Anirvachanaya

 I see anirvachanaya has come up as a topic in an advaitic blog which does not welcome ontological pondering so I won’t engage with it there. 

anirvachanaya

  It gets to the anirvachanaya quandary by way of an initial stipulation of  what is really real.

“Sat (Real): That which exists in all three periods of time (past, present, and future) and is never sublated or negated. Only Brahman/Consciousness fits this definition.

1. Asat (Unreal): That which is absolutely non-existent and can never be perceived, such as  “the son of a barren woman” or “the horns of a hare”.

Framing a position by starting from a stipulation is I would suggest a pointless venture.  That quandary about the co-existence of the real and the unreal only arises when conclusions have been reached by other means, down the line as it were.

Ask yourself: How does Sankara open his ontological position on the real?  He accepts sense perception but is puzzled by what the Greeks called an aporia (plural aporiai) : How is perception possible?  How does that out there concrete reality somehow come to be in here in my consciousness as an awareness of the thing as it is.  The concrete and immaterial consciousness are incommensurable.  

I have gone into the nuts and bolts of the progression of Shankara’s  thinking on this subject several times so I won’t repeat it here (follow the topic heads below).  Essentially what allows us to know the object is the unity of the substratum. (vritti - upadhi- adhyasa).  If I may be so bold as to add my own twist on the problem.  Ask why the overall form of awareness, which is ‘I AM’ , does not reflect back on itself instead of reaching the object.  

This is the fundamental transcendental hypothesis as sketched in the Preamble to the Brahma Sutra Bhasya.  I would hold that it dissolves the Real/Unreal dyad by establishing the concept of the non-dual or Advaita.  That division has become factitious.

 

Realism, the Mind/Body problem in Western and Advaitic thought.

 

“Now at the same time it is just those self-same things which his mind, as we say, perceives; and the whole philosophy of perception from Democritus’s time downwards has been just one long wrangle over the paradox that what is evidently one reality should be in two places at once, both in outer space and in a person’s mind. ‘Representative’ theories of perception avoid the logical paradox, but on the other hand they violate the reader’s sense of life, which knows no intervening mental image but seems to see the room and the book immediately just as they physically exist.”  (from ‘Radical Empiricism’ by William James)

In his clear way James has set out the aporia which in Advaita is called the chit jada granthi (the knot between the conscious and the inert).  It is the initial statement of the puzzleShankaracarya deals with in the preamble to the Brahma Sutra Bhasya.  He writes:

“Accordingly, the superimposition of the object, referable through the concept “you”, and its attributes on the subject that is conscious by nature and is referable through the concept “we” (should be impossible), and contrariwise the superimposition of the subject and its attributes on the object should be impossible.”

What he finds to be a difficulty that must be stated before his commentary on the body of the sutras is simply this: how does that out there a material object come to be in here in my mind as a subjective unextended state of awareness.

This is just that very ‘double entry’ problem that under various modalities keeps cropping up.  The problem of universals comes under that rubric, primary and secondary qualities thinking is coloured by it and it may even be that the hard wired moral tenets, the evolutionary adaptive, correspond to the really out there as against the ‘in here’ cultural mores.  To put it at its most general: is Realism a thing?

Aristotle and Plato thought so and got to it in their different ways.  Advaita as I have pointed out mentions the problem and via the pramanas assumes the truth of realism but its discussion of the problem is put to one side by the very practical problem of self-realisation.  That gives a Cartesian critical tinge to its philosophical investigations.  What is ‘kuthasta ‘, unchanging, as firm as an anvil?  It is Consciousness irradiated by self awareness, underlying that advice given by Nisargadatta’s guru - focus on ‘I AM’ and become liberated.

Earnest Advaitic seekers will demur claiming that none of this Western problematic exists.  It does but they are dazzled by the shiny object of confusion, summarised in the snake/rope analogy and are thereby led into interesting problems such as ‘how is error possible’  and the various fata morgana of Idealism.

Sankaracarya stated the central aporia in the preamble and therefore we must assume that the commentary on the sutras is a working out of a solution.  Essentially the answer is non-duality or how you can have non-numerical identity between consciousness and the objective world.  I have written several notes on this for anyone who is interested in following the subject topics/labels.

Cutting Sankaracarya, Cutting Advaita

 I’m adapting the saying of Frank Pain from his book ‘Practical Woodturning’ - ‘cut the wood the way the wood likes to be cut’.  How does Sankaracarya cut Advaita and who does he cut it as?  As a Teacher and non-dually straight to the consciousness of the seeker that has come to him:

“with fuel in his hands, he should approach a teacher versed in the Vedas and established in Brahman in order to know the Eternal.”

The earnest disciple with full faith in the wisdom of the Vedas will receive instruction according to the rubric of the mahavakyas.  Dwelling on them and drawing out their implication is his path.   Another type of seeker will be served Vedanta with a helping of rational argument.  Those two types are dealt with in the first chapters of ‘Upadesa Sahasri’

(1) A Method of Enlightening the Disciple

(2) The Knowledge of the Changeless and non-Dual Self.

The latter instruction and explication is heavily epistemological and culminates in the argument for the nature of the Self deduced from the knowledge that we have been in a state of Deep Dreamless Sleep (Sushupti).

Upadesa Sahasri is Sankara’s only authenticated non-commentarial work and we may assume that it covers his classic procedure.  The other work that stands out as an onto-epistemological disquisition peculiar to him is found in the preamble to the Brahma Sutra Bhasya.  This is also known as the adhyasa Bhasya (superimposition).

Those are my thoughts on the shape of an introduction to Sankara.  Follow the tags for more on each topic.

Snake/Rope Master Analogy

 

Most philosophy writing is like a pint in a two gallon bucket: a few good points wrapped in repetition and waffle which tends to obscure them.  Sankara in his preamble to the Brahma-Sutra Bhasya reverses this m.o. to give a  concentrated aphoristic  expression of almost poetic compression.  The whole argument is put before you in a way that allow you to see it in a single comprehension.  That is its strength and its stumbling block.  The philosophic mind must enlarge and expand on the thought to fill the bucket.  Here I am threatening to do the same.  "I had not the time to write a short letter so you are getting this long one instead -Pascal in his Provincial Letters. 

The Snake/Rope/ analogy is often the standard introduction to Advaita conditioning our sense of its scope and direction.  That is not the path of the argument taken by Shankara in the Preamble.  He starts with an onto-epistemological aporia but because this master analogy has become the default gateway I will try to offer a couple of points on what it is trying to express and what the wrong turns are as I see them.   First of all the Rope/Snake is a confusion not a delusion or an illusion.  Even offering this initial distinction is potentially  a wrong turn.  I have begun to become fascinated by the logical analysis of the common place occurrence and forget to pay attention to the main thrust of what the analogy is trying to accomplish viz. the orientation of the mind in the direction of a transcendental hypothesis about the nature of subject/object awareness. 

Shankara indicates this clearly:

"With regards to this , some say that it consists in the superimposition of the attributes of one thing on another.  But others assert that whenever a superimposition on anything occurs, there is in evidence only a confusion arising from the absence of discrimination between them.  Others say that the superimposition of anything on any other substratum consists in fancying some opposite attributes on that very basis.  From every point of view, however, there is no difference as regards the appearance of one thing as something else.

 

In a confusing move Shankara appears to himself get drawn into answering  a logical analysis: 

"For everybody superimposes something else on what is perceived by him in front, and you assert that the Self is opposed to the non-Self and is not referable (objectively) by the concept "you". 

He answers this objection by giving examples of non-objective things that are subject to superimposition.  This would appear to validate treating analogy as homology i.e. likeness in a global respect.  From the point of view of the adhiropa/apavada strategy or version of dialectic i.e. progressive approximation, this may be acceptable. 

Nor is there any rule that something has to be superimposed on something else that is directly perceived through the senses; for boys superimpose the ideas of survace (i.e. concavity) and dirt on space (i.e. sky) that is not an object of sense-perception.  Hence there is nothing impossible in superimposing the non-Self on the Self that is opposed to it."

The Mind of the Sage

What is it to be real in advaita? It is to be uncontradicted in all three moments of time; past, present,future. The ordinary changeful mental activity which we identify with is therefore unreal in that ultimate reckoning. However for everyday purposes we can distinguish between reality and illusion, delusion and confusion. Normal confirmation or disconformation applies.

‘Unreal nescience’ is therefore a technical term for the ontological foundations of the subject/object divide. The ‘opponent’ impugning the advaitic understanding fails to realise this:

Opponent: How, again, can the means of valid knowledge, such as direct perception as well as the scriptures, have as their basis a cognizer who is subject to nescience?

Vedantin: Since a man without self-identification with the body, mind, senses etc., cannot become a cognizer and as such the means of knowledge cannot function for him since perception and other activities (of a man) are not possible without accepting the senses etc. (as his own) ; since the senses cannot function without (the body as) a basis since nobody engages in any activity with a body that has not the idea of the Self superimposed on it; .....

(from the preamble to B.S.B.)

The knowledge that this superimposition is always taking place does not annihilate the mind of the realised sage. Nisargadatta Maharaj explains:

I see as you see, hear as you hear, taste as you taste, eat as you eat. I also feel thirst and hunger and expect my food to be served on time. When starved or sick , my body and mind go weak. All this I perceive quite clearly but somehow I am not in it, I feel myself floating over it, aloof and detached.

(from section 57 of I am That /Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

Note on the Preamble to the Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya of Shankaracarya

A Note from 2008 on the preamble to Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya of Shankaracarya translated by Swami Gambhirananda published by Advaita Ashrama.


With primary texts that are encrusted with commentaries I think it is vital to read the text first before our minds are clouded by a view which gets between us and the initial experience. It thus can speak directly to us. That may in fact be difficult when the matter is very abstruse. Certain errors which one is liable to fall into can be avoided by a general grasp of the problem fields and the characteristic approaches. It can happen that one is not reading what is on the page because of the interference of received views. How does one get over that? You need to get the sense of strangeness of the text to have it grow into you unimpeded by a veil.
So having read it, now read on: (original text bolded)

It being an established fact.

Now that’s interesting; Shankara believes that there are established facts. He is at least not a sceptic because he accepts that there are some things we just know or that are given. I may even take it that when a fact is established the implication is that there is general agreement. It is not dependent on my personal validation.

that the object and the subject

This seems to come under the notion of what is given as an established fact, stuff that we don’t have to think about, that is just there. Take it or leave it, you can’t deny it. This is important. Objects exist, subjects exist. Odd though it may seem there are some philosophies that hold that only the existence of a subject is immediately given and that the object is the result of an inference that ‘explains’ sense-data.

that are fit to be the contents of the concepts "you" and "we" (respectively)

This again marks the direct intuition. I mean intuition in the sense of the sort of things we know about without having to think about them i.e. the world has stuff that is not us. The pencil on the desk is not an event in my brain.

and that are by nature as contradictory as light and darkness

One seems to cancel the other out as the light does the dark. The consciousness of the subject is being compared to the inertness of the object as object.

cannot logically have any identity

They are utterly different from each other. I am here and the object is out there.

it follows that their attributes can have it still less.

Observation on Shankara’s ideas on the attributes of the subject and those of the object:

In this first sentence Shankara has set out the field so that we are clear about the basics which are the stuff of everyday intuition. Having done that he now springs the paradox that lies at the heart of perception on us.
Let's talk about the attributes for a moment. The attributes of the subject as subject and those of the attributes of the object as object. The chief attribute of the subject viewed as subject is consciousness otherwise there would not be an object; the two being linked together conceptually. There is more to be said on this but as we are strictly adhering to the development of the argument in the text we will restrict our remarks to that alone. An object has location, weight, dimension etc. What is the weight of a thought? Does it have extent? Their attributes are incommensurable. Some philosophers have been led by this consideration to psycho-physical dualism. This is "the view that human beings are made up of two radically distinct constituents (body, constituted by matter like other natural objects, and an immaterial mind or soul)" (Penguin Dict. Of Phil.)

Accordingly, the superimposition of the object

Here the concept of superimposition is introduced. There would have to be an assumption that most students that have come to read the B.S.B. have a notion of what 'superimposition' is in the technical sense of a transfer of attributes.

referable through the concept "you", and its attributes on the subject that is conscious by nature and is referable through the concept "we" (should be impossible), and contrariwise the superimposition of the subject and its attributes on the object should be impossible.

The idea here is that the thing that is inert and of material dimensions somehow comes to be in the consciousness of the subject which is immaterial in nature. Inert in the advaitic philosophy carries the connotation that even though it is of the nature of pure consciousness the witness element is missing in it and therefore it is not conscious unto itself. Consciousness has to be applied to it for it to reveal itself as an upAdhi/limiting adjunct.
Perception is such a common thing that it is difficult to enter into a sense of its fundamental oddness. At the level of the psychology of perception there is much that can be learned about it but this learning does not dissipate the paradox at the ontological level. We cannot say that the activity in the brain is consciousness and claim that we understand what this might mean. The physical and consciousness are incommensurable. Therefore it is the case that subject/object awareness ought to be impossible.
Clearly this is not so. This brings Shankara on to his next point:

Nevertheless, owing to an absence of discrimination between these attributes, as also between substances, which are absolutely disparate,

'Absence of discrimination' has the tone of blame about it because we generally think of discrimination as a good thing. Here I think it is a neutral description of the ontological/epistemological basis of perception. For it to take place there must be an ignoring of the patent difference between the conscious and the inert. That ignoring applies also to the substances or the free standing entities at issue viz. the subject and the object. The object somehow comes to be in the subject.

there continues a natural human behaviour based on self-identification in the form of "I am this" or "this is mine".

Before the individual has begun to reflect on the nature of perception and the puzzle at the heart of it, he will be stuck at the level of the everyday acceptance of the disjunction between the subject and the object. Without philosophical analysis this may seem a fixed and final condition. Even with philosophical analysis one may end up with a view of self-luminous cognition that approximates to the Buddhist shunya vAda .

This behaviour has for its material cause an unreal nescience and man resorts to it by mixing up reality with unreality as a result of superimposing the things themselves or their attributes on each other.
Here we have large blocks of ideas being introduced such as 'material cause' and 'unreal nescience'. First we must get the general purport of the sentence and then how the blocks of meaning move within it. Essentially what Shankara is saying is that we have a limited understanding of reality and suppose that it is complete. We accept perception as a fact and go no further to enquire as to how it is possible. Perception has already been presented as superimposition of the inert on the conscious and the conscious on the inert. Simply sticking at that we are left at the stage where we take the gulf between subject and object to be fixed and final. It is our ignorance of the reality of the unity of being and consciousness, an ignorance exacerbated by the material conditions of perception such as location, ambient conditions, presence etc that make us accept a narrow view of the self. I take material conditions to be what Shankara means by 'material cause'. It is an extension of the base concept of being made out of something or arising out of something.

If it be asked; "what is it that is called superimposition?" - the answer is: It is an awareness, similar in nature to memory, that arises on a different (foreign) basis as a result of some past experience.
He now finds it necessary to give his account of the place superimposition has to play in Advaita. Here I must say that I have found the extensive discussion of the various sorts of confusion, illusion and delusion to be excessive and contrary to the purport of Shankara's basic use of it. He uses superimposition as an analogy for the way in which the object comes to be in the consciousness of the subject and also the way that the consciousness of the subject 'covers' the inert object. He later makes it clear that confusion is not a parallel for superimposition i.e. that all sorts of superimposition must conform to the example of confusion. In fact it is taking an analogy as an example that is the problem. An analogy is like that which it seeks to clarify in one fixed facet only and not in a global way. The facet that is focused on is the coming to be in the mind of an object. That the object in the case of confusion is not really there is not a relevant consideration. It is not the purport of the analogy. Many generations of over-interpretation have befogged this.
Shankara goes on to make it clear, to me at least, that this is his intent.

But others assert that wherever a superimposition on anything occurs, there is in evidence only a confusion arising from the absence of discrimination between them. Others say that the superimposition of anything on any other substratum consists in fancying some opposite attributes on that very basis. From every point of view, however, there is no difference as regards the appearance of one thing as something else. And in accord with this, we find in common experience that the nacre appears as silver and a single moon appears as two.

What we have there is a swift review of all the theories of confusion which were an important topic for the philosophers of the day in their discussion of error. The paradigm or central case of error is taking something to be that which it is not. That is a very interesting discussion in its own right, but what Shankara is using the phenomenon of error for, is to bring out is the notion of the mutual transference of attributes i.e. superimposition. He is not interested in the minutiae of the mechanics of confusion.




there continues a natural human behaviour based on self-identification in the form of "I am this" or "this is mine".

Before the individual has begun to reflect on the nature of perception and the puzzle at the heart of it, he will be stuck at the level of the everyday acceptance of the disjunction between the subject and the object. Without philosophical analysis this may seem a fixed and final condition. Even with philosophical analysis one may end up with a view of self-luminous cognition that approximates to the Buddhist shunya vAda .

This behaviour has for its material cause an unreal nescience and man resorts to it by mixing up reality with unreality as a result of superimposing the things themselves or their attributes on each other.