Jnana Marga: Path of Knowledge

Spirituality
#77

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;72615]This is why I say people like you can never be anybodies friend. If who you call a friend is based on whether they belong to your group or not or agree with your ideology, then you will never have any lasting friends.[/QUOTE]

I have atheist, agnostic and muslim friends, you are making a lot of assumptions about me. I could care less what someone’s personal belief is, they could belief in the flying spaggetti monster for what I care. Your assumptions about me are wrong. Someone who I would never consider a friend is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, someone who pretends to be a follower of Sanatana Dharma while simultaniously being condescending about every aspect of it.

#78

I am a follower of Sanatana dharma, not Hinduism.

#79

Bringing this thread back on track.

I was reading a series of articles by Swami Vivekananda on living practical Vedanta which were enlightening. I will share them with the readers:

http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_2/vol_2_frame.htm

The more I read Vivekananda, the more I resonate with him. He appears to be the kind of Hindu that I can admire and emulate. He does not suffer from any of the nationalist and secetarian nonsense that many Hindus are suffering from today. He embraces all religions, people and talks the language of science and humanity.

Some excerpts relevant to this discussion:

We can do everything. The Vedanta teaches men to have faith in themselves first. As certain religions of the world say that a man who does not believe in a Personal God outside of himself is an atheist, so the Vedanta says, a man who does not believe in himself is an atheist. Not believing in the glory of our own soul is what the Vedanta calls atheism.

The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to us. If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished. Throughout the history of mankind, if any motive power has been more potent than another in the lives of all great men and women, it is that of faith in themselves. Born with the consciousness that they were to be great, they became great. Let a man go down as low as possible; there must come a time when out of sheer desperation he will take an upward curve and will learn to have faith in himself.

How to practice Vedanta:

This ?tman is first to be heard of." Hear day and night that you are that Soul. Repeat it to yourselves day and night till it enters into your very veins, till it tingles in every drop of blood, till it is in your flesh and bone. Let the whole body be full of that one ideal, “I am the birthless, the deathless, the blissful, the omniscient, the omnipotent, ever-glorious Soul.” Think on it day and night; think on it till it becomes part and parcel of your life. Meditate upon it, and out of that will come work. “Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh,” and out of the fullness of the heart the hand worketh also. Action will come. Fill yourselves with the ideal; whatever you do, think well on it. All your actions will be magnified, transformed, deified, by the very power of the thought. If matter is powerful, thought is omnipotent. Bring this thought to bear upon your life, fill yourselves with the thought of your almightiness, your majesty, and your glory.

#80

Swami Vivekananda on ritual, god and worship:

You remember that the Vedas have two parts, the ceremonial and the knowledge portions. In time ceremonials had multiplied and become so intricate that it was almost hopeless to disentangle them, and so in the Upanishads we find that the ceremonials are almost done away with, but gently, by explaining them. We see that in old times they had these oblations and sacrifices, then the philosophers came, and instead of snatching away the symbols from the hands of the ignorant, instead of taking the negative position, which we unfortunately find so general in modern reforms, they gave them something to take their place. “Here is the symbol of fire,” they said. "Very good! But here is another symbol, the earth. What a grand, great symbol! Here is this little temple, but the whole universe is a temple; a man can worship anywhere. There are the peculiar figures that men draw on the earth, and there are the altars, but here is the greatest of altars, the living, conscious human body, and to worship at this altar is far higher than the worship of any dead symbols."

Why worship trees, stones, monkeys and elephants, when the greatest worship is of that living spirit within the conscious human being? Why engage in elaborate ritual and ceremony, ringing bells, lighting incense, chanting mantras, preparing and cooking food to feed to statues - when one can simply abide in the glory of their own self, sit in silence with their own mind and watch themselves. This is the realization that had been reached by the sages in India, they realized that it was not ritual, worship or ceremony that would cultivate the mind and awaken ones divine nature, but knowledge: Hence the Jnana marga.

Jnana is thus the acme of Hinduism, the highest realization of what Hinduism is. It goes beyond ritual, mythology, sectarianism. Thus one can see how the Puranic Hiindism that came later is a degeneration, a fall from those lofty height the sages had reached. It is this kind of Hinduism which I have renounced.

#81

I want to point out a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of Surya Deva, not to disparage him, but simply to dispel his misconception.

The error here is in thinking that Samkhya advocates intellectual knowledge as the means of self-realization. The true teaching is contained in SPS I.59

(Bondage) is not to be removed by reasoning also, without direct vision of the truth…

Now we shall see how this is received.

#82

I want to point out a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of Surya Deva, not to disparage him, but simply to dispel his misconception.

There is no misunderstanding, we are just reading different texts. The SPS is not the text which defines classical Samkhya philosophy. It is the Karika. There it explicitly says that is inquiry about knowledge of the tattvas(tattva jnana) that leads to liberation. So the effort is an intellectual one.

But it can be argued that Yoga is the fulfillment of what Samkhya means by inquiry. Like I said there are different interpretations on how to approach Jnana in different philosophical traditions in the Vedic tradition. The approach of direct experience is a Yogic one. The other schools take an intellectual approach. Vedanta is perhaps the most intellectual, because it is purely based on a cognitive understanding that one is Brahman and it is believed that the understanding alone when internalized will bring forth enlightenment by itself.

#83

As expected, the ego cannot allow for any possibility that it could be mistaken.

#84

The same applies to you and in this case I certainly think it does apply to you. I have given you a reason, and unless you can refute the reason and show my ego that it is mistaken, one can only conclude that it is you who are mistaken. I can cite directly from the Karika(I think I already have) that it says that is inquiry that leads to liberation. It does not talk about vision or direct experience:

  1. A permenant solution to curing the three kinds of pain is inquiry. Other means only offer temporal relief.
  1. Merit causes one to ascend to higher planes and demerit causes one to descend to lower planes. Knowledge leads to liberation and ignorance to bondage.
  1. Thus consciousness is never actually really entangled, is never liberated and never transmigrates. It is matter which is entangled, liberated and transmigrates. Consciousness merely becomes misidentified, but when discriminative knowledge appears the misidentication is reversed.
  1. Matter binds itself through the 7 forms(virtue, vice and the rest) and releases itself with 1 form of truth.
  1. Thus from the practice of truth the wisdom is produced, “I am not”, “Nothing is mine” and “not I” which pure, free of error and doubt and absoolute.
  1. By means of this knowledge consciousness realises itself as the pure witness(not agent) and beholds the true reality of matter, which now ceases from evolving forms, giving consciousness a pure and clear vision of reality.
  1. This difficult and subtle knowledge via which one can attain full liberation through discriminative knowledge between consciousness and matter was first described by the Sage Kapila.

It is clear that the Samkhya Karika is stating here that it is discriminative knowledge though inquiry that leads to liberation. It says nothing about direct experience. But like I said, it can be argued that Yoga is the real fulfillment of inquiry or at least a better and more effective approach. The jury is still out for me whether intellectual inquiry alone can produce enlightenment.

#85

It’s well known that you are impossible to reason with, for the simple fact that your ego will not allow you to consider any point or opinion other than your own. And also because you’ve simply dismissed the explanation (Samkhya-Pravachana-Sutram) in favor of the summary (Karika), I won’t waste my time.

#86

Others can reason with me Asuri, you just never have anything to counter with. I am afraid you don’t know how to reason anything. My argument is valid, as the SPS is a late medieval text and has never been important in the Samkhya school, it cannot be taken as representative of classical Samkhya philosophy. The oldest extant text and defining text of the school is the Samkhya Karika. There are no commentaries on the SPS until late medieval times, but there are certainly commentaries on the Samkhya Karika. Even if the SPS did exist, it was not considered important by Samkhya philosophers or by philosophers from other school, who did not cite from it. The Karika has always been the main text of the Samkhya.

I am sorry this is just the way it is. I did not decide this myself.

#87

Well, there is definitely evidence that indicates that SPS was considered authoritative by many scholars, but that is beside the point. Suppose we try using a little more accurate translation of the Karika 64.

So, through cultivation of the knowledge of the Tattvas is produced the final, pure, because free from error and doubt, and one single knowledge that neither does agency belong to me, nor is attachment mine, nor am I identical with the body, etc.

This translation makes it clear that the knowledge that produces self-realization is not ordinary intellectual knowledge, rather it is single, final, and pure, because it is free from error and doubt. And the explanation rightly says that such knowledge doesn’t come from reason alone, but from direct vision of the truth.

What is interesting is that this also works at the level of ordinary knowledge. Reason alone is not enough to establish a fact or truth, it has to be supported by empirical evidence.

#88

I can read you know :wink:

So, through cultivation of the knowledge of the Tattvas is produced the final, pure, because free from error and doubt, and one single knowledge that neither does agency belong to me, nor is attachment mine, nor am I identical with the body, etc.

It says what I told you already: knowledge of the tatttvas(tattva jnana) It does not say anything about direct vision or direct experience. It says that when one does inquiry and then gains knowledge of the tattvas i.e., the 24 elements which make up reality, and the difference between purusha and prakriti(and all her manifestations from mahat onwards) one realizes they are not an agent, not attached to anything and not the body etc

The Samkhya way is not the same as the Yogic way which is through meditation. If it was then Samkhya would mention dhyana and samadhi. The Samkhya way is purely intellectual.

#89

I rest my case. If you choose to cling to your erroneous beliefs, it is of no consequence to me. What bothers me is that you pollute the minds of others. All of that karma is yours.

P.S. Sometimes I’m not sure that you read all that well.

P.P.S. This karika is typical of the obviously inferior translation you’re using. This is contributing to your misunderstanding.

#90

As always you have no case.

It is says very clearly in the Samkhya Karika that inquiry is the means to liberation. It says nothing about meditation, direct vision or direct experience.

As always you refuse to read what something clearly says, twist the meaning in your head into something you want it to mean. I am beginning to suspect a pathology :wink:

#91

This is one of your favorite tricks, to project on others your own weakness and inadequacies. If it wasn’t so demonic, it would be funny.

#92

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;72676]
It is says very clearly in the Samkhya Karika that inquiry is the means to liberation. It says nothing about meditation, direct vision or direct experience.

[/QUOTE]

It’s a summary, remember? You’re not going to get every detail from a summary.

#93

The Karika maybe a summary of the older Samkhya sutras which are no longer extant, but it is the oldest extant text of the school and that has already been shown to be the scholarly consensus.

Again, I did not decide that the Karika is the primary text of the Samkhya school.

You really need to learn how to accept facts :wink: You’re like a stubborn little child who refuses to acknowledge something and then throws tantrums.

#94

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;72700]
You really need to learn how to accept facts :wink: You’re like a stubborn little child who refuses to acknowledge something and then throws tantrums.[/QUOTE]

Projecting again.

Again, I did not decide that the Karika is the primary text of the Samkhya school.

No, that appears to be largely the work of Gerald Larson, an American scholar whose work was not published until 1969. Prior to that time, most scholars, and especially the Indian scholars accepted the Samkhya Pravachana Sutram without question.

In my opinion the great weakness of Larson’s work is that he gives short shrift to the work of these scholars. His primary reasons for choosing the Samkhya Karika as the basis for his work were:
[ol]
[li]The inability to reconstruct the text of the Samkhya Pravachana Sutram from original sources.[/li][li]The influence of the Vedanta in the work of Vijnana Bhiksu, the primary translator and commentator of the SPS.[/li][/ol]

In order to avoid the Vedanta influence, he set out to interpret the meaning of the Karika without reference to the work of Vijnana Bhiksu.

The great value of Vijnana Bhiksu’s work is that in his time, he still was able to reconstruct the work that we now call the Samkhya Pravachana Sutram. Through his effort he was able to preserve and provide the most complete and comprehensive explanation of the Samkhya philosophy, which otherwise would have been lost. To completely reject this work and blindly follow Gerald Larson seems quite naive, especially for someone who in the past has complained loudly about the distortions of the western scholars and the superiority of the Indian scholars in matters of Indian philosophy.

#95

Whether it is the work of Larson or several scholars, the arguments are strong for ignoring the SPS in favour of the Karika:

  1. It is a late medieval text
  2. It is influenced by Vedanta

It is not representative of classical Samkhya philosophy.

#96

It is very likely that it was compiled from the same sources as the Samkhya Karika. It is foolish and naive to ignore it.