Surya Deva, the question was not addressed to you. I’m interested in Awwware’s thinking on this.
Well, unfortunately you cannot not stop others from responding, especially in a thread that you have not even started. I was in a position to answer the question, so I answered it. Awaaare will give his own answer, then we get two viewpoints on the question and not just one. The more the participation the more interesting the discussion.
[QUOTE=Asuri;44294]Regarding my objections to the original post, lately I’ve been thinking that aggregation is not necessarily the same as transformation. The concept of transformation of prakriti can be explained by a fruit tree, that takes light, and water, and earth, and air, and transforms them into a piece of fruit. I’m not sure that your idea of aggregation really involves transformation.
In thinking about aggregation, our own bodies are the best example, being composed of many specialized organs. These in turn are composed of different types of specialized cells, each of which is a living entity, operating independent of our control. Yet we think of our “self” or “soul” as a single individual controller type entity. In Samkhya, the controller or agent is considered to be not the self, it is the Ahamkara, or ego.
Still, even if you accept the idea of aggregation, there is still a problem with the monist view. If Brahman is present in everything, inanimate as well as animate objects, how do you explain why some parts of Brahman develop into living aggregates and others don’t?[/QUOTE]
Before I can give my vision on why certain things develop into living matter and others not, I will need to investigate this whole world of Samkhya, which both Asuri and Surya Deva introduced me to, in greater detail.
What is very interesting in this thread, is that even if we have come to the conclusion of the primacy of consciousness (which is also embraced by western philosophers such as Peter Russell and by unknown amateur philosophers such as me), we still have not answered all the questions on a lower level of granularity. From what I understood from the above discussion, the manifestation of “individuality” in the form of a jivatma is just an illusion. In fact only the Paramatma is the only existing entity and is jnana.
Departing from that point of view (and not having read these works on Samkhya yet), if we assume that we are living -which is self-evident- then Paramatma must be living as well (cause and effect of same nature). If Paramatma is present in all, then all is living (deduction). Then to call rocks, plastic objects “inanimate” does not make sense. This is also the conclusion of Peter Russell: even an atom, even a subatomic particle, is capable of interacting and reacting to other entities of the same level of granularity. Thus it can be said that the particle “senses” and reacts with a certain level of intelligence. The terms “living”, “sense” and “intelligence” then becomes a matter of semantics. We have already come to the conclusion that all particulate matter is essentially illusory, in fact you could call it the mindstuff of Brahman.
As mentioned before by Surya Deva it could be considered as the collapse of the superposition-wave-function, which is the manifested universe, which collapse is due to the very act of observation: the observation by the consciousness. This mindstuff manifests itself to us in the form of particulate matter, matter-encapsulated energy and wave-type energy, which are essentially apparent forms of the same thing. All particulate matter has the tendency to aggregate (experimentally verifiable). In the vast majority of the cases this leads to chaotic structures which cannot be propagated. Occasionally structures have advantageous properties and can exist over longer time frames, propagate and by virtue of selection lead to more evolved structures and patterns. Emergence or metasystem transition (there we have transformation). Still the underlying nature of this all is still consciousness, it is embedded within the consciousness. The level of consciousness of a particulate entity taken in isolation may be low as compared to the level of consciousness we are used to, but to deny it any consciousness would be in violation with our earlier conclusions. An observed photon is the particulate form light, which is pure energy having both wave and particulate nature. It has certain properties of interaction, reaction. E.g. given the right circumstances a collision of two photons results in the production of a proton and an anti-proton i.e. particulate matter and anti-matter.
Still the underlying nature of this all is still consciousness, it is embedded within the consciousness. Thus it can be said that the particle “senses” and reacts with a certain level of intelligence. Again, one could even call it living, depending on the definition of the term living. The droplet deriving from the ocean cannot be said to be the ocean, but is of the same nature and derives therefrom by virtue of cause and effect. So does matter and energy derive from consciousness, which we have defined to be the nature of the Soul. Therefore the “soulness” of matter and energy cannot be denied. Following the same pathway of reasoning recommended by Surya Deva, perhaps we must conclude that the term “photon-soul” is then not that preposterous after all.
Now the issue of individuality vs. consciousness: From our experience as living entities that have not yet reached Kaivalya and that have not yet reached the possibility to achieve unison with the consciousness of Paramatma in a manner that we are conscious of that unity, we can only conclude that our consciousness as we experience it, is confined and limited to an individual experience. There are people who have certain skills in that they can capture, sense the mind content of other human beings ( I have witnessed this- no tricks involved: my brother told me something about the content of my mind, which he could not have known by techniques called “mentalism”). For these people the barriers of individual consciousness are apparently less high. But for most of us, we experience our consciousness as limited, confined to an individual experience as we cannot (yet?) merge with the absolute consciousness, we decided to be the very nature of the soul.
So from our direct self-evident experience for the time being in this relative world, I am not you, you are not me, we cannot directly and unambiguously experience consciousness beyond our physical and individualised context. Our perceived self-consciousness (note the nuance “perceived”), manifests itself in a “particulised” way. Or to put it in other words:
perceived self-consciousness manifests itself as a quantum of consciousness. (That this may be an illusion, we’ll come later to that, but for the moment we have no other data to ground another pattern on).
As the very nature of all apparent entities of existence (not the nuance “apparent”) is consciousness, it is fair to conclude that the nature of the most simple apparent particulate entity is also consciousness. It manifests as a quantum of consciousness.
A quantum of consciousness cannot be considered to be the whole of consciousness. When we consider different levels of aggregation, such as “apparent dead matter” like a rock (petra), apparent living matter like a plant (tree: arbor) or bacterium, apparent sensing living matter like an animal (horse : equus), apparent understanding and self-aware intelligent sensing living matter such as a human (Est, Vivit, Sentit, Intelligit, in Liber de Intellectu, (1510) Charles de Bouelles), the potency of the conscious experience increases. Not only is there an aggregation or sum of apparent quanta of consciousness, each metasystem transition to a higher level of organisation is accompanied with new emergent properties of conscious experience. So the whole is every time more than the sum of parts. Likewise, the evolution of an eukaryotic cell as we know it, is in fact a symbiosis of a proto-eukaryote and an organism that originated from a bacterium, the mitochondrion. Its properties are more than the sum of parts. Its versatility to experience is enriched at a higher level. A metasystem transition occurs again when going from unicellular to a multicellular organism and so forth.
At each level of aggregation, the quanta of consciousness are subordinate to higher levels of conscious experience. It is then a matter of definition to name a higher level of aggregation of conscious experience, a higher level of consciousness (here I anticipate objections from Surya Deva; we are on the inductive if not moving towards the hypothetical plane).
So this reasoning would call each higher level of aggregation of consciousness a metasystem transition of the aggregated lower levels of consciousness. In this analogy the lower levels of aggregated consciousness or soulness can be compared to Lucretius’ animai, whereas the highest apparent level of aggregation is the anima or if put in vedantic language: the jivatma. So the jivatma is the highest level of consciousness within a compounded quanta of consciousness, which steers the lower levels.
The relative nature of the jivatama (its absolute nature being pure consciousness) is not defined by the particulate nature of the lower levels of aggregation. We constantly exchange matter and energy with the environment. It is rather defined by the relations and patterns built by the particulate lower levels. Also when we die, the lower levels of aggregation lose their unity as the commanding level is gone. Those levels of consciousness return to the lowest individual level : the organ level is degraded, the cellular level is degraded, the subcellular level is degraded, proteins, dna and other biomolecules are degraded. What is left are simple molecules and minerals. So the intermediate levels (organs, cells, subcellular structures) a priori do not seem to have an independent consciousness which can be maintained over the border of death.
From this it can then be inferred that an individual conscious quantum is only defined at the highest level of aggregation of a so-called living organism. (Of course if the highest level of aggregation is the cellular level such as in yeast , amoebae etc. then that level defines the consciousness quantum).
Now as to the following part, my reasoning and knowledge do not suffice for the moment so I turn to the sources(I leave it up to Surya Deva or Asuri to fill in this part with samkhya type reasoning framework): The annamayakosha (and according to Taimni also the pranamayakosha) is said to be temporarily lost. But according to Vedanta the pattern built is not lost. Manomayakosha, vijnana mayakosha and anadamayakosha continue and come to expression upon reincarnation. So the pattern of these three koshas of the non-self-realised jivatma appears to define the nature (at a certain level of understanding- ultimately the nature is consciousness) of the non-self-realised jivatma.
Once the jivatma breaks loose from its illusion and attains kaivalya it realises its unity with the paramatma and its no longer bound by the lower levels of aggregation. Its pattern merges with the higher oversoul.
I am very interested to see how the notion of “reincarnation” can be arrived at via the Samkhya reasoning. I also anticipate that part of my expose will again be called fantasy by Surya Deva, but this time he’ll have to counter the intermediate reasoning steps. One additional remark, a friend of mine once said: “When we experience isolation from Brahman, we are in our particulate state. Once we experience union with Brahman, we are in our wave state”. I liked the analogy.
So to answer Asuri, from the above I hope it is clear that the monist view is the correct one. That the term “inanimate” actually does not apply. I agree a block of wood does not have a higher level of aggregation of consciousness than the level of its molecular building blocks but to deny a level of consciousness to the molecular level (extremely minute as it is) would be contradictory with the primacy of consciousness principle. Ego, Ahamkara is merely a mental representation, it is an algorithm just as manas, buddhi. It is not the ultimate controller, it is an intermediate level of consciousness, a mental organ so to say. Not than it does not fulfil a function. Like the physical organs it does. But it is ultimately lost upon the merging with Brahman, so it has no perpetual reality level.
[quote=Awwware;43127]What is the nature of the Soul? Is there a physical quality of the soul that can be described? Is the soul pure energy? Is it a photon? In this article I’ll try to brainstorm a bit on these issues, without any pretense of giving an exhaustive theory.
According to Vedanta existence has two aspects, Shiva and Shakti also described as the higher aspect of the Godsoul that dwells in us (Purusha) and the lower aspect of energetic and material illusionary world (Maya). This is a kind of dualist view with a Godsoul as knower of the field on the one hand and its substrate of expression, the field that is known by the Godsoul, on the other hand. Another view is the monist view: The Soul is an energy based entity and matter is just a form of energy. According to the Siva Samhita’s monist view only entity exists. Everything is Jnana (i.e. knowledge or intelligence). Shiva and shakti are embedded therein. I must confess that I have always felt more drawn to the monist view. Recently I have started to analyse this subject in a bit more detail, which I’d like to share here.[/quote]
If it can help for your paper…
I think that you are mixing Vedanta, Tantra, Shaktism and Shaivism. The concept of Shiva/Shakti does not belong properly to Vedanta, it is a Tantric point of view in Shaiva and Shakta traditions. And the world is often considered real, not always illusory in these schools for instance in Kashmir Shaivism. You might have been confused because the teaching about illusion of the world in Shiva Samhita (a recent text written around 17-18th centuries) belonging to the Nath tradition which is Tantric is actually an influence from Advaita Vedanta. The world is considered an illusion in Advaita Vedanta as expounded by Shankara. Moreover Vedanta is a set of sub darshanas, it has a lot of different points of views, not just the one from Shankara. There are not just two point of views neither. There are different dualist and monist darshanas and also intermediate views between these two poles in Vedanta, Tantra, Shaktism, Shaivism, Vaishnavism.
Philippe
[QUOTE=Philippe*;44350]If it can help for your paper…
I think that you are mixing Vedanta, Tantra, Shaktism and Shaivism. …There are different dualist and monist darshanas and also intermediate views between these two poles in Vedanta, Tantra, Shaktism, Shaivism, Vaishnavism.
Philippe[/QUOTE]
Hi Philippe, thanks for your interest in the thread. I’m not really preparing a paper or dissertation, if that’s what you think. I blog about these things, in order to come to a better understanding. You are totally right in saying that I’m mixing up different traditions. Let me clarify I few points, by telling my history, which may also interest the other followers of this thread:
What I am not is a Pundit. I am not a classical Indian scholar (which Surya Deva perhaps is?), who knows the differences between the different currents in detail. I have not made a genuine detailed study of this (although I might like to do so). As explained hereunder in detail, I have read many sources, but for me they were mostly all manifestations of the same. It is only recently, by discussing in this forum, that I start to see the subtleties in differences between the pairs like shiva/shakti, monism/dualism, purusha/prakrti, etc.
I have never liked too much the typical philosophers type of arguing about details in the scriptures (although I must confess I get dragged into that behaviour here on the forum). I am more the practical type of guy. By practising kriya yoga I hope it will all get clear one day for me by direct observation in samyama (when will that day come?).
That’s the summary. You can stop here if you want. The rest is the story of my life. I’ll also post this under introductions.
My name is Antonin Tuynman. I am not Indian or otherwise of Hindustani origin (my wife is though). I am of Spanish-Dutch origin was brought up in the Netherlands in Christianity, but I became atheist at the age of 12 (Yes Thomas, I am a renegade). At the age of 17 I discovered Yoga and Hinduism. I practised asanas and read a lot of books during the years I was studying chemistry and biochemistry, the bhagavad gita, the ramayana, Srimad Bhagavatam, the Upanishads. At the age of 21 I had a mind blowing experience which rooted my belief in Brahman. Since then I am a monist and consider Vedanta as my religious-philosophical path. It goes perhaps one step to far to call myself a Hindu, as I was not brought up in that tradition and do not know all the finesses thereof. At the age of 24 I started meditation practices (i.e. eightfold yoga intended to achieve meditation) and found a genuine teacher at the age of 25. I read most books of Vivekananda, Yesudian, Iyengar, I.K.Taimni (the Yoga sutras of Patanjali with Taimni’s comments), Y.Sarasvati, Satyananda (from Bihar), some books on tantra (Yohari) etc. I also read books about Buddhism, The Bardo Thodol, Taoism, Kaballah, Gnosticism, Aleister Crowley, Blavatsky i.e. other mystical movements. I practised yoga quite regularly until the age of 27, when I moved to Paris to do a postdoc. I got married with a French woman who was very frightened of my convictions. Blinded by my love for her, I put my inquiry into Yoga on a very low level for about 7 years. I got a son, and then got divorced. So I returned to my old Yoga school and have been practising since 4 years again. This time I got married to a Hindustani woman, with whom, you can guess it, I share essentially the same views. She also had a son from a previous marriage and together we have now two baby girls. So 4 children in total. A family man.
So it’s difficult to find the right amount of time to practise the eightfold yoga at the level that I aspire. I’ll just have to wait for a few more years that the children get somewhat bigger and more independent.
My normal job is that of a patent examiner in biotechnology, but I also invest a great deal of time in the development of artificial intelligence concepts which ultimately are intended for the creation of an intelligent conscious and self-aware world wide web: an aware www => hence my nickname Awwware.
I associate myself with the Singularity movement of Ray Kurzweil. I am highly interested in parallels between Yoga and science/technology.
Where do I stand now? Well, I have not attained Samadhi or kaivalya. There is still some serious polishing to be done on the plane of yama-niyama and the breakdown of my Ego. The techniques of pranayama, pratyahara, Tratak I am familiar with. Occasionally I may glimpse Dhyana. I try in my mantras to address Krsna, Hanuman and Shiva as representations of the one Brahman. In sofar you can call me a Hindu.
I must confess I’m not so much interested to a dialogue which is too much concerned with semantics, the right interpretations of terminologies etc. But occasionally something valuable comes out of it. Already the sole fact that Samkhya Karika has been recommended to me made it worthwhile to participate. I post my findings on a blog called: Brahmarandhra, where neuroscience meets mysticism and a technological blog on internet Awwwareness.
[QUOTE=Awwware;43127]What is the nature of the Soul? Is there a physical quality of the soul that can be described? Is the soul pure energy? Is it a photon? In this article I’ll try to brainstorm a bit on these issues, without any pretense of giving an exhaustive theory.[/QUOTE]
Hi, here’s my contribution to your question, taken from a kriya yoga Master, Roy Eugene Davis, a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda:
–Quote–
[I]An Article from Roy Eugene Davis’ Truth Journal Oct. 1989[/I]
[B][I]I have said, You are gods; and all of you are children of the most high. –Psalms 82:6
The soul is never born, nor does it die at any time, nor having once come to be will it again cease to be. The soul is, in truth, unborn, eternal, permanent and spiritual. – Bhagavad Gita 2:20[/I][/B]
You are as a ray of consciousness, reflections of the One Light. You came into involvement with the realm of nature as a result of the Light shining upon nature. Rays of Light becoming involved with the field of nature are known as souls. Souls, being rays of the One Light are not really born and they cannot die, anymore than the One Light can be born, or die.
When we became involved with matter we so identified with it that we began to express through a mental field, a portion of Cosmic Mind, and successive bodies or sheaths; the knowledge sheath, the mental sheath, the magnetic (causal) sheath, the astral (life force) sheath, and the physical body. Bodies are formed and in due time they disintegrate but the soul does not cease to be because it is immortal, as the Light is immortal.
In the traditional sense we may say that we are "children " of God because God is our source. When we are soul conscious we are as Gods, particularized rays of Light involved with creation. If the words of the psalmist had been translated differently - “You are God’s” – the statement would still be true because we are God’s expressions and we belong not to ourselves in an ego sense, but to God.
It is helpful for one on an enlightenment path to contemplate the truth of being, to become increasingly conscious of the fact that the being, the soul, is already and will ever be, immortal. It is not in need of being changed, but while it is still deluded and unaware of its real nature it is in need of being awakened. A deluded soul, one caught up in material concerns only, needs to learn to look to the source and awaken to its divine nature. In bible language “the son of man” refers to the human condition. A “son or daughter of God” is an awakened soul capable of comprehending the inner realms of fine forces and the reality of God, as well as the pure field of consciousness which supports all manifestation.
Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita , also instructed the pure nature of the soul. Every enlightened person knows this truth, lives from it, and bears witness to it by his or her personal life. A fully illumined soul can live in the world with perfect understanding, conscious of the unbounded ocean of pure consciousness as well as the temporary view point referred to as ego-consciousness. We are like bubbles in the cosmic sea and we can learn to know our divine essence even while functioning in the realm of matter which is nothing more than God’s creative energy.
Learn to acknowledge your own essential nature and train yourself to see it in others. In the east many people greet their friends with folded hands and the word “namaste” which means, “I honor the divinity you are”.
Whenever you meet someone, or think of someone, inwardly acknowledge, “I honor the divinity you are”. Unless you are with devotees who understand the salutation you need not perform any outward gesture; merely inner recognition is sufficient. In this way you will bless yourself by being reminded of the truth and you will bless others by seeing their real spiritual essence.
Become universal in your understanding. See past color, personality characteristics, behavior, cultural origins and all that might separate you from soul communication with your brothers and sisters with whom you share your life. See God expressing through all people and all life forms.
The final solution to all human problems is spiritual enlightenment: mental illumination and unfoldment of conscious knowledge of ourselves as spiritual beings abiding in the wholeness of God. Even though this good news has been proclaimed by seers for thousands of years and is known in the heart of every person, what it is like to be enlightened may be difficult to imagine and awakening to it may erroneously be believed to be difficult if not impossible. To make spiritual awakening easier, what is needed is a radical change in how we think and feel about ourselves in relationship to the whole: one which provides an overview that enables us to have an intimation of what God is, and how the reality of God expresses as the cosmos and as souls."
–End of quote–
The viewpoint that everything is consciousness, just different grade of it. Is known as panpsychism. Although I subscribe to the view that everything is ultimately pure consciousness, would it be correct to say that everything we see is conscious. There are two points on this.
- The observer is not what they observe
- The observer is the observed
If we examine the second view point critically we will find that that it does not make sense. If I am what I observe, then it means that the apple I have in my hand is me. This is not true. I am distinct from the apple. The apple is jada(inert, dead) and I am a conscious being. Ultimately, it maybe the case that the ultimate reality of the apple is pure consciousness, but then it will not be the same apple anymore. In fact the apple will cease to exist completely.
Brahman Satya, Jagat Mithya
The is one of the great Vedanta sayings(mahavakyas) that all of reality that we perceive is unreal. It is a hologram. It is inert. All that is real is pure consciousness and that pure conscousness has a potency within itself whereby it can experience various objects, but these objects are imaginary. This is why Krishna says, “Maya is my energy” This entire world is maya and therefore it is unreal. So we should not mistake the world to be real.
One analogy used to explain the world is the world is a reflection, it is the reverse of everything that the real is. The real is unchanging, pure and absolute. The unreal is changing, impure and transient. The wise are those who do not mistake the unreal for the real.
This is why Samkhya is a great starting point because it begins with the temporal dualism that we all must accept. We are not the objects that we perceive. I am not the apple I hold, the body, or the various aggregate personalities that rise and fall. I am the one that am aware of those. Then you go beyond the shores of Samkhya and come to Vedanta where you realise that the world is not real and it never gets transformed, there is no such thing as matter, but everything is just consciousness and we access different levels of this vast consciousness field based on our state of consciousness. Generally delinated as: waking, dream and deep sleep. This classification, however misses out the details. The later Puranas give an even more detailed description of the 7 planes. Modern consciousness researchers such as Monroe has even more specific classification with focus levels going from Focus 1 to Focus 27+. The principle is the same though, you are currently embedded within a divine matrix of consciousness and you can explore different dimensions of this matrix by altering your consciousness states.
In this century this notion of matter will be gone. Science will accept there is no such thing as a matter but reality is a field of consciousness. String theory is flirting with this fact. It will become the dominant theory of science this century.
Just a remark on Tantra and Shiva and Shakti. It is true that Shiva and Shakti are similar to Purusha and Prakriti, and they can be taken to be the same, but there are major differences as well. In Samkhya the coming together of Purusha and Prakriti is the cause of bondage, embodiment and suffering. This must be reversed by realising that you not Prakriti and the dance of Prakriti will begin to stop the more dispassionate you become to her. In Tantra, the reverse is true. Shiva and Shakti have become separated and this is the cause of bondage, embodiment and suffering. This must be reversed by bringing Shiva and Shakti back into divine union.
All tantra paths have the characteristic of sexual alchemy. This is either the sexual alchemy one does within themselves by awakening the Kundalini and taking her up the spine and into the cranium. This results in divine and orgasmic ecstasy or though the physical act of sacred sex between a man and a woman to realise the divine orgasm. The tantra path sees all of creation as an act of love or intercouse and therefore have very liberal - almost shamanic like views to sex and pleasure. In contrast, Samkhya-Yoga is more of a scientific and knowledge path, it is divested of mysticism and imagination.
I have tried various kind of Tantra paths and I ultimately found that they are not my cup of tea. I am not a fan of imagining and visualizing deities, performing rituals and chanting mantras to a diety. The Tantra path can easily lapse into black magic as well and bizarre practices and rituals which border on superstitious. Such as the nagabas in India who are naked, smear their bodies with ashes, smoke cannabis, and torment their body by sticking things into it or lying on a bed of nails.
Enlightenment should not be mystified or turned into rituals. It is a purely scientific path that works on the basis of cause and effect. Do this technique and practice it regularly and you will get this result. No religious jargon, no mysticism, no pointless rituals.
Departing from that point of view (and not having read these works on Samkhya yet), if we assume that we are living -which is self-evident- then Paramatma must be living as well (cause and effect of same nature). If Paramatma is present in all, then all is living (deduction). Then to call rocks, plastic objects “inanimate” does not make sense. This is also the conclusion of Peter Russell: even an atom, even a subatomic particle, is capable of interacting and reacting to other entities of the same level of granularity. Thus it can be said that the particle “senses” and reacts with a certain level of intelligence. The terms “living”, “sense” and “intelligence” then becomes a matter of semantics. We have already come to the conclusion that all particulate matter is essentially illusory, in fact you could call it the mindstuff of Brahman.
@ Awwware
I found most of your post to be lucid and interesting, and I have no argument with it. What I’ve quoted above is the part that I disagree with. We can take it as a given that Paramatma is living, as we are. We may also take it as self evident that we are living because there is something inside us that is life, which may be Paramatma, to use your terminology. It causes us to think and grow and feel and perceive our environment and react to it. And we can also see that life is not in things like rocks.
You are making an assumption that Paramatma is in everything and therefore everything must be living. But that assumption is not borne out by observation. We observe that there are both living and non-living entities, and so whatever is in us that is the source of our life is not present in the non-living. So one of two things must be true, either Paramatma is not present in the non-living, or Paramatma is not the source of our life. Somewhere along the line, we have gotten something wrong.
I do not at all agree that atomic and subatomic particles react to each other in an intelligent way. The extent of my knowledge of science is very limited, but I’m fairly sure that the reactions of these particles are just the forces of nature. They are not meeting on the street, exchanging pleasantries and making arrangements to meet later for drinks. I have not at all come to the conclusion that particulate matter is illusory.
[QUOTE=Asuri;44384]@ Awwware
I found most of your post to be lucid and interesting, and I have no argument with it. What I’ve quoted above is the part that I disagree with. We can take it as a given that Paramatma is living, as we are. We may also take it as self evident that we are living because there is something inside us that is life, which may be Paramatma, to use your terminology. It causes us to think and grow and feel and perceive our environment and react to it. And we can also see that life is not in things like rocks.
You are making an assumption that Paramatma is in everything and therefore everything must be living. But that assumption is not borne out by observation. We observe that there are both living and non-living entities, and so whatever is in us that is the source of our life is not present in the non-living. So one of two things must be true, either Paramatma is not present in the non-living, or Paramatma is not the source of our life. Somewhere along the line, we have gotten something wrong.
I do not at all agree that atomic and subatomic particles react to each other in an intelligent way. The extent of my knowledge of science is very limited, but I’m fairly sure that the reactions of these particles are just the forces of nature. They are not meeting on the street, exchanging pleasantries and making arrangements to meet later for drinks. I have not at all come to the conclusion that particulate matter is illusory.[/QUOTE]
It turns out that the semantics of the term “living” and “consciousness” will have to be discussed in great detail so as to make sure we’re talking about the same thing and not giving the same name to different things. I’ll get back to this in a couple of days.
[QUOTE=Surya Deva;44376]The viewpoint that everything is consciousness, just different grade of it. Is known as panpsychism. Although I subscribe to the view that everything is ultimately pure consciousness, would it be correct to say that everything we see is conscious. There are two points on this.
- The observer is not what they observe
- The observer is the observed
If we examine the second view point critically we will find that that it does not make sense. If I am what I observe, then it means that the apple I have in my hand is me. This is not true. I am distinct from the apple. The apple is jada(inert, dead) and I am a conscious being. Ultimately, it maybe the case that the ultimate reality of the apple is pure consciousness, but then it will not be the same apple anymore. In fact the apple will cease to exist completely.
Brahman Satya, Jagat Mithya
The is one of the great Vedanta sayings(mahavakyas) that all of reality that we perceive is unreal. It is a hologram. It is inert. All that is real is pure consciousness and that pure conscousness has a potency within itself whereby it can experience various objects, but these objects are imaginary. This is why Krishna says, “Maya is my energy” This entire world is maya and therefore it is unreal. So we should not mistake the world to be real.
One analogy used to explain the world is the world is a reflection, it is the reverse of everything that the real is. The real is unchanging, pure and absolute. The unreal is changing, impure and transient. The wise are those who do not mistake the unreal for the real.
This is why Samkhya is a great starting point because it begins with the temporal dualism that we all must accept. We are not the objects that we perceive. I am not the apple I hold, the body, or the various aggregate personalities that rise and fall. I am the one that am aware of those. Then you go beyond the shores of Samkhya and come to Vedanta where you realise that the world is not real and it never gets transformed, there is no such thing as matter, but everything is just consciousness and we access different levels of this vast consciousness field based on our state of consciousness. Generally delinated as: waking, dream and deep sleep. This classification, however misses out the details. The later Puranas give an even more detailed description of the 7 planes. Modern consciousness researchers such as Monroe has even more specific classification with focus levels going from Focus 1 to Focus 27+. The principle is the same though, you are currently embedded within a divine matrix of consciousness and you can explore different dimensions of this matrix by altering your consciousness states.
In this century this notion of matter will be gone. Science will accept there is no such thing as a matter but reality is a field of consciousness. String theory is flirting with this fact. It will become the dominant theory of science this century.[/QUOTE]
There is a third possibility, which corresponds more to my previous post: the observed is part of the observer (meronym). So the observer is not identical to its mind content, but the mind content is part of the observer. Likewise, as a jivatma who is still under the illusion of separation, I am a part of paratma. In the B.Gita Krsna says, Not I in them but they in me. But this is not my final conclusion, I’ll first investigate these works on samkhya and then re-evaluate my view. By the way, is the author of the samkhya karika, Isvarkrsna, the same krsna as the one of the B.Gita?
Forgot to mention one thing: I cannot be considered as a Hindu because I do not accept the notion of the Caste-system.
You do not have to accept the caste system to be Hindu. There are many Hindu sects that do not accept it either. Accepting Hinduism is about accepting the core doctrines of Hinduism:
- The doctrine of the law of dharma
- The doctrine of the law of karma and reincarnation
- The doctrine of the cosmology of the various planes of reality
- The practice of Yoga to unite with the ultimate reality(Jnana, Bhakti, Karma) Self-realization or god-realization.
I will address your other posts in the next post. Sorry I normally begin with the oldest, but this one jumped out at me first 
[QUOTE=Awwware;44390]It turns out that the semantics of the term “living” and “consciousness” will have to be discussed in great detail so as to make sure we’re talking about the same thing and not giving the same name to different things. I’ll get back to this in a couple of days.[/QUOTE]
Asuri is not a proper Samkhya dualist. This is because his dualism is based on what is observed to be living and not living, similar to Cartesian dualism, which I have previously argued to be a false dualism. However, Purusha and Prakriti are not observed entities, but inferred entities. The vast majority of the history of Samkhya has been spent in proving that Purusha and Prakriti really exist. It is not as if Asuri does not know this, I have told this to him many times in the past and I have also cited directly from the Samkhyakarika where it says that Purusha and Prakriti are not observed, but inferred.
Samkhya is all about reasoning. It is not empiricist. If Asuri really wants to contribute to the Samkhya tradition he needs to accept it for what it is, and stop confusing it with Cartesian dualism.
I will brace myself for the brickbats 
There is a third possibility, which corresponds more to my previous post: the observed is part of the observer (meronym). So the observer is not identical to its mind content, but the mind content is part of the observer. Likewise, as a jivatma who is still under the illusion of separation, I am a part of paratma. In the B.Gita Krsna says, Not I in them but they in me. But this is not my final conclusion, I’ll first investigate these works on samkhya and then re-evaluate my view. By the way, is the author of the samkhya karika, Isvarkrsna, the same krsna as the one of the B.Gita?
Yes, this is ultimately true and this is Vedanta. That the observed takes place inside the observer and not ouside the observer. The entire universe is within you. However, to get there using logical inquiry one has to begin with the relative dualism of the observer and the observed, to finally conclude that the observed is within the observer.
Anyway, I hope that you have more confidence now that the powers of reasoning can give you knowledge about the self and the nature of reality. It will not give you experience of it and by no means will you get enlightened, but it will show you the path to the self.
Isvarkrishna is not the same as Krishna in the Gita. The Samkhyakarika is composed by Isvarkrishna, but he has seen as more of a transmitter of old Samkhya texts than a composer. The Samkhya tradition goes back to sage Kapila. In the Gita, Krishna mentions that amongst the sages he is Kapila. This does not mean Krishna is Kapila, but rather Kapila is the best among sages.
I will introduce another concept in this thread which also comes from Samkhya of the gunas, which you are bound to have come across. The gunas are infra-tomic string like entities within quantum reality which have the quality of either being active, passive/ineria or neutral. In the beginning at the time of creation these gunas were in balance and all that was existent was superpositioned and only potential and the cosmos was still not manifest. Then when Purusha, the observer, observed this quantum reality, the superpositioning collaped, the gunas broke out of their balance and the cosmos became manifest. The first guna to dominate was rajas, activity. As a result of which there was a sudden and very quick expansion of the cosmos. Then tamas begain to dominate and the cosmos started to slow down. There will come a point when the gunas will resolve themselves and the cosmos will revert to the point of singularity.
It should be no surprise that this sounds very much like big bang theory. There is an very important difference though. The first stages of creation are not the physical universe(that is in fact the last) but the mental. There are 7 * 7 levels of reality(every new plane is an octave) and of these there are 7 distinct planes of reality. The difference between one plane and the next is 7 transistory levels. After each 7 transistory level matter becomes stable again. It is currently found that matter at the subatomic and quantum level is not stable but completely transistory, but it will be found that later on matter becomes stable again and this exotic matter then forms worlds and beings of higher vibration. There are 7 such stable phases of matter, each one of a higher vibration than the other. They are broadly classified as sattva, rajas and tamas(highest, intermeditate and lowest)
The physical plane is tamas and the lowest of the vibration states and therefore here you will find consciousness is the least manifest. It is heavy, dark and ignorance prevails. If you go just one step up in the astral you find what a huge difference there is. Here consciousness is more manifest. It is lighter(many times lighter) light and there is range of knowledge. You experience reality more vividly and have greater capacity(freely going from place to place, time to time, flying about) Here you will meet ordinary discarnate entites, souls just like yourself and maybe from other planets. You are less likely to meet masters, angels, devas and buddhas, because they exist on even higher planes and you cannot enter those planes without having the consciousness level that corresponds to their plane. Even they aspire to planes higher than their own.
Of course, seeing the gunas as infratomic string like entites within quantum reality presupposes the existence of matter. However, we have also ultimately found that such a substance does not really exist. So what the gunas really are, are vibrations within the consciousness field. If you tune your own gunas to the gunas of the field-level you wish to enter, you will enter into that level of that field.
This does not just apply to the mind, but it can also be done with matter and physical objects. If you can raise their vibratory state they will start to phase out of physical reality and enter the higher planes. There the current laws of space and time do not apply. You can travel many times, 500 times, 5000 times the speed of light and go back and forth in time.
[quote=Awwware;44364]Hi Philippe, thanks for your interest in the thread. I’m not really preparing a paper or dissertation, if that’s what you think. I blog about these things, in order to come to a better understanding. You are totally right in saying that I’m mixing up different traditions. Let me clarify I few points, by telling my history, which may also interest the other followers of this thread:
What I am not is a Pundit. I am not a classical Indian scholar (which Surya Deva perhaps is?), who knows the differences between the different currents in detail. I have not made a genuine detailed study of this (although I might like to do so). As explained hereunder in detail, I have read many sources, but for me they were mostly all manifestations of the same. It is only recently, by discussing in this forum, that I start to see the subtleties in differences between the pairs like shiva/shakti, monism/dualism, purusha/prakrti, etc.
I have never liked too much the typical philosophers type of arguing about details in the scriptures (although I must confess I get dragged into that behaviour here on the forum). I am more the practical type of guy. By practising kriya yoga I hope it will all get clear one day for me by direct observation in samyama (when will that day come?).
That’s the summary. You can stop here if you want. The rest is the story of my life. I’ll also post this under introductions.
[/quote]
Antonin,
Thank you for having introduced yourself. But one does not need to be a pundit in Hindu philosophies to make the distinctions. It is quite basic, and thus taking it into account can raise the level of pertinence and clarity of your article IMO.
Other points :
I believe in the limits of reason to grasp reality. Reason has been used to summits in Hindu darshanas but Rishis have been wise enough and put it at its right place after genuine spiritual intuition. They have seen (Rishis means Seers) beyond the manomaya level and perceived other planes of reality. On the whole, it can be said that it has got a secondary role. It gives really a dimension of greatness compared to a lot of Western philosophers stuck in intellectuality which is often barren or not very uplifting spiritually IMO.
Maya has multiple meanings. Maya comes from the Sanskrit root mA- which means measure (same root in tanmAtras in Samkhya). It is in relation with the manifestation, the duality, the limits, the world where one can measure and defined things. It is not always used as the illusory property of Brahman which makes it perceived a twisted way. It is Shankara who popularized this definition of maya in 8th century. It was a period with a lot of Buddhist influence, in the Buddhist teachings of the Pali canon the world is said to be perceived as if it were an illusion. In the Vedas, maya is the creative Power used in order to experience the delight in the manifestation of the One in the Many. It has not this negative connotation.
Philippe
The etymology of the word Maya as Ma + Ya, means the source or measure of all things that change, move etc. It is illusory because whatever changes has no being, or substance. Even prior to Shankara Maya was seen as ill illusionary property of Brahman. Hence the saying, “Brahman Satya, Jagat Mithya” Even we have independently through our reasoning been able to show that matter is not real, but takes place within the field of consciousness. It arises and falls and returns back to its source.
Yogic wisdom will throw further insight that whatever we of the world is nothing more than vrittis, thought-patterns or modifications taking place in the field of consciousness. Every object is a cluster of vrittis. If you dissolve the vrittis there is no longer any object.
By the way, this is slightly off topic, but it irks me as a historical fact. Indian history has been very severely distorted by Western scholars with all the Aryan invasion theory nonsense and the misdating of the Maurayan empire. According to Indian dating, Sankara did not live in the 8th century, but around 500BCE. There are thousands of years that remains unaccounted for in Indian history due to this fudging by Western scholars. The times of the Buddha is not 500BCE but 1800 BCE. I have seen the historical evidence and it makes sense. Indians did not pay huge efforts in detailing history, but they did record very important events and the birth and death of important personalities like Buddha, by recording the configuration of stars.
This distortion of Indian history will also be rectified during this century. So we can all know the true history of India. Indian records are unambigious in showing that Indian history goes back 10,000 years. This was recorded by Greek historians as well. The geneologies of important dynasties have been recorded.
Western historians very arrogantly condensed 10,000 years of Indian history into 1000 years to suit their Aryan invasion theory and political and religious biasses. Then when they later found the Indus valley civilisation proving Indian history was thousands of years older, they made up these theories of Aryans wiping out the Dravidians, rather than simply accepting they were wrong in the first place. They have no choice now because the archeological evidence is very clearly showing the Indus valley civilisation is Vedic and Vedic civilisation goes back 10,000 years ago, if not more.