understanding the Real, our place, our mistakes, disharmony.
Begin with Nagarjuna, Buddhism. In the Buddha’s first sermon a “middle way” was presented between the extremes of self-indulgence and self- mortification. This tacitly embraces an idea that those following then accepted, promoted, spiritual paths often erred when adopting what Buddha considered extreme measures. Nagarjuna followed by philosophically expanding this notion into existence and nonexistence, or, between emptiness and absence of intrinsic existence. For Nagarjuna ignorance, the source of all suffering is the belief in svabhava, a term that literally means “own being” and has been rendered as “intrinsic existence” and “self nature”. Nagarjuna employs the doctrine of the two truths, paramartha satya (“ultimate truth”) and samvriti satya (“conventional truth”), explaining that everything that exists is ultimately empty of any intrinsic nature but does exist conventionally. This is a necessary condition following that the conventional is the necessary means for understanding the ultimate. For it is the ultimate that makes the conventional possible. As Nagarjuna wrote, “For whom emptiness is possible, everything is possible.” Compare this to Vedanta Advaita (non-duality) which does not make such a specific claim but does state that relative existence is, when properly understood, when seen from the standpoint of the ultimate reality, identical with Brahman, the absolute. I take it that relative existence corresponds to the Buddhistic notion of that which is conventional.
Vedanta, the philosophy of Advaita (non-duality) put forth by Guadapada and his student Sankara it seems to this one share some similarities with Nagarjuna. Vedanta, Advaita, holds that nothing is real except the entire universe. All phenomena are illusory, that is, empty of any “intrinsic existence” at all, that phenomenal reality, the world of relative being, which for Nagarjuna would be called conventional existence, is illusory yet dependent upon a substratum, the ground for phenomena. In Vedanta the illusory, the world of manifested being is likewise used as a means of ultimately reaching true understanding of what is in reality the non-dual nature of existence which they call Brahman or Atman and which would correspond to Nagarjuna’s ultimate truth. So. For both these systems there is only one thing in existence. It admits of no intrinsic being of manifested reality yet makes use of same to arrive at a true understanding of the Ultimate Reality. It might be said of Advaita that emptiness is not the absence of existence but, rather, the absence of intrinsic existence. Isn’t this the same as denying that any manifested thing is real in itself but is actually an illusion based on what is really real and that is the substratum, the one pure, undifferentiated, eternal being?
Any manifestation is impermanent. It appears for awhile – as an illusion – it passes away. The whole process is dreamlike as any given phenomenon is unreal in itself. Yet, any given phenomenon is not different from the Real either and for Vedanta is properly understood to be identical with the Real. I would submit that there is a congruence here with Nagarjuna’s idea that “the conventional is the necessary means to understanding the ultimate, and that the ultimate makes the conventional possible.” Nagarjuna went on to say that it is by the manifest that we first apprehend the ultimate reality though when focused on the manifest understanding of the ultimate reality is inhibited to the extent of the clinging thereto.
Important to note that, according to Nagarjuna, “To convey through concepts what lies beyond concepts and conventional entities is the skillfulness of the wise.” And in Guadapada’s Mandukya Upanishad we find this: “That which is indescribable by words cannot be discriminated (as real or unreal).” This should be kept in mind.
The Mandukya Upanishad posits consciousness as the substratum of changing attributes as the only reality. Vedanta puts forth that the Buddhists fall into nihilism when they claim nothing exists. What the Buddhists mean here is that no relative thing has intrinsic existence, with which the Vedantists should agree. But the Buddhists seem not to distinguish between the “thing” and the consciousness of same. Things do not have intrinsic existence – in Advaitic terms they are illusory – but this is not the same as saying consciousness (of things) is without intrinsic existence for consciousness persists while things come and go it being the illumination of their passing. According to Guadapada “consciousness when not in motion (imaginary action), is free from all appearances and remains changeless.” The discrete seemingly unconnected moments of consciousness aren’t consciousness at all. They are the quanta of perceptions. Consciousness illuminates them making them seem connected. The mind arises anew with each quanta and only consciousness is continuous, actually a kind of light shining on all experiential data which, as noted by the Buddhists, for instance, is a string of unconnected events. Iota of perception, discrete parts of the ‘waterfall’ are united by consciousness, held together. Music might provide a more apt metaphor. No thing is eternal. Its very essence is to come and go and to serve as a pointer to something deeper. That something is consciousness and is in itself the substratum, the ultimate reality by which appearances occur at all. One can’t define it, it is mistakenly taken as ever changing yet in actuality it is that by which there can be definition of the effulgence happening therein, illumined thereby. Sensory perception depends on it. It’s subtlety is infinite and its reach, too. There might be an infinity of universes – I don’t think so – yet consciousness itself is the same for all. So. The multiplicity dissolves into the One True Thing which is unknowable, pure, not subject to being owned, controlled, defined, measured.
That is correct. Consciousness is all that remains on suspension of sensory perception, of mind, as in deep sleep or the Yogic Samadhic trance. It should be the stated goal to realize this and the Yogis’ “Drsta” (the seer) being established in his own right seems a more advanced expression of the self realization of the Vedantic Atman/Brahman and the Buddhist Tathagata. One must go the way of Buddhahood for the ultimate actualization of beings’ purpose and meaning. For the end within, the entelechy, is ever striving to manifest in every possible effulgence of whatever it is that is this universe in which we find ourselves.
Coming from the same general time, the same general place, one expects a certain amount of harmony in the spiritual approaches to reality. It can’t be avoided. So the disputation is just a minor flaw to be taken somewhat lightly. These spiritual leaders might be said to have emphasized their differences in some cases it being necessary to make their followers feel special that they chose the only true and right path among the many offered. In other words these are, after all, men and suffer the same afflictions as anyone. Forgive them for proselytizing. To be sure one must believe in one’s own message in order to convince others and the Vedanta method includes presenting only partial, carefully selected teachings as a means of waking the student to the full teaching after some period of acclimation. So. They might not truly claim to “own” the truth but only claim a “lease” on it. So. Follow me!
But the truth is out, I submit, when we continuously see the teacher finally yield to an ever deepening inclination to submit to a greater power. Is this a teleological pointer to the ultimate entelechy, the final end within? Guadapada, and countless others finally retire to the Himalayas – a cloister, a secluded place of and for devotion – to worship a deity. Some of these are Devas, some Devis – some Gods, some Goddesses. What is their claim on us? Love? Yes, I think so- in a personal way. It’s there always in the background and when finally one simply yields it issues forth to assume it’s proper, primordial place of grace and redemption.
Yet, love too is a kind of illusion, something to cling to along with beauty, liberty, truth and indeed all mental constructs. It’s a sign we in the end submit to our natural desire to anthropomorphize the world. Here, also, we should forgive the rose for thinking it is just a form of the dirt from which it came. And apply this too. It’s not unlike a fire brand, which is really just a point of light, being twirled to create the illusion of a circle, a line, and so forth. The final chapter of the Mandukya Upanishad, by the way, is titled “Quenching of the Firebrand.” But. These concomitants of consciousness are modifications of mind and its accompanying illuminative factor, having no existence of their own. Nagarjuna would say no svabhava. So, what part do they play? Like the fire brand they are mere points of light. They are in some sense eternal as they are not things that come and go and it seems important in some way that they seem to emerge only when, or after, sentient life forms do. And qualities have a different claim on being than mere quantitative things, concrete things, that is. We make them ourselves, by twirling the point of light. Our effort is key. Though illusory they do serve a purpose. These depend on us to actualize them as co-creators. By God’s grace they exist as potentialities, our partnership is required to actualize them. And isn’t this similar to making bread from wheat? Their being is on loan from God but it is worthy for it is by these illusions and our momentary attending thereto that we perhaps get a fleeting glimpse of the divine. And in that moment is all the time needed to realize our true nature and by that our partner does the same. We come hand in hand and this nameless transfiguration is in harmony with all these old teachers. Yes, the world of relative things is illusory. Yes. Avoid clinging to these as having intrinsic existence. They are not eternal. They do point to the eternal in the same way that the oak dreams of the acorn, the acorn dreams of the oak, and the stump lives in them both.