Kena Upanishad on 'Can Brahman be Known'?

 

3: The eye does not go there, nor speech, nor mind.  We do not know (Brahman to be such and such), hence we are not aware of any process of instructing about it.

4: “That (Brahman) is surely different from the known; and again, It is above the unknown” - such was (the utterance) we heard of the the ancient (teachers) who explained it to us.

(Kena Upanisad I.3, 4 )

There  is what seems a straightforward admission that the logico-empirical method cannot establish the existence of Brahman.  Why might that be so?  If Brahman is the Self then the Self cannot be grasped in the way that any object might be.   The consciousness that is being grasped would have to grasp itself being grasped and that grasping of etc.  Bertrand Russell noted this in a letter to Frege.  There is inevitable infinite regress.  Shankara in his commentary :

Though the mind thinks and determines other things, it does not think or determine itself; for of it, too, Brahman is the Self.  A thing is cognised only by the mind and the senses.  As Brahman is not an object of perception to these, therefore,na vidmah,we do not know.

How then is Brahman to be communicated or taught to a disciple?  Brahman escapes all categories but there is deep wisdom embedded in the realised masters of traditional authority.  Put the disciple in the vicinity of a realised sage and he will begin to resonate with the knowledge of “the Brahman that is immediate and direct - the Self that is within all” (Brhadaranyaka Up. III.iv.1)

In this way, the text, “Thus we heard” etc., states how through a succession of preceptors and disciples was derived the purport of the sentence which establishes Brahman that Self of all which is devoid of distinguishing features, and is the light of pure consciousness.  Moreover, Brahman can only be known through such a traditional instruction of preceptors and not through argumentation, nor by study (or exposition), intelligence, great learning, austerity, sacrifices, etc.....

Moby Dick and Vedanta

 

It’s interesting to see a Vedantic note in Melville’s analysis of Ahab’s soul loss.  The sinking back into atman/soul that occurs in deep sleep in which mental modifications/vritti subside being overcome by tamas/torpour is referenced.  Normally this is a state of quasi bliss without perturbation but not for Ahab:

For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab’s case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own.

Ahab is possessed, his nature riven by an all consuming purpose.

In his compendium of whale lore and legend Melville missed this sutra from the Bhradaranyaka Upanisad  IV.iii.18:

As a great fish swims alternately to both the banks (of a river), eastern and western, so does this infinite being move in both these states, the dream and waking states.

The whale as  infinite being, the emptiness that devours worlds and inanition made visible.

Deep Dreamless Sleep and the Witness (Saksin)

 “How can there be any special property in Me who am changeless by nature and witness the modifications of the minds of all without any exception?  (How can again there be any change in Me) who witness the mind and its functions in the waking state as in dream?  But as there is the absence* of both the mind and its functions in deep sleep, I am Pure Consciousness, all-pervading and changeless.”  (# 3, 4 Chap. XI  Nature of the Witness: Upadesa Sahasri)

*Therefore witnessing the mind and its functions is not in the nature of the Self. (note by translator Swami Jagadananda)

This is a very important observation.  The knowledge in the form of ‘I have been in a state of deep dreamless sleep’ can only arise if there was what I have called a dark samadhi i.e. a perfect non-reflexive awareness which is contentless.   The analogy proposed by Tripura Rahasya is of a mirror coated with tar perfectly reflecting that blackness.  One understands the purport of that image while doubting the physics.  In any case the Witness aspect of Pure Consciousness is a detached knowledge of the mental modifications.  The mind is not conscious, counter intuitive as that is to the avidya (ignorance) stricken.

“It thinks as it were” (Br.Up.)

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad - Stalk of Grass

The Self cannot be known in an isolated objective manner. Here are some citations to that effect.

Though it is so, yet during the waking state that light called the self, being beyond the organs and being particularly mixed up in the diversity of functions of the body and the organs, internal and external, such as the intellect, cannot be shown extricated from them
*********
Therefore it cannot be taken apart from anything else, like a stalk of grass from its sheath, and shown in its self-effulgent form. It is for this reason that the whole world, to its utter delusion, superimposes all activities peculiar to name and form on the self, and all attributes of this self-effulgent light on name and form, and also superimposes name and form on the light of the self, and thinks, 'This is the self, or is not the self ; it has such and such attributes. or has not such and such attributes ; it is the agent, or is not the agent ; it is pure, or impure ; it is bound. or free : it. is fixed, or gone, or come ; it exists. or does not exist,' and so on.

(from Sankara's commentary on Brh.Up. IV.iii.7)

Certain yogins claim that samadhi or immersion in pure consciousness is enlightenment and they thus try to extract it from the normal everyday awareness by stopping the mind's activity. Sankara in his commentary on the Vedanta Sutras (Brahma Sutras) discounts this version of the enlightened state:

As in natural slumber and samadhi (absorption in divine consciousness), though there is a natural eradication of differences, still owing to the persistence of the unreal nescience, differences occur over and over again when one wakes up

(from B.S.B. II.i.9)

The Self is not to be extracted in the manner of a stalk of grass. How the Self might be manifested we can only know from the presence of a realised sage. That it is is all we can know.

This movement between the two worlds is merely due to its resembling the intellect-not natural to it. That it is attributable to its resembling the limiting adjuncts of name and form created by a confusion, and is not natural to it, is being stated: Because, assuming the likeness (of the intellect), it moves alternately between the two worlds. The text goes on to show that this is a fact of experience. It thinks, as it were : By illumining the intellect, which does the thinking, through its own self-effulgent light that pervades the intellect, the self assumes the likeness of the latter and seems to think, just as light (looks coloured). Hence people mistake that the self thinks ; but really it does not. Likewise it shakes, as it were: When the intellect and other organs as well as the Pranas move, the self, which illumines them. becomes like them, and therefore seems to move rapidly ; but really the light of the self has no motion.

This contrast between the Self and the Intellect/Mind is paradoxical from the point of view of Western thought. In Upadesa Sahasri Sankara's original non-commentarial work he puts it thus:

The intellect has no consciousness and the Self no action. The word 'knows' can, therefore, be reasonably applied to neither of them.


The word 'knowledge', in the sense of the action of knowing, cannot, similarily, be applied to the Self. For the Self is not a change only (as is indicated by an action) inasmuch as it is taught (in the Srutis) that It is eternal.


The word 'knowledge', in the sense of the instrument of the action of knowing, is applied to the intellect and not to the Self as an instrument cannot exist without an agent. Neither can the word, in the sense of that which is the object of the action of knowing, be applied to the Self.

(from Chap. XVIII Thou Art That)

How then has the idea that the Self is acting become so firmly entrenched? Superimposition (adhyasa) is the answer. That is a very complex doctrine/theory/transcendental hypothesis and requires clarification. Anon.

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad - Upadhi and Self

An upadhi is a thing which communicates its own property to another situated close to it as for instance, when a red flower is placed near a crystal, it imparts its red colour to the glass which then appears red; here the flower is the associate of the crystal.

(from Vichar Sagar by Sadhu Nachildas)

That is the standard example which is of course an analogy attempting to give the sense of a relationship between two objects which are separate. Clearly they must have the capacity to affect each other. An important point is that the nature of both elements is not changed by their association. Away from the rose the crystal is as it always was.

Likewise and similarly the inert mind body becomes aware by being 'close' to pure consciousness. Other expressions of that relationship mention pervasion and saturation.

The intellect being transparent and next to the self, easily catches the reflection of the intelligence of the self. Therefore even wise men happen to identify themselves with it first; next comes the Manas, (mind) which catches the reflection of the self through the intellect; then the organs, through contact with the Manas; and lastly the body, through the organs. Thus the self successively illumines with its own intelligence the entire aggregate of body and organs. It is therefore that all people identify themselves with the body and organs and their modifications indefinitely according to their discrimination.

(from Sankara's commentary on Brh.Up. IV.iii.7)

Thus it is said that the mind is an upadhi (limiting adjunct) of pure consciousness. It, as it were, shrinks it to its own size.

Next Sankara explicates the central advaitic concept of adhyasa (superimpostion) and its relations to upadhi. Later....

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad IV.iii.7 - Janaka chews the rusk of the aporetic

So we have left Janaka chewing the rusk of the aporetic . The common sense view of the mind organising and guiding the activities of the body and being somehow on the same level as them is a baffling puzzle. Mind seems as much supervenient as immediately directive. We have moods and beliefs which give a cast to our conscious states without being present to us.

Which is the self? Among the body, organs, vital force and mind, which is the self you have spoken of - through which light, you said, a man sits and does other kinds of work? Or, which of these organs is 'this self identified with the intellect' that you have meant, for all the organs appear to be intelligent?

Everything seems imbued with the mental, all of them are qualified to be candidates for the position of the Self.

As when a number of Brahmanas are assembled, one may ask, 'They are all highly qualified, but which of these is versed in all the six branches of the Vedas?'

This is almost like the example category error of Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind - I see all the colleges but where is Oxford University? Knowing the six branches of the Vedas is to be qualified.

Let us say that we are obliged to pick one candidate. The intellect as the judging and decision making aspect seems a likely candidate for the job of the Self.

'Which is this self that is identified with the intellect and is in the midst of the organs, the light within the heart?' is the question.

Further below:

Every object is perceived only as associated with the light of the intellect, as objects in the dark are lighted up by a lamp placed in front : the other organs are but the channels for the intellect. Therefore the self is described in terms of that, as 'identified with the intellect.'

At this point the commentary proffers a transcendental postulate suggested by the words of the sutra i.e. the Self in the midst of the organs.

The locative case in the term 'in the midst of the organs' indicates that the self is different from the organs, as 'a rock in the midst of the trees' indicates only nearness ; for there is a doubt about the identity or difference of the self from the organs. 'In the midst of the organs' means 'different from the organs,' for that which is in the midst of certain other things is of course different from them, as 'a tree in the midst of the rocks.'

What is about to be suggested is that the body, mind and intellect are not conscious by nature. They are irradiated by the light of the Self/Atman which makes them seem to be conscious.

Later.

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad - Self Awareness

Sankara consistently uses arguments which are on the weak side not because he hasn’t got others. They act as placeholders for the inquiry. He has placed his staff upon the area that he wishes the aspirant to knowledge to focus on or to work through. This is like the method of the vedanta according to Swami Satchidanandendra – false attribution followed by retraction. Arguments seemed to be graded according to the ability of the student to process them. After all as he has said in the Brahma Sutra Bhasya (II.i.11) when he impugns logic and epideictic reason as a way to realisation; no matter how clever your argument someone will come up with a refutation.
Brhadaranyaka Upanisad IV.iii.6:

You said, 'Some light which is of the same class as the body and organs must be inferred, since the sun and the like are of the same class as the things they help. This wrong, for there is no hard and fast rule about this help.’
Further below:
Therefore, when something is helped by another, there is no restriction about their being of the same class or of different classes. Sometimes men . are helped by men, their own species, and sometimes by animals, plants, etc., which are of different species. Therefore the reason you adduced for your contention, that the body and organs are helped by lights that are of the same class as they, like the sun etc., falls to the ground

That seems to deny the idea of causal closure suggested by the expression that the Self is in the midst of the organs, interacting with them so to speak.

Janaka in Brhadaranyaka Upanisad IV.iii.7:

J anaka cannot decide whether the self is just one of the organs or something different, and therefore asks: Which is the self!' The misconception is quite natural, for the logic involved is too subtle to grasp easily. Or, although the self has been proved to be other than the body, yet all the organs appear to be intelligent, since the self is not perceived as distinct from them ; so I ask you: Which is the self?

The solution is developed in a long commentary on that sutra which also deals with Buddhist objections.
More anon.

Self-Identity

Similarly, in the case of remembrance, he who remembers being also the one who saw, the two are identical. Thus only can a person, after shutting his eyes, remember the forms he has seen before, just as he saw them. Therefore that is is shut is not the seer; but that which, when the eyes are shut, sees forms in remembrance, must have been the seer when the eyes were open. This is further proved by the fact that when the body is dead, no vision takes place although the body is intact. If the body itself were the seer, even a dead body would continue to see and do similar functions. Therefore it is clear that the real agent of seeing etc. is not the body, but that whose absence deprives the body of the power of vision, and whose presence gives it that power.

Objection: Suppose the eyes and other organs themselves were the agents of vision and so forth

Reply: No: the remembrance that one is touching the very thing that one has seen, would be impossible is there were different agents for these two acts

Objection: Then let us say, it is the mind.

Reply: No, the mind also, being an object like colour etc cannot be the agent of vision and so forth. Therefore we conclude that the light in question is inside the body, and yet different from it like the sun etc.

Brh.Up. IV.iii.6

That Similarly in the case of remembrance, he who remembers being also the one who saw, the two are identical. is the answer to ‘how do you know’ you are the same. No empiricist thinks that ‘I just know’ is an answer because it is a fundamental stance that a demand for a reason must be met with evidence of some sort. I know I was the one who found the wallet because I remember the wallet being found and oh yes i remember it was me that found it. Such an account is not convincing in the least. In fact no one offers a reason because they don’t need one. They may feel that they could but when they try they fail.

The remark about a dead body not being aware is based on the assumption that the life force which is identified with consciousness and the self is not present. A body on its own is not sufficient for awareness. This may seem obvious and hardly an argument but the point is that like in the case of remembrance being a remembrance no argument is required. We just know that a dead body is a dead body.

Is this armchair philosophy or fatuous maundering compared to neuroscience? I think of it as ‘asana’ philosophy after the meditation sitting position. There is no grasping of the self because there is no need. Neuroscience tries to offer evidence for our self-identity but none is required. Any mental state whatever is saturated in self-identity.