The Burden of Proof in Advaita
Tim, my friend, is in a hospital bed in California.
I did not know the reason or what he was down with. But I know that he is a well-trained Scientist and his spirit of scientific inquiry is never down.
Now that there are no pressing demands on his time from his professional commitments, his Inquiry is fully focused on advaita Vedanta, though it takes him presently a large effort just to read a one-page material. I admire his fortitude and forbearance in the pursuit of advaita.
A brief exchange of thoughts that we had had on a Social Network (edited partly) is given here.
T (TIM): It appears to me that when people speak of non-duality that the manner in which they speak about it tends to color the conclusions they draw about reality. I repeatedly hear that all consciousness is “One.” I can agree that all of everything is one process, with no-thing having a special precedence. However, I find that many people somehow jump from that to concluding that all consciousness is connected rather than simply being instantiations of the same phenomenon.
“We’re all connected” is egoistically more satisfying than “We’re all produced the same way.” Yet the latter statement suggests a disconnect that is NOT the same as the “separation” that we’ve learned is an illusion. It simply notes that (for example) I cannot experience YOUR experience. Consciousness seems to be a one-way street. If that appearance reflects the reality, it means that all that I experience is just an irrelevant blip, not a wondrous gateway to a higher plane of existence.
R (Ramesam): Thanks Tim.
In what you state, I see essentially three Questions.
1. How can we say that Consciousness is one homogeneous whole and not individuated ‘consciousnesses’ with gaps in-between?
2. Why is the experience different for different people, if it is all one Consciousness?
3. Is it not our perception an irrelevant blip?
Please Get Well Soon! We will debate later.
T: I’m doing what I can to get well. I’m working against cancer and some other stuff that the hospitals and the doctors haven’t identified yet. I’m a miracle of nature, I guess.
R: Sorry to know about the suspected malignancy. Yes, it is a miracle how Consciousness takes all these different forms in its Freedom!
There are several approaches to answer the three Questions. I shall first make a brief attempt here to provide short answers to them.
Q1. If your Consciousness (just the raw quality of being conscious – not the thing that you are conscious of) ends at some place where a gap begins, you must be able to see that limiting edge (boundary) where your consciousness ended. But you can never find any such boundary. So it extends infinitely, unbroken by gaps.
[Note for other readers: The limit of horizon we see in open lands is not a limit to our consciousness. The circular horizon appears because of the earth’s circumference impeding our view. In outer space, we can see stars and galaxies several light-years away.]
Q2. Suppose you are inside an Observation Tower with windows in different directions. Different windows present different independent disconnected scenes. Different views from different windows do not mean that there are multiple people looking from the center of the Tower. You are one and the same person looking through different windows. It is a limitation of the finite window that it shows you a limited and discontinuous view. Your ability to see is not limited or broken.
Similarly, the eye-mind visionary mechanism of each person shows a different view to the same One Consciousness. The individual human bodies are like the finite windows. You, standing at the center, are like Consciousness in this metaphor. Francis Lucille often uses this metaphor in his talks.
Q3. Yes, the perception at each moment is a blip. It is a blip because of the vibrating quality of the mind. Imagine a light beam coming out of a projector. Place a vibrating shutter in its way. Does it not look as if the light appears as blips? In this metaphor Consciousness is like the light beam and the mind is like the vibrating shutter.
T: You see, people can prove anything with analogies. Let me give you an example.
A cricket is on a leaf, floating downstream in a river. It observes other crickets on other leaves, all heading downstream at the same speed. Therefore, it concludes that they are all on the same leaf.
The cricket is, of course, wrong. It simply didn’t want to accept that it was all by itself on a leaf, and that the leaf marked the limit of what a mere cricket could do. But the cricket never even touched the stream. So it made up stories based on the similarities it perceived and somehow never addressed the obvious fact that it couldn’t touch the other crickets. Our concern was never about leaves or crickets. It was about the stream.
R: As you know well, an analogy is given only to clarify a concept – but NOT as a proof.
The cricket-riding-on-a-leaf analogy is excellent. It suits the advaita teaching and what it is trying to tell us much much better. Thanks for coming up with it. In your analogy, the mind, the only tool we have for our perception, assigning a meaning to what is perceived etc. is like the leaf with limited boundary conditions. The stream is Consciousness. The very teaching of advaita is to direct our attention to the stream and to caution us not to be misled and become captive to the mind like the cricket.
advaita tells us precisely the very point you make. There is a whole different world beyond the mind, be aware of it. The mind is limited like the leaf, do not think you are your mind, there is a stream, you are the stream, Realize That. advaita says only that much and leaves it to the seeker. advaita CANNOT do anymore. One cannot expect advaita to do anymore because the satiation of eating comes only by actual eating by the concerned hungry man – no amount of showing foods, describing foods will appease the hunger. advaita, however, provides some tools to correct the mis-identification we all do. Rest of the job is to be done by each individual. No proofs are given, only pointers are provided.
One may ask, “Why does advaita not offer proof?”
It does not because advaita is NOT establishing any new theory or bringing forth something not already known to you. What it suggests is just a change in the perspective. It is like asking you to view to your right instead of left. What is there that requires a proof in such a suggestion? It is up to you to turn your head and notice what is apparent in the other direction.
Suppose you are looking at the blank TV screen sitting on your couch in your living room. Your spouse comes and switches on a Movie. Now you are looking at the Movie on the screen. That’s what you will say. Right? advaita says, “No, even now you are looking at the screen only!” It does not ask you to change what you do, it does not stop you from looking. It does not alter your couch or position, least your spouse. advaita says, “Realize that even when you are looking at the Movie, you are actually looking at the screen which takes a different appearance, modulating itself assuming a different color and shape at that pixel position. These are the blips in your perception. The screen exists even when these blips are there, it continues even after the blips are gone or while the blips are changing from moment to moment. So no proof is required for any new thing – just a shift in the way we understand the world. And identify yourself with the everlasting screen and “You” are not in the changing movie (the mind and ego + the world).
Another important thing to be aware of is that Consciousness, left to Itself, does not notice anything. When it begins to look at with the thought “I am looking”, then only a perception arises and along with it, the world arises. This perceptual change with a deep understanding has the power to mitigate all suffering!
I am sure you will join me in Wishing Tim All The Best in this Vedantic manana of his.
