[QUOTE=Asuri;49418]It looks like we’re back to two against one, only it’s not Samkhya vs Yoga, it’s Samkhya vs Advaita Vedanta. I’m sorry but I can’t accept a point of view that regards reasoning based “I am god” as valid.[/QUOTE]
What is your definition of “I”? Once the “I” in the form of Ahamkara is destroyed upon kaivalya, what will be left? Also, the drop is not the ocean; the Gita is very clear about that… So I do not claim that “I” am God, but the essence of my true Self, (not my “I”-ness), can only be pure consciousness (jnana, not vijnana).
It seems that we agree on that point, but a statement like the one below violates that principle.
So Surya Deva’s reasoning is based on a falsehood. Here’s another one.
This is just some convoluted reasoning that has nonsense as its output. The same is true of the Samkhya = Vedanta statement. If they were the same then there would not be one darsana called Samkhya and another one called Vedanta. I’m really weary of this kind of incessant petty bickering. Not only is it annoying, it also dilutes the content of the thread in such a way that the important points get obscured by all the B.S. I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong, if you can convince me that I’m wrong. Others though, apparently are not. That is a weakness of character.
By the way, where have you been Awwware? We didn’t hear form you for a while.
So Surya Deva’s reasoning is based on a falsehood. Here’s another one.
There is nothing false about the statement that the world is within you. It is simply a fact to say that the world is produced within our own minds. This is more or less admitted in neuroscience as well, that whatever we know of the world is what our brain represents to us. Hence why it is also called virtual reality. The phenomenological reality is virtual accoding to neuroscience. The physical reality according to physics is just a flux of vibrations. This flux when apprehended by the senses, body and mind is then represented as the world. Therefore I am saying nothing wrong by saying the world is verily within us.
This conclusion is arrrived at by all rational people. You desperately want to believe in a world that is out there that is separate from you not out of any rational consideration, but out of religious convinction. However, even in Samkhya this conclusion is arrived at by seeing the phenomenal form as the resultant interaction between purusha and prakriti. It passes through many filters on the way before perception happens: buddhi, ahamkara, manas and senses.
The world you see is entirely a psychological construction. It is easy to prove as well because if we were alter to your perception using strong magnetic fields or mind altering drugs, your entire perception of reality would alter.
This is just some convoluted reasoning that has nonsense as its output. The same is true of the Samkhya = Vedanta statement. If they were the same then there would not be one darsana called Samkhya and another one called Vedanta.
There is no prakriti, even in Samkhya. Samkhya says that prakriti is unmanifest in the beginning and all things are potential. A potential thing is not a real thing. If it is potential it does not yet exist, but could exist. In other words prakriti does not yet exist, but could exist. According to say Samkhya only two substances exist at the beginning: purusha and prakriti - and out of those only one thing is really existing: purusha and one thing is yet to exist. Therefore logic clearly shows us in the beginning only purusha exists and prakriti does not yet exist. Then Samkhya tells us that what exists thereafter is not actually real, but purushas avidya. Therefore prakriti never exists; it is a mere virtual reality of the purusha.
It is also proven by another argument. Prakriti is always changing. What is always changing has no beingness. You cannot say that anything within nature has any being, because the next moment it has already changed. It is like pointing at a mirage and saying, “Look, here is an oasis” when you get there you realise it is not there. Samkhya also says this: prakriti has no beingness or substance, but appears to beingness or substance when in proxmity with purusha. In other words it is clearly saying prakriti is an entirely virtual existence. Like the mirage.
Quantum physicists have come exactly to the same conclusion.
Your argument that if Samkhya was the same as Vedanta is so weak it is silly. Samkhya has historically existed in two forms: non-dualist Samkhya and dualist Samkhya. The first Samkhya can be found in the Upanishads itself and it is non-dualist i.e., Vedantic. The latter appears much later as an interpretation. However, any rational person if they read the Samkhya works can clearly see that Samkhya really is non-dualist. It does not contadict Vedanta at all.
You stick to dualist Samkhya out of religious convinction because of your Christian biasses.
[QUOTE=Asuri;49570]This is just some convoluted reasoning that has nonsense as its output. The same is true of the Samkhya = Vedanta statement. If they were the same then there would not be one darsana called Samkhya and another one called Vedanta. I’m really weary of this kind of incessant petty bickering. Not only is it annoying, it also dilutes the content of the thread in such a way that the important points get obscured by all the B.S. I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong, if you can convince me that I’m wrong. Others though, apparently are not. That is a weakness of character.
By the way, where have you been Awwware? We didn’t hear form you for a while.[/QUOTE]
Hi Asuri,
I haven’t really been away, but for a while I have not had the urge to comment on anything. Please note that it is not my purpose to convince you of the correctness of Vedanta. As you and as all of us on this forum we’re in pursuit of knowledge of the truth. A debate where everybody puts forward reasonable arguments is for me a way to probe whether I should stick to my beliefs or whether my beliefs are confirmed. For the moment I am still in the camp of the Vedantists and I do agree with SD that Maya is the product of the Mind of Brahman.
As to whether Prakrti or maya has any level of reality is a matter of definition. What is the level of reality of experiences in the dream state? Please note that I do not believe in a solipsistic universe of Awwware (even if I sometimes make provocative statements that would suggest that). I give a more comprehensive resume of my thoughts on these issues in my most recent post on my blog: http://awwware.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/the-fool-is-drinking-gods-last-cup-of-time-on-magick-and-mysticism/
@Surya Deva
Your misunderstanding and denial of reality is so complete is really it is pointless to argue with you. Your misrepresentations of Samkhya are appalling to one who knows better. As far as I’m concerned, you/re absolutely out of your mind.
My reading of Samkhya has nothing to do with any religious conviction, but yours does. You follow the typical Hindu line of thought, in which there can be no disagreement among the darsanas, and no disagreement with the Vedas. But not being Hindu, I am free from the Hindu interpretation and able to read what the book really says. The Samkhya of Kapila was actually intended as opposition to the dominant thinking of the Brahmans, which simply is not in accord with reality.
Now you are talking about levels of reality. We all definitely have the experience of dreaming. We know this because we can talk about it and everybody understands what we are talking about. But the dream itself is not shared experience. Shared experience is the litmus test for “reality”.
Awaaare,
“What is your definition of “I”? Once the “I” in the form of Ahamkara is destroyed upon kaivalya, what will be left?”
This depends on whether one means by kaivalya. If one means it as a living experience, then it is impossible for one’s ego to be destroyed. Neither is it possible for one to live an ordinary life without the ego. The ego will continue, the only difference is that one’s awareness need not be identified with it.
"but the essence of my true Self, (not my “I”-ness), can only be pure consciousness (jnana, not vijnana). "
Certainly that is what many schools of philosophy have been saying, but it is simply a projection of the mind. Desiring to see one’s own reflection, one leaps into the water. Consciousness, no matter what one means by that word, is a limiting quality. And one’s true nature is simply beyond all limiting qualities, identities, and forms. To call it nothingness comes close, to call it no-thingness comes closer, but even this is dimensions apart from the reality. Neither of form nor formless, neither of being or non-being, it simply defies all mental categories. Raise a single word about it and declare “this is it!”, and one immediately falls into delusion. Unfathomable beyond the unfathomable, doing away with all words once and for all, for one who has seen directly into his own nature, let there be an understanding in silence and nothing else.
Surya,
“There is nothing false about the statement that the world is within you. It is simply a fact to say that the world is produced within our own minds.”
As far as one’s own experience is concerned, it is produced in the mind. But that does not mean everything is of the nature of mind. And you are right, not only is the world within man in the sense that you have said, but all of the forces of nature which are functioning everywhere in existence are also functioning at the level of one’s mind and body. Man is a microcosm in a macrocosm, a bit like a model of the universe in a miniature form. That is why, if one comes to understand one’s system, through and through, it is one and the same as having seen into the workings of the whole existence, because they are not different.
I think you would get this Amir if you did or had done some kind of deep transcendental meditation. That forms are just an apperance on the mind and illusory.Unless you’re engaged in that it’s less likely to click.The world as most folk think they understand it and see it conceptually refracted through language and the thoughts that language embodies is just an artificial construct.They don’t witness it with the shades off …it’s a play on their consciousness which is just a succession of forms moving and changing.
As I contemplate this a little more, I have to admit that in some dreams (some of my dreams anyway) there is a shared experience. The experience is not shared in this reality, but it is quite real and sometimes we even get information that we can use in this reality. So I think it may be fair to say that there is a reality that is beyond our normal waking state, but somehow connected. Both are real, neither is unreal.
Well there is the experience of [I]tuirya[/I] , unadulterated pure bliss consciousness or pure awareness,buddhists might call it ,which runs through all three states(waking ,dreaming and dreamiless sleep)
Also if you are really " awake" you can be aware that you are sleeping.
Turiya is higher consciousness and it occurs in samadhi. I think i’ve had glimpses into it with the deep meditation. You can read about it here though.
It is your true nature, your birth-right even you could say… supposedly.
Really this debate is between dualism and realism and non-dualism and idealism.
Unfortunately, dualists and realists tend to be the most irrational bunch. Irrespective of how much evidence you provide, they never actually listen and willfully remain ignorant. Even quantum physics is plagued with this irrationality of realists and dualists, despite the fact that now hundreds of experiments have been done in quantum physics proving there is no reality and locality, realists and dualists simply can’t leg go of this precious notion of reality. The result is quantum physics is not allowed to progress just because these realists and dualists, an influencial bunch, cannot face the facts.
It is very easy to prove that there is no reality because nothing would ever exist without consciousness. This is simply a fact. In order to know any reality you must have consciousness. Whatever reality you know is dependent upon your consciousness. It you take consciousness out of the equation - reality disappears like a phantom. Like it does in the state of dreamless sleep.
It is also very easy to prove and it is accepted as a fact in neuroscience that the phenomenal reality we see is a representation. When any event takes place, it goes through several filters in our mind known as apperception, before the final picture comes to us(language filters, cognitive filters, personality filters, brain filters) In other words the phenomenal form of reality is indeed a mental creation. It is what we see after it has passed through every filter. It is very easy to prove as well, if you distort any of the filters, the reality one sees is drastically different. Take some LSD and then see what reality you get.
When the child is developing many of their language and personality filters are not developed yet, so they do not differentiate between say a toe and a foot, they see both the toe and foot as one undifferentiated entity. There are other things like object permenance, children do not believe an object is permenant as demonstrated by experiments where children observe an object pass behind a screen and they believe it has disappeared, rather than simply being behind the screen. In the formative stages as investigated by psychologists like Piaget, the child sees himself and his world as undifferentiated. Later, through language acquisition and cognitive development the child starts to differentiate the world into numerous categories, classes and sub-classes.
How we view reality is based upon several facts: language, senses and mind. It is simply a fact to say that all our perceptions are constructions or representations meditated by language, senses and mind. Anybody who oppoes this obvious fact is being irrational.
Reality is not a physical stuff. It is a mental stuff. It is a form which is constructed through processes. This is why our perception of things is known as phenomenological reality. This understanding that everything really is just mind really liberates ones understanding. You no longer look at the world as some fragmented external physical stuff “out there” with you as some internal mental stuff “in there” but rather you see everything as just a mind-stuff taking on myriad forms.
I strongly question the intelligence of somebody that cannot follow this. In short I strongly question the intelligence of the dualist and realist.
[QUOTE=Asuri;49719]As I contemplate this a little more, I have to admit that in some dreams (some of my dreams anyway) there is a shared experience. The experience is not shared in this reality, but it is quite real and sometimes we even get information that we can use in this reality. So I think it may be fair to say that there is a reality that is beyond our normal waking state, but somehow connected. Both are real, neither is unreal.[/QUOTE]
In dreams it is also sometimes possible to communicate with others. When it turns out in what you call the reality or the awake state that indeed the person you communicated with in your dream had that same dream and is able to feedback report in the awake state the information you conveyed to her/him in the dream, then you start to see dreams as having a certain level of "reality"as well, since as you said in an earlier post, it has become a shared experience.
I have experienced such things as well as so-called lucid dreams. You can even train that faculty. A really good read on multiple levels of reality is the comic the world of Edena by Moebius:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde_d’Edena. Enjoy it!
[QUOTE=core789;49720]Well there is the experience of [I]tuirya[/I] , unadulterated pure bliss consciousness or pure awareness,buddhists might call it ,which runs through all three states(waking ,dreaming and dreamiless sleep)
Also if you are really " awake" you can be aware that you are sleeping.
Turiya is higher consciousness and it occurs in samadhi. I think i’ve had glimpses into it with the deep meditation. You can read about it here though.
It is your true nayou get a better ideature, your birth-right even you could say… supposedly.[/QUOTE] I used to say “I think I had” and “glimpse” until sb who really knew told me otherwise. Either you know you had the experience or you did not have it. I now know that these “special states” I have experienced are not even close. By reading the Shiva Samhita I got a better idea about where I am in the process. Note that I do not deny that you had that experience, it is only questionable since you question it yourself.
This is where you are wrong. Of course what we experience through our senses is a representation, but it is a representation of something that exists outside of ourselves. Just because our perception is not the actual reality, that does not mean that there is no actual reality. So to say that the world is within us is a distortion of the truth. It may be correct to say that there is a world within us, but there is also a world without us. By “without us” I mean that the world exists outside of us and when we are gone it will continue to exist and to be shared experience by all who remain. And the world will continue to exist long after we are all dead and gone. That’s just a fact and that is why the world is not unreal.
Your assertions are again a matter of your religious beliefs. Everybody knows that you are trying to promote Hinduism as some kind of superior religion, and so you are trying to use science to validate Hindu religious beliefs. The problem is that you have to distort the science in order to make it work.
This is where you are wrong. Of course what we experience through our senses is a representation, but it is a representation of something that exists outside of ourselves.
There is your assumption right there: that there a world outside of us that we represent.
Bishop Berkely was the first person in the Western philosophical tradition to point out how this an obvious assumption when critiquing Cartesian dualism. We don’t actually know the world is outside of us. All we know is that whenever any perception happens it is preceded by mental processes. That is all we know. Hence Berkley concluded that idealism is the the most rational viewpoint to explain reality.
It is entirely possible to have a reality which is made purely out of the mind and have a me and other, or inner and outer, this and that within it. If you take a box, and within the box you place a divide, then you divide the box into two areas. Can you then say that the two areas are two different worlds made out of completely different substances? No. Similarly, the fact that we perceive an inner world and an outer world does not mean that the inner and outer are two different worlds made out of two different substances.
Dualism is not a respectable philosophy in modern philosophy and has been defeated for centuries. I was told this directly by my professor when I made a pro-dualist case in one of my essays. Nobody accepts dualism because it is clear that mind and matter are part of the same substance and this has been pointed out by several philosophers. Most scientists argue that this common substance is material and argue away mind as an epiphenomena of material activity.
Then there are idealists who argue in fact it is the other way around, the substance is mind and it in fact matter which is an epiphenomena of mental activity.
There are only two possible explanations here. It is either material or it is mental. It cannot be both. One is right and the other is wrong. Dualism is not tenable.
Of these two possible explanations the only that makes any sense at all is idealism. Even philosophers consider this option to be the only one that actually has the least philosophical problems. First of all, it is an obvious that whatever we perceive is a mental construction. Secondly, it is a fact materiaism leads to the hard problem of consciousness which cannot be resolved. This leaves idealism as the only sound and rational explanation for reality.
Your reasons for clinging onto dualism are religious. No scientist takes dualism seriously. It is only religious people who cling onto dualism. Just like they also cling onto things like flat earth. You may not cling onto flat earth, but you certanly cling onto the philosophical equivalent of flat earth.
Look, if you want to believe this nonsense, go right ahead. I’ll comment on the rest of your post when I get around to reading it.
I could let it lie, but I am going to actually take you to task.
To the objective reader: Notice how Asuri has not offered any argument at all to the points I raised. He simply says, “Nonsense” and refused to read the rest of the post.
This is because the points are irrefutable. Dualism is an assumption, not a fact. The idea of reality being split into two things of mind and matter makes no sense to a rational person. It cannot be two things. Nothing begins as two things, it begins as one thing. 2 comes after 1, not before 1.
The perception of there being an inner and outer world is not proof of these worlds actually existing. No more than a divide in a box is proof that that there are two different areas of the box. There is only one area.
In a computer there is an executive program known as the operating system that operates all other programs. The executive program is the inner world and all other programs it runs are the outer world - but actually the truth is they are both the same machine code of 0’s and 1’s. There is one, not two here.
Similarly, in Samkhya the idea of inner and outer is only present because of the ahamkara which splits up reality into two divisions of inner and outer(like the divide in the box above) This is why the ahamkara is seen as false. When the ahamkara disappears, so does the division of inner and outer.
???.. Mother + father = child. This is the problem with idealism, it ignores reality in favor of your own mental constructions. I have a real problem with these intellectual elitists who think they have decided what is and what is not an acceptable way of thinking. They just don’t have any common sense. Nobody cares about any of this except for the philosophers. Everybody else has already figured out that it’s pointless and worthless. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Who cares?
I also object to these repeated accusations that my views are based on religious conviction. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet you continue to accuse me. This is an attempt to stereotype me, another of your elitist tactics. Why do you consider me so dangerous that you have to resort to these tactics? Because I make sense, and you know it.