I've just started his "The Nature of Consciousness". The early stages suggest there may be some differences with Bernardo's philosophy. For instance, "awareness is self-aware...self-knowing". Isn't the idea behind whirlpools in BK's work that localisation of consciousness is necessary before self-awareness is possible?
It may be that this is elaborated on later in the book, of course...
I'd agree it's not metaphysics properly in that Rupert is offering a consciousness first perspective through an easy look at personal experience - and suggesting the reader try it on to see if it fits.It's that analogy of dipping a cloth into a dye - then fading it . . . repeat till cloth is full color and does not fade.Clarity of mind through repetition and familiarity - not through logic and deduction.
'The Transparency of Things' sure sounds like metaphysics. :) I feel that Rupert just expresses it in such a way that one doesn't have to be into metaphysics to get it. Which is a good thing, as indifference, and even aversion to metaphysics seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
Self ... no-self ... Meh ... Mere names that might make dismissible answers to a koan :))
When TWE was exhausted by play
(Thanks to Lila and Maia and Fay)
He was glad his mum said,
"Come home, TWE, to bed."
Thank God for the end of the day!
I've just started his "The Nature of Consciousness". The early stages suggest there may be some differences with Bernardo's philosophy. For instance, "awareness is self-aware...self-knowing". Isn't the idea behind whirlpools in BK's work that localisation of consciousness is necessary before self-awareness is possible?
It may be that this is elaborated on later in the book, of course...
Hello Don. As Larry suggests, there is likely a difference between infinite self-awareness and self-reflective awareness. To have self-reflective awareness (considering options, for instance), you need a perspective. Infinite Consciousness presumably can't generate a perspective until it manifests as finite mind.
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Don - I think you've misundertood my words. Of course only a human being can experience as a human being. And of course consciousness and awareness is more than human-self-awareness. Spira appears to me to hold the same view as you.
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Well, in the "realistic Vedanta" that Sri Aurobindo puts forth, all experiences are True - from the "view" (non view) of Vijnana. If you put nothing between (ordinary) mind and the absolute, then your view makes sense.
Again, I ask, Peter, what is your understanding of the meaning of the phrase, "Mahat Atman?"
To put it in plainer words, **within** the cosmos, is there an active consciousness which is not equivalent to Chit, but superior to the human? That is the core question, and the core difference between Sri Aurobindo's view and that of traditional Vedanta (though Abhinavagupta and many of the Kashmiri Shavite tradition come close)
I must still maintain that relational experience is the play of Lila. It is the very nature of Awareness -- as in Scott's Polarity/Awareness Trinity. There is no abiding escape into some non-relational state. Not even for a Buddha.
On Friday, 8 September 2017 13:52:17 UTC+1, Don Salmon wrote:Well, in the "realistic Vedanta" that Sri Aurobindo puts forth, all experiences are True - from the "view" (non view) of Vijnana. If you put nothing between (ordinary) mind and the absolute, then your view makes sense.
Aha yes. True words seem paradoxical/ All experiences would be true if we see them for what they are, viz. reducible for an ultimate analysis.
Again, I ask, Peter, what is your understanding of the meaning of the phrase, "Mahat Atman?"I've not come across this phrase before.To put it in plainer words, **within** the cosmos, is there an active consciousness which is not equivalent to Chit, but superior to the human? That is the core question, and the core difference between Sri Aurobindo's view and that of traditional Vedanta (though Abhinavagupta and many of the Kashmiri Shavite tradition come close)Right. I see now what the issue is. I'd say there is 'Christ-consciousness' and perhaps this qualifies. It is defined as standing between the ordinary human mind and the transcendence of mind. Is this what you're suggesting is a point of contention between Aurobindo and Spira?
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The disciple is instructed to try to see in all things, not their separate being, but the Great Atman, by whose Powers all have their form and nature. Each type of being on earth is what it is because of the “reflection” of some aspect of that Atman. [Footnote: “We do not mean that the Idea, locally separate, shows itself in Matter like a reflection in water; the Matter touches the Idea at every point, though not by physical contact, and by dint of neighborhood – nothing to keep them apart – is able to absorb thence all that lies within its capacity, the Idea itself not penetrating, not approaching, the Matter, but remaining self-locked” (Plotinus, Vi, v, 8)]. This “reflection” is best seen in those objects which are pre-eminent within their class, for it is in them that the Divine Archetype has best found expression. T his is the meaning of the list that Krishna gives. In all beings, gods or men or sages, so-0called “inanimate” objects or in mental qualities, “He” is to be sought out and contemplated in the chief of every class. [Footnote: compare Plotinus, vi, 9: “Things here are signs; they show therefore to the wiser teachers how the supreme God is known; the instructed priest reading the sign may enter the holy place and make real the vision of the inaccessible.”] For He indeed is verily the Atman in all beings, their very Self, the base on which they stand.
[Verses 21-38] What makes the gods shining and
powerful? It is the Light and
Power of the one. What makes the Vedas
holy, worth of our reverence? It
is the ancient Archetypal Wisdom.
What is it that calls forth our aspirations in the sight of mountain
peaks, calms us in sheets of water, whispers to us in trees, disturbs our
hearts in animals or thrills in gleaming weapons? [Footnote: In spite of
man's ill-treatment of and contempt for the “lower animals” he has always felt
a disturbing sense of something strange and archetypal in their being. This is the underlying cause of the
“totemism” of sl-called primitive peoples, of the animal-gods of the Egyptians
(so distasteful to both pagan Greek and Christian) and of the animal signs in
the Zodiac.] What is it but
Him shining through all these beings in spiritual Powers to which, if we give
names, they are but poor translation for our weakness?
[Verse 36] Even in the greatly wicked, in him who says to evil “Be thou
my good,” in the fierce pride of Duryodhana, in such a type of monstrous
wickedness as Shakespeare's Richard the Third, we feel His presence compelling
wonder, even admiration, in spite of all the protests of our moral nature.
We must not turn from these perceptions as mere poetic fancies, saying, as many
do, that, after all, in fact an animal is but an animal; a sword, a strip of
steel. What is thus felt in beings
is not a fancy but something truly, if but vaguely, seen within. The disciple must cling to these
intuitive perceptions and by constant meditation sharpen them to clearness
until the outer forms seem unreal things through whose translucid shells the
wondrous Powers shine in their gleaming splendours [my note: not all Indian
teachers consider the outer forms “unreal things”; in particular, the greatest
Tantric teachers like Abhinavagupta see the forms as having a Divine Reality in
a rather dramatically different way than taught by many current “neo-Vedantins”
as well as followers of Shankara; though to be fair to Sri Krishna Prem, he
does say “seem unreal”].
As he proceeds a change will overtake his vision. Not only will he see the spiritual Power in each form, but since these Powers are united in a living Whole, he will begin to see, what before he could but think, the vast interconnectedness of all things. [Footnote: These connections, vaguely intuited, give life to poetry and art. What the poet dimly senses and dares not take for more than metaphor is clearly seen by the awakened seer. It may also be added that the use of those affinities is an essential part of Kabalistic and other forms of magic, white or black.]
“In our realm all is part arising from part and nothing can be more than partial; but There each being is an eternal product of a whole and is at once a whole and an individual manifestation as part but, to the keen vision There, known for the whole it is.” (Plotinus, v, 8).
Thus to the seeing eye all things are linked to all in a
great Cosmic Harmony. Flowers in
the green are seen as one with the far-distant stars gleaming for every in the
blue abyss of space. Within this
six-foot frame blow all the winds of heaven and in the heart of man lie still
the glittering pomp, the sometimes cruel beauty, and all the hidden secrets of
long-vanished empires buried now beneath the desert sands or ocean waves.
There is a story current that on certain days, if one go out to sea from the
town known as Dwarka, beneath the waves can dimly be descried the towers
and pinnacles of Krishna's island city.
Legend, no doubt, for Dwarka was not there. Nevertheless beneath the storm-tossed
surface of our hearts the vanished past still lives. Unseen within these depths the ancient wars are fought,
Atlantis shines in glory, darkens with pride and falls; Sri Krishna walks the
earth and Buddha leaves his home for love of men.
Nothing is lost, for ever all remains, deep in the waters of eternal Mind. He who can plunge within lives in the
Cosmic Heart and sees Its mighty throbs send forth the cycling years to run
their changing courses through the worlds back ot the blue depths of Eternity.
It is said that in a lotus-seed exists in miniature a perfect lotus. So in that Mighty Being is the seed of all that is, subtle beyond all images of sense, the shining spiritual Cosmos; Infinite seeds and yet one wondrous Seed, beyond the reach of mind, yet to be seen by Mind. [Footnote: Gita, x, verses 39-42. Compare this with the so-called Nassene document. “Accordingly they (the Egyptians) declare concerning the Essence of the Seed which si the cause of all things in the world of generation, that it is none of these things, but that it begets and makes all generated things saying, 'I become what I will and am what I am.' Therefore that which moves all is unmoved; for It remains what it is, making all things, and becoming no one of the things produced”]
[Verse 40] All that is glorious, beautiful, or mighty shines by reflection of a portion of that Being. Vainly we seek on earth a symbol grand enough to adumbrate Its glories. In ancient Egypt and Chaldea the starry heaven was Its only symbol; the heaven with its interlinked and patterned stars whirling in gleaming harmonies around the pole. But all the splendors of the cosmic depths, their mind-annihilating magnitudes of time and space, symbol to all men of eternal Law and Beauty, are but a moment of the Mighty Atman; infinities ranged on the shoulders of infinities; a wondrous hierarchy of living spiritual Powers where each is each and each is All and all dance forth in ecstasy the Cosmic Harmony. [Footnote: This Cosmic Harmony, known to Pythagoreans as the music of the spheres, was in the Vedic tradition termed rita, the cosmic order in which all the gods exist. Those who find in the Vedas mere chaotic polytheism and those who find incipient monotheism are alike mistaken. Unity indeed there was, but it was not the unity of a personal being but of Divine impersonal Cosmic Order within which Indra, Varuna and Agni, the whole pantheon of Gods, all shone and had their being.]
[Verse 42] Vast beyond thought as is this spiritual realm, this flaming
Cosmos of Divine Ideas, yet still beyond lies That, the One Eternal, the Parabrahman,
Rootless Root of all. Beyond all Gods, beyond all time and space, beyond al
lbeing even, flames Its dark transcendent Light. [Footnote: Strictly
speaking, between the Great Atman and the Parabrahman are the unmanifested Two.
For convenience they are here included in the Supreme Unmanifested One.]
From that Eternal Brahman issue forth the Mighty
Atman, great beyond all thought, and all the countless starry worlds that
fill the wide immensities of space.
Yet so vast is Its spaceless, timeless grandeur that all these wondrous
emanated worlds are as a drop taken from out the ocean, leaving Its shoreless
being ever full. Therefore Sri Krsihna, speaking for That Brahman, says,
“having established this entire universe with one fragment of Myself, I
remain.”
“That is the Full; this is the full;
From that Full has this full come forth;
Having taken the full from the Full
Verily the Full Itself remains.” (Ishopanishad)
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Peter ... It may well be that my case is full of wholes :)The question still arises: is it in the nature of Awareness to manifest as the ever-becoming play of Lila?
Peter ... what you say seems true, and yet I'm still not sure about a point of origin for such becoming ... as you say, it's tricky :)
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Well again, that neither formless nor form, unmanifest nor manifest, being nor becoming, alone can be the ontological primitive. As such, each must be integral, and still remain not-two. Rupert, as far as I can tell, says that the ontological primitive is Awareness -- or at least that's his name of choice for That which transcends all names. Thus, it cannot be just formlessness or form, as they can only be forever indivisible and inextricable.
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I feel that the realization of That which is the ontological primitive, by whatever name, is truly what is crucial. It seems that giving it a name does become semantically problematic. But if each individual in any given discussion actually realizes That which it refers to, then the names shouldn't be problematic at all. Perhaps we can agree upon one name only, to make the discussion less problematic, or at least agree that any given name isn't better than any other, once its Source that transcends all names is agreed upon in mutual realization.
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Dana - again I ask, where, who and what is this individual? Just because the word is derived from indivisible does not mean you can just use it in the sense of indivisible from the whole, it still implies separation by definition, the indivisible aspect is within itself, not the whole. Just look up the definition of the word.I feel like I just can't get with your use of language. If the individual is indivisible from awareness then there is no individual. It may be useful for everyday life, practice, or relative explanations but this is a philosophy forum and this conversation is about the transparency of things, either you agree with non-dualism and therefore the individual is ultimately unreal (in the sense that it is only an interpretation, not a reality) or you disagree with non-dualism. You share Rupert's videos however and seem to resonate, so which is it?
Arro ... As I've stated elsewhere, the instructive hint is in the derivation of the term individual, meaning indivisible. I'm not saying that it's an experience divisible from Awareness. The only source of that individual experience can be Awareness. However, each is nonetheless a unique and valid individual experience that Awareness is somehow self-impelled to express and explore. Which I posit is for the sake of having this relational experience. Why? Your individual guess is as good as mine. I only know that I can't invalidate or deny the sacred reality of that experience -- as Rupert has referred to it.
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Chapter II
Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara — Maya, Prakriti, Shakti
It is there in beings indivisible and as if divided. Gita.1 Brahman, the Truth, the Knowledge, the Infinite.
Taittiriya Upanishad.2 Know Purusha and Prakriti to be both eternal without begin-
ning. Gita.3 One must know Maya as Prakriti and the Master of Maya as
the great Lord of all. Swetaswatara Upanishad.4
It is the might of the Godhead in the world that turns the wheel of Brahman. Him one must know, the supreme Lord of all lords, the supreme Godhead above all godheads. Supreme too is his Shakti and manifold the natural working of her knowledge and her force. One Godhead, occult in all beings, the inner Self of all beings, the all-pervading, absolute without qualities, the overseer of all actions, the witness, the knower.
Swetaswatara Upanishad.5
THERE is then a supreme Reality eternal, absolute and infinite. Because it is absolute and infinite, it is in its essence indeterminable. It is indefinable and inconceiv- able by finite and defining Mind; it is ineffable by a mind-created speech; it is describable neither by our negations, neti neti, — for we cannot limit it by saying it is not this, it is not that, — nor by our affirmations, for we cannot fix it by saying it is this,
1 XIII.17. 2 II.1. 3 XIII.20. 4 IV.10. 5 VI.1,7,8,11.
Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara 337
it is that, iti iti. And yet, though in this way unknowable to us, it is not altogether and in every way unknowable; it is self- evident to itself and, although inexpressible, yet self-evident to a knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us must be capable; for that spiritual being is in its essence and its original and intimate reality not other than this Supreme Existence.
But although thus indeterminable to Mind, because of its absoluteness and infinity, we discover that this Supreme and Eternal Infinite determines itself to our consciousness in the universe by real and fundamental truths of its being which are beyond the universe and in it and are the very foundation of its existence. These truths present themselves to our conceptual cognition as the fundamental aspects in which we see and expe- rience the omnipresent Reality. In themselves they are seized directly, not by intellectual understanding but by a spiritual intuition, a spiritual experience in the very substance of our consciousness; but they can also be caught at in conception by a large and plastic idea and can be expressed in some sort by a plastic speech which does not insist too much on rigid definition or limit the wideness and subtlety of the idea. In order to ex- press this experience or this idea with any nearness a language has to be created which is at once intuitively metaphysical and revealingly poetic, admitting significant and living images as the vehicle of a close, suggestive and vivid indication, — a language such as we find hammered out into a subtle and pregnant mas- siveness in the Veda and the Upanishads. In the ordinary tongue of metaphysical thought we have to be content with a distant indication, an approximation by abstractions, which may still be of some service to our intellect, for it is this kind of speech which suits our method of logical and rational understanding; but if it is to be of real service, the intellect must consent to pass out of the bounds of a finite logic and accustom itself to the logic of the Infinite. On this condition alone, by this way of seeing and thinking, it ceases to be paradoxical or futile to speak of the Ineffable: but if we insist on applying a finite logic to the Infinite, the omnipresent Reality will escape us and we shall grasp instead an abstract shadow, a dead form petrified into speech or a hard
338 The Life Divine
incisive graph which speaks of the Reality but does not express it. Our way of knowing must be appropriate to that which is to be known; otherwise we achieve only a distant speculation, a figure of knowledge and not veritable knowledge.
The supreme Truth-aspect which thus manifests itself to us is an eternal and infinite and absolute self-existence, self-aware- ness, self-delight of being; this founds all things and secretly supports and pervades all things. This Self-existence reveals itself again in three terms of its essential nature, — self, con- scious being or spirit, and God or the Divine Being. The Indian terms are more satisfactory, — Brahman the Reality is Atman, Purusha, Ishwara; for these terms grew from a root of Intuition and, while they have a comprehensive preciseness, are capable of a plastic application which avoids both vagueness in the use and the rigid snare of a too limiting intellectual concept. The Supreme Brahman is that which in Western metaphysics is called the Absolute: but Brahman is at the same time the omnipresent Reality in which all that is relative exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. The Upanishads affirm that all this is the Brahman; Mind is Brahman, Life is Brahman, Matter is Brahman; addressing Vayu, the Lord of Air, of Life, it is said “O Vayu, thou art manifest Brahman”; and, pointing to man and beast and bird and insect, each separately is identified with the One, — “O Brahman, thou art this old man and boy and girl, this bird, this insect.” Brahman is the Consciousness that knows itself in all that exists; Brahman is the Force that sustains the power of God and Titan and Demon, the Force that acts in man and animal and the forms and energies of Nature; Brahman is the Ananda, the secret Bliss of existence which is the ether of our being and without which none could breathe or live. Brahman is the inner Soul in all; it has taken a form in correspondence with each created form which it inhabits. The Lord of Beings is that which is conscious in the conscious being, but he is also the Conscious in inconscient things, the One who is master and in control of the many that are passive in the hands of Force- Nature. He is the Timeless and Time; He is Space and all that is in Space; He is Causality and the cause and the effect: He is the thinker and his thought, the warrior and his courage, the gambler and his dice-throw. All realities and all aspects and all semblances are the Brahman; Brahman is the Absolute, the Transcendent and incommunicable, the Supracosmic Existence that sustains the cosmos, the Cosmic Self that upholds all beings, but It is too the self of each individual: the soul or psychic entity is an eternal portion of the Ishwara; it is his supreme Nature or Consciousness-Force that has become the living being in a world of living beings. The Brahman alone is, and because of It all are, for all are the Brahman; this Reality is the reality of everything that we see in Self and Nature. Brahman, the Ishwara, is all this by his Yoga-Maya, by the power of his Consciousness- Force put out in self-manifestation: he is the Conscious Being, Soul, Spirit, Purusha, and it is by his Nature, the force of his conscious self-existence that he is all things; he is the Ishwara, the omniscient and omnipotent All-ruler, and it is by his Shakti, his conscious Power, that he manifests himself in Time and governs the universe. These and similar statements taken together are all-comprehensive: it is possible for the mind to cut and select, to build a closed system and explain away all that does not fit within it; but it is on the complete and many-sided statement that we must take our stand if we have to acquire an integral knowledge.
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What seems to us irrational or reprehensible in relation to a partial set of facts, motives, desiderata might be perfectly rational and approvable in relation to a much vaster motive and totality of data and desiderata. Reason with its partial vision sets up constructed conclusions which it strives to turn into general rules of knowledge and action and it compels into its rule by some mental device or gets rid of what does not suit with it: an infinite Consciousness would have no such rules, it would have instead large intrin- sic truths governing automatically conclusion and result, but adapting them differently and spontaneously to a different total of circumstances, so that by this pliability and free adaptation it might seem to the narrower faculty to have no standards whatever. In the same way, we cannot judge of the principle and dynamic operation of infinite being by the standards of finite existence, — what might be impossible for the one would be normal and self-evidently natural states and motives for the greater freer Reality. It is this that makes the difference between our fragmentary mind consciousness constructing integers out of its fractions and an essential and total consciousness, vision and knowledge. It is not indeed possible, so long as we are compelled to use reason as our main support, for it to abdicate altogether in favour of an undeveloped or half-organised intuition; but it is imperative on us in a consideration of the Infinite and its being and action to enforce on our reason an utmost plasticity and open it to an awareness of the larger states and possibilities of that which we are striving to consider. It will not do to apply our limited and limiting conclusions to That which is illimitable. If we concentrate only on one aspect and treat it as the whole, we illustrate the story of the blind men and the elephant; each of the blind inquirers touched a different part and concluded that the whole animal was some object resembling the part of which he had had the touch. An experience of some one aspect of the
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Infinite is valid in itself; but we cannot generalise from it that the Infinite is that alone, nor would it be safe to view the rest of the Infinite in the terms of that aspect and exclude all other view-points of spiritual experience. The Infinite is at once an essentiality, a boundless totality and a multitude; all these have to be known in order to know truly the Infinite. To see the parts alone and the totality not at all or only as a sum of the parts is a knowledge, but also at the same time an ignorance; to see the totality alone and ignore the parts is also a knowledge and at the same time an ignorance, for a part may be greater than the whole because it belongs to the transcendence; to see the essence alone because it takes us back straight towards the transcendence and negate the totality and the parts is a penultimate knowledge, but here too there is a capital ignorance. A whole knowledge must be there and the reason must become plastic enough to look at all sides, all aspects and seek through them for that in which they are one.
Thus too, if we see only the aspect of self, we may con- centrate on its static silence and miss the dynamic truth of the Infinite; if we see only the Ishwara, we may seize the dynamic truth but miss the eternal status and the infinite silence, become aware of only dynamic being, dynamic consciousness, dynamic delight of being, but miss the pure existence, pure consciousness, pure bliss of being. If we concentrate on Purusha-Prakriti alone, we may see only the dichotomy of Soul and Nature, Spirit and Matter, and miss their unity. In considering the action of the Infinite we have to avoid the error of the disciple who thought of himself as the Brahman, refused to obey the warning of the elephant-driver to budge from the narrow path and was taken up by the elephant’s trunk and removed out of the way; “You are no doubt the Brahman,” said the master to his bewildered disciple, “but why did you not obey the driver Brahman and get out of the path of the elephant Brahman?” We must not commit the mistake of emphasising one side of the Truth and concluding from it or acting upon it to the exclusion of all other sides and aspects of the Infinite. The realisation “I am That” is true, but we cannot safely proceed on it unless we realise also that all is
Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara 347
That; our self-existence is a fact, but we must also be aware of other selves, of the same Self in other beings and of That which exceeds both own-self and other-self. The Infinite is one in a multiplicity and its action is only seizable by a supreme Reason which regards all and acts as a one-awareness that observes itself in difference and respects its own differences, so that each thing and each being has its form of essential being and its form of dynamic nature, svaru ̄pa, svadharma, and all are respected in the total working. The knowledge and action of the Infinite is one in an unbound variability: it would be from the point of view of the infinite Truth equally an error to insist either on a sameness of action in all circumstances or on a diversity of action without any unifying truth and harmony behind the diversity. In our own principle of conduct, if we sought to act in this greater Truth, it would be equally an error to insist on our self alone or to insist on other selves alone; it is the Self of all on which we have to found a unity of action and a total, infinitely plastic yet harmonious diversity of action; for that is the nature of the working of the Infinite.
when we look with a straight and accurate look on the truth of the Reality... In our experience of it we become aware of an Infinite essentially free from all limitation by qualities, properties, features; on the other hand, we are aware of an Infinite teeming with innumer- able qualities, properties, features.
The first difficulty for the reason is that it has always been accustomed to identify the individual self with the ego and to think of it as existing only by the limitations and exclusions of the ego. If that were so, then by the transcendence of the ego the individual would abolish his own existence; our end would be to disappear and dissolve into some universality of matter, life, mind or spirit or else some indeterminate from which our egois- tic determinations of individuality have started. But what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing fundamentally real in itself but only a practical construction of our consciousness devised to centralise the activities of Nature in us. We perceive a formation of mental, physical, vital experience which distinguishes itself from the rest of being, and that is what we think of as ourselves in nature — this individualisation of being in becoming. We then proceed to conceive of ourselves as something which has thus individualised itself and only ex- ists so long as it is individualised, — a temporary or at least a
The Eternal and the Individual 383
temporal becoming; or else we conceive of ourselves as someone who supports or causes the individualisation, an immortal being perhaps but limited by its individuality. This perception and this conception constitute our ego-sense. Normally, we go no farther in our knowledge of our individual existence.
But in the end we have to see that our individualisation is only a superficial formation, a practical selection and limited conscious synthesis for the temporary utility of life in a particular body, or else it is a constantly changing and developing synthesis pursued through successive lives in successive bodies. Behind it there is a consciousness, a Purusha, who is not determined or limited by his individualisation or by this synthesis but on the contrary determines, supports and yet exceeds it. That which he selects from in order to construct this synthesis, is his total experience of the world-being. Therefore our individualisation exists by virtue of the world-being, but also by virtue of a consciousness which uses the world-being for experience of its possibilities of individuality. These two powers, Person and his world-material, are both necessary for our present experience of individuality. If the Purusha with his individualising synthesis of consciousness were to disappear, to merge, to annul himself in any way, our constructed individuality would cease because the Reality that supported it would no longer be in presence; if, on the other hand, the world-being were to dissolve, merge, disappear, then also our individualisation would cease, for the material of experience by which it effectuates itself would be wanting. We have then to recognise these two terms of our exis- tence, a world-being and an individualising consciousness which is the cause of all our self-experience and world-experience.
But we see farther that in the end this Purusha, this cause and self of our individuality, comes to embrace the whole world and all other beings in a sort of conscious extension of itself and to perceive itself as one with the world-being. In its con- scious extension of itself it exceeds the primary experience and abolishes the barriers of its active self-limitation and individual- isation; by its perception of its own infinite universality it goes beyond all consciousness of separative individuality or limited
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soul-being. By that very fact the individual ceases to be the self- limiting ego; in other words, our false consciousness of existing only by self-limitation, by rigid distinction of ourselves from the rest of being and becoming is transcended; our identification of ourselves with our personal and temporal individualisation in a particular mind and body is abolished. But is all truth of individ- uality and individualisation abolished? does the Purusha cease to exist or does he become the world-Purusha and live intimately in innumerable minds and bodies? We do not find it to be so. He still individualises and it is still he who exists and embraces this wider consciousness while he individualises: but the mind no longer thinks of a limited temporary individualisation as all ourselves but only as a wave of becoming thrown up from the sea of its being or else as a form or centre of universality. The soul still makes the world-becoming the material for individual experience, but instead of regarding it as something outside and larger than itself on which it has to draw, by which it is affected, with which it has to make accommodations, it is aware of it sub- jectively as within itself; it embraces both its world-material and its individualised experience of spatial and temporal activities in a free and enlarged consciousness. In this new consciousness the spiritual individual perceives its true self to be one in being with the Transcendence and seated and dwelling within it, and no longer takes its constructed individuality as anything more than a formation for world-experience.
You have no understanding of my view. You seem to have little understanding of metaphysics. I noticed the deliberately provocative remark in your essay that the idea of Unity is useless in philosophy but it was so daft I couldn't be bothered to argue. Perhaps you'd prefer the word 'Simplex' as used by Plotinus. Or 'Unicity' as used by some advaitans. ;
One reason I don't just pile into an argument is that I always struggle to understand what you're saying. Could you clarify one thing.
Are you proposing that Reality is Three, Two, One, Zero or a Unity. A one word answer would be enough.
"But we see farther that in the end this Purusha, this cause and self of our individuality, comes to embrace the whole world and all other beings in a sort of conscious extension of itself and to perceive itself as one with the world-being. In its con- scious extension of itself it exceeds the primary experience and abolishes the barriers of its active self-limitation and individual- isation; by its perception of its own infinite universality it goes beyond all consciousness of separative individuality or limited soul-being."
I have heard Spira refer to the soul as the individual but say that the term is not in his repertoire. I really don't think there is any conflict, it's just that Spira chooses certain language, whereas others (especially those who come from indian background) may use different expressions either to make sense of the literature already available or as a descriptive tool. Osho for example says many things that could appear to contradict non-dualism, but that is because he uses poetical and experiential expression as well as philosophical explanations. Personally, from an experiential viewpoint I think the direct approach is massively useful but lacks some colour and needs to be contrasted with other teachings. I suppose it depends on the individual body-mind and the course which it's 'un-ravelling' takes.
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Similarly, your continued assertion, without any disclaimer, that this is a relational experience leads me to the feeling that you are still thinking dualistically. I may be wrong, but I can only go on what you write.
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Wow, Peter. That was pretty intense. I thought you were privileging the unmanifest over the manifest as well.
Well again, that neither formless nor form, unmanifest nor manifest, being nor becoming, alone can be the ontological primitive, as such, each must be integral, and still remain not-two. Rupert, as far as I can tell, says that the ontological primitive is Awareness -- or at least that's his name of choice for That which transcends all names. Thus, it cannot be just formlessness or form, as they can only be forever indivisible and inextricable.