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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Atheism

Philosophy Assignment 2 SEM1 : “Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented” (Provine, 1998). Discuss.

Charles Darwin’s 1859, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, enlightened us not only on the workings of nature, but also the process by which organisms, including ourselves, have come to be today. In turn, Darwin profoundly impacted not only scientific but also philosophical and religious ideas about the nature of human life.

At the end of the Origin, Darwin expressed that there seems to be a “grandeur in this view of life… with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that… from so simple a beginning, endless forms most wonderful have been, and are being evolved’. Biologists affirm this “grandeur” when we look at the creativity in life, and the “breath of the creator”, for some, is evident in the awe-inspiring natural world, which Darwin helped uncover. However, how these most wonderful forms come to be, is in reality hardly wondrous at all and, as Darwin himself remarked in a letter to Hooker, the work of nature is in fact “clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horribly cruel” .

Although it should be noted that what the majority of Darwin wrote in the Origin he learned from other naturalist and biologists - like Robert William Wallace, who were writing on evolution either before or at the same time as him, his influence on the world was undoubtedly greater than that of anyone before him. Perhaps most importantly, Darwin impacted the way we saw ourselves. The change was extremely dramatic particularly in the west where previously, our perception of ourselves, thanks to the Greek philosophers, was that which placed a radical difference between us and any other living species. Also up until the twentieth century, Christians read the Book of Genesis and believed that the origin of life began when an all-knowing, all-loving and perfect God created it in a few days, creationist’s still do today, however the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species completely dismantled such an anthropological view of the world, contradicted scripture, amplified the problem of evil and in turn, according to some, destroyed the notion of divine design.

The notion of divine design is one that I plan to explore in this essay, looking at if evolution through natural selection may or may not work alongside belief in an intelligent designing force.

The west has long been seen as the home of reason and logic as opposed to the mystical and emotion driven ways of the east, and before beginning I wish to point out the difference between the western Christian argument from design - which requires logic - in that the existence of the almighty Christian God is directly derived from seeing an adaptation, and assuming that it could have only happened that way due to the actions of an intelligent designer, and on the other hand the “feeling of design”, which William Provine (2008), describes as that which has nothing to do with Christianity or indeed the need for a personal God. The feeling of design is something that does not require logic - you look at the patterns on a leaf or the formulation of clouds, even hear a piece of music or feel the touch of a loved one, and the feeling of design just seems to come to you. In nature, if we observe something incredible, say for example the attack method of the Mantis Shrimp, who’s spiked arms accelerate at 10,000 times the speed of gravity and creates a pressure wave around it which boils the water, creating a flash of light and reaching its prey in three thousandths of a second, we see it and think that such perfect adaptations must originate from an intelligent force, for things could not be this perfectly constructed just because they are that way. This is what he describes as the feeling of design. He continues by saying that this feeling seems to be pointing us in the direction of believing that there is something bigger than us, something that doesn’t just exist in some far away plane, out of the reach of humans, but something which contributes to the way we see the world through working in nature. In contrast, The Intelligent Design theory describes nature as created by a benevolent Christian God, whose creation was perfect and finished, as opposed to what Darwin wrote about nature being cruel and constantly changing. J.F.Haught believes advocates of Intelligent Design Theory ignore the “contingency, randomness and struggle in evolution” and that it is “too restrictive” in that it doesn’t allow room for a deeper and more compelling meaningfulness to be found, as it “filters out the more tragic aspects of life”. For Provine, human beings long for “moral guidance in human relationships,” and he thinks that we can use this feeling of design to lead us in the right direction, so that we can face and solve some of the deeper questions about the meaning of life. He adds that if one senses and utilises this feeling of design, it will in turn teach us moral lessons from a biological point of view which will in turn affect our whole worldview.

A large shift in changing worldviews has occurred many times throughout history, where science and religion engage in a dialogue, and produce effects that change the face of society. Prior to Darwin there were many scientists who impacted the religious sphere in ways that have changed human understanding about the nature of life. However, there seems to be an assumption sometimes when discussing great scientific figures in that they are presumed not to be concerned with religion, however this couldn’t be more far from the truth. For example, Galileo fought with the Catholic Church about his astronomical findings regarding the Earth orbiting the Sun due to the Church’s steadfast belief that the Earth was surrounded by the God-created heavens and that it was the unchanging centre of the universe. As is known, Galileo was confined to house arrest for the last ten years of his life, and one may assume that from this, he was opposed to the idea of the almighty Christian God. Provine states that in fact, Galileo thought that the order he was uncovering was indeed put into place by a God. Somewhat Ironically, many years after Galileo’s death, in 1979 Pope John Paul II spoke at the Vatican Academy of Sciences and actually quoted Galileo saying “Holy Scripture and nature proceed equally from the divine Word, the former as it were dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter as a very faithful executor of God’s orders.” And in his Siderious Nuncius, Galileo says, “all of this has been discovered and observed these last days thanks to the “telescope that I have invented after being enlightened by divine grace.” From this, the Pope agreed with Galileo’s theology and added that his views on Science and religion resemble that of the Catholic Church today.

Another Example of one of Science’s greats is Isaac Newton, whose works on the law of gravitational attraction to planetary systems changed the face of modern science. According to Provine, Newton frequently got into disputes with Christians who labelled him a deist - in that he could not really see the mark of God in nature, but supposed it to be God who was behind it anyway. Newton wrote this in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which later earned him the opposition of Christians:

“I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of Nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles, for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually repelled toward one another and cohere in regular figures, or are refilled and recede from one another” (Newton 1969).

This seems to imply that nature has mechanical principles and does not require a God, which didn’t go down too well within the Christian community, thus sparking controversy. However in part III of the Principa, Newton describes “ This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.” and also talks about God when we says that “we know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things and final causes’, and that “Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.”

Another example, and often named as the father of modern medicine, William Harvey, was responsible for the first complete, detailed descriptions of the systemic circulation of how blood is pumped from the heart to the brain and the rest of the body. Harvey, like Newton and Galileo, believed that God was working through nature to create the adaptations of the heart, blood vessels, and blood. It seems that what these scientists had in common was that they all believed to be discovering things about the physical world that was the product of intelligence, not “merely the grinding away of unintelligent nature” (Provine, 2008, 674).

Provine goes on to discuss the problems that arise when attempting to find a meaningful nexus between evolution and the feeling of intelligent design. He outlines two reasons. The first being, that regardless of how great evolutionary adaptations are, they virtually ensure the extinction of any species. This is because when the environment changes, so too must the species. Provine is saying here that in order to be a successful species, often necessary resources are used up, causing a depletion in the number of organisms and thus extinction. Provine boldly says that because of this, “the feeling of intelligent design disappears in the perspective of evolution” (Provine, 2008:676). If we look at natural selection, which is not a mechanism, but instead, the outcome of a very complex process, which basically stems from multiple factors such as genetic variation, ecology, demographics (such as the overproduction of offspring) and heredity, we find that the process involves organisms adapting in order to survive. This basically guarantees extinction because the environment does and will change, and, as we as mere humans can look at the environment and see that it does indeed change, it follows that if evolution through natural selection is designed intelligently, it seems that this intelligence has no awareness of environmental change. What Provine seems to be getting at when he says that the feeling of design disappears is that the fact that species become extinct leads one away from thinking in terms of teleology and design, because if there was a transcendental purpose behind the process of evolution through natural selection, we would expect there to be less waste and death. However this seems like he is assuming that if you believe in a creating force, theologically speaking, you should be disgusted by the fact that individuals eventually die as well as whole species. But, as many Christians say, it does not make sense for one to perceive a divine act of creation as similar to a human act of design where you plan things out and get things done exactly how you want them to be.

The second reason Provine outlines is that apparently “evolution shows no hint of progress”. He explains how there are infectious agents that have evolved as long as humans have existed. These infectious agents have the potential to kill us. He says that he “sees no hierarchy whatsoever in the productions of evolution.”: and that “ any deity that would work this way seems perfectly awful to me”. What he seems to be saying here is not that evolution is a process that doesn’t create progress, but that it is messy, for alongside the positive mutations that do indeed help organisms progress, there are negative mutations also. However Provine seems to overlook the fact that the negative mutations we see in evolution are not exactly a step in the opposite direction to progress, but more like the waste of a trial and error process. Evolution through natural selection works in a way that requires negative mutations - organisms in all generations produce random mutations, which are usually not beneficial but occasionally advantageous. These advantageous mutations accumulate over time and change occurs.

Another reason to reject the feeling of intelligent design regards social behaviours. The evolutionist George C.Williams explored how selfish traits are beneficial to an organism’s survival (Williams, 1996). For example, monogomous traits in male organisms will always be favoured over altruistic traits such as faithfulness because the gene pool is less likely to be spread as much. Thus it seems selfishness is more favoured in evolution. If this is taken to be true, the idea of an intelligent designer, who is said to promote a caring nature, becomes one that has designed a system where selfishness is hardwired into our genetics. This however interestingly opens up new ideas about why we place such a high value on traits like honesty, truth, and faithfulness when it seems like our lives are facilitated by the opposite - deception and illusion. Following the idea that selfishness and egotism are the driving force behind nature - as science has shown through the exploration into genetic code - there are however, some examples where altruism within animals is beneficial. For example the British evolutionary biologist W.D Hamilton proposed a theory, which is now known as kin selection. This is an evolutionary strategy which occurs when an animal engages in self-sacrificial behaviour that benefits the genetic fitness of its offspring or siblings. Because of Hamilton’s work on social behaviour, kin selection is very important when looking at the evolution of altruism. This apparent altruistic behaviour could be seen as incompatible with the egoistic ways of natural selection, and thus leave room for a designer who is not harsh and cruel but selfless and caring.

Regarding social behaviours, assuming that we agree with the idea that not only human beings display ethical behaviours - for example, the altruistic acts of ant’s in colonies or primates who remove fleas from pack mates hair in order to receive the same treatment in return - it is apparent that according to evolution by natural selection, human ethical beliefs and behaviours have been selected over an exceedingly long period of time because of the fact they have adaptive values. If the values have been adapted over time, it seems that there is nothing metaphysical about ethics, however this notion is far from being settled (Dinis, 2010:510). Huston Smith, one of the world’s best scholars in the field of world religions, claims that hope is one of the most recognisable and recurring features of religious belief around the world. Smith learned that all religions value hope as that which is most helpful to human beings. In his book, The Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the Worlds Religions, he writes “hope is indispensable to human health,” and that hope is our “prime recourse” (Smithy, 1992:118). For Smith, Darwinian-type evolution destroys the notion of hope as it removes the need for an intelligent designer. Adaptations that produce organisms have no value and evolution through natural selection thus sheds no light on ultimate meaning or life after death.

So, if we take into consideration the apparent aimless wandering and waste that evolution through natural selection has shown us, can one justify the existence of an intelligent and compassionate creator? J.F.Haught explains that now, evolutionary science is showing us more and more about how life on Earth is more about cooperation and interdependence than competition as previously thought (Haught, 2008: 49), one must only look to nature on a larger scale to see this interdependence. Writers and scientists such as James Lovelock, who has proposed the theory that earth is one giant self-sustaining organism in his 1979 book - Gaia, A New Look at Life on Earth are also challenging perceptions about the slow and mechanical ways of evolution, and push us to see the natural world through different eyes.

If we take science and religion to be two separate, non-interactive spheres of work, we have science on the one hand that is concerned with the physical and religion that which is metaphysical. The physical world is one that is understood through nature, which, as Darwin showed in the Origin, is cruel and harsh. However the metaphysical world of religion tends to be more concerned with emotions and feeling. The general assumption, it seems, in theology is that God’s nature is loving and caring and if he designed nature, surely nature would be loving and caring, but Darwin’s theory destroyed this idea and replaced it with suffering. However, isn’t the idea that God’s nature must be loving and caring merely an assumption? - why can’t the creator be one that has elements of darkness as well as light? After all, there are things in life that we cannot deny are terrible and awful.

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Immortality

When a mortal here on earth has felt her own immortality, could she wish for a long life of pleasures, for the lust of deceitful beauty?"- Katha Upanishad

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Self

"Like two birds of golden plumage, inseparable companions, the individual self and the immortal Self are perched on branches of the selfsame tree. The former tastes of the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree; the latter, tasting of neither, calmly observes."- Upanishads

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Doubt

"I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and then many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me."- Richard Feynman

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Forgiveness

Philosophy Assignment SEM2 :- Justification, excuse or acceptance? An exploration of the conceptual difficulties in finding a satisfactory definition of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a term that we use in everyday conversation, assuming that we know what it means. However, forgiveness is a strange concept. It is one of those subjects which you think isn’t puzzling at all, but when you a start to conceptualise of it in a philosophical manner, it becomes more and more confusing, until you get to the point where you’re wondering how anyone could ever make sense of it at all. Trudy Govier defines forgiveness as that which is concerned with the inner emotional state of the person who has been wronged, and as that which requires a relinquishing of any feelings of resentment towards the wrongdoer. The Oxford Dictionary similarly defines it as when a person stops feeling angry or resentful towards (someone) for an offence, flaw or mistake. John Austin, analyses the concept of forgiveness as a verbal gesture, in what Austin explains as “performative speech”, whilst Jeffrie Murphy explains how forgiveness can be seen as a quasi-legal matter of forgoing retribution, or protesting the claim made against a person by proclaiming that they have a “right” to press charges. Gerrard and Mcnaughton imply that forgiveness is something to do with finding an appropriate response to an act of wrongdoing, and Theologian David Augsburger had to use 27 propositions to try and express his definition of forgiveness. Evidently, the content found within the concept of forgiveness is of inexhaustible richness, thus it seems fitting to say that it is a notion which does not conduct itself in a definite manner, and raises significant questions about the way we deal with acts of wrongdoing regarding both the individual and society as a whole. So what is it about forgiveness that makes a definitive definition so hard to find? It seems that it is because the concept itself is very puzzling. There seems to be two things that facilitate this puzzle. The first is that we really need to take seriously the fact that forgiveness is distinct from justifying, excusing, and accepting. Often in daily life, when we think we are forgiving someone, we are failing to distinguish between these three concepts and what it really means to forgive. Thus in reality we, are either excusing, justifying or accepting the wrongdoers harmful act, not forgiving it. So then, it seems that forgiveness is essentially about seeing the wrong as neither justifiable, excusable, nor acceptable and yet - it is still something that can’t, or rather, shouldn’t, really be held against someone - which in itself is confusing. So, it seems that what the important part here is, is that forgiveness is to do with coming to the realisation that you can’t hold something against someone. If this is true then it seems that it is found within a space where blame makes sense and it is difficult to understand why we need forgiveness if we take it out of the context of blame. The second thing that seems to be driving the puzzle of forgiveness is linked to the idea of blame, and the appropriateness of it. This idea seems to be an important factor when discussing forgiveness, as people sometimes say - wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if nobody ever got angry or blamed anybody - some would say that these kind of feelings are what makes us human, not to mention the fact that they aren’t always under our conscious control. Allais thinks that related to this idea of blame being appropriate is the idea that certain types of emotional responses - like resentment - can also be appropriate. The key thing to note here is that now we are saying that emotions have content. Philosophers refer to this an intentional content, meaning that there is a way in which an emotion presents its object as being - which in any case can be either appropriate or intelligible, disproportionate or unintelligible. But it seems that forgiveness starts at a point where the emotional response of resentment is warranted or appropriate. Now, depending on the circumstances, resentment may or may not be appropriate. However, it seems generally agreeable that - to be eaten up with resentment is not desirable, and forgiveness is a way of escaping that because it is good for your own mental health. Trudy Govier suggest that mental hygiene is important when talking about forgiveness, suggesting that she who forgives, is allowing both herself and the wrongdoer to be released from undesirable feelings like resentment and guilt, adding that forgiveness is necessary for sane and compassionate ethics. Furthermore, she asserts that “to forgive is to overcome the anger and resentment felt in response to that which was wrong”. However, her point here seems unfinished in that doesn’t explain what she thinks the actual experience of internally forgiving is like; “to overcome anger and resentment” - Ok, but how does this happen? She talks about trust, and that for an offender to accept forgiveness, they must trust that it is forgiveness that they’re being offered, but this too seems to be only partly explained. She does however acknowledge the fact that forgiveness comes in multiple forms and arises from a multitude of different experiences, and when she expresses the idea that forgiveness is not performative in the same way that giving someone a promise is - she touches on what forgiveness is not. So, focusing on this idea that forgiveness is to overcome feelings like anger and resentment, is there a way of ceasing to resent that does not require forgiveness? Well, suppose someone says to the person who wronged them - I’m not angry at you and I don’t resent you, but I will never be able to forget what you have done and I will never see you in the same way again. It would be hard to then say that this person has forgiven, but it seems they have overcome any feelings of resentment or hostility to the offender. So it seems from, this point of view, that the idea of forgiving for the sake of one’s mental health isn’t really what forgiveness is, which brings us back to the puzzle of forgiveness because we begin to see all of these things that are kind of in the vicinity of forgiveness but aren’t exactly the same thing. An important thing to acknowledge, and something which further complicates this discussion, is that there is a tremendous scope of circumstances in which the need for forgiveness arises. This begins at trivial mishaps like forgiving someone who is late for dinner, to the most horrendous of crimes like forgiving someone for murdering your mother or father. The range of forgiveness seems, in part, to be dependant upon the relationship one has with the offender/s. It isn’t just something that happens in interpersonal relationships, but also in international relationships and within society in regarding the rulers and the ruled. Louis Newman suggests that forgiveness differs considerably when offending parties know each other. He goes on to say that a discussion on forgiveness must take into consideration all of these circumstances, with reference also to forgiving someone who has died, someone who is anonymous, and also in the case where someone must forgive themselves. Newman also mentions that the notion of forgiveness as a gift to oneself in itself confuses the overall purpose of forgiveness. He thinks this is because even though there are desirable emotional benefits for she who forgives, it must be done first and foremost as a response to, and for, the benefit of the offender if forgiveness is to have any moral meaning. What he seems to be highlighting here is that there are some acts that look like forgiveness, in a moral sense, but are really nothing of the sort. For example if one forgives for the sake of oneself and not for the sake of the offender, it would seem that this would be driven by selfish needs - obviously this is debatable - where do we draw the line between being selfish and having self respect? as the offence which caused the need for forgiveness in the first place may have been driven by selfishness, as Margaret Holmgren would seem to agree with, requires a certain amount of self respect for the offended to forgive. Newman continues by mentioning the fact that “forgiveness is not an all or nothing proposition”, and that it should not be confused with reconciliation. He acknowledges the reality that there are cases where forgiveness can bring about a deeper and more meaningful relationship between people, but there are also cases where forgiveness just brings a relationship back to as it were before the wrongdoing. Here we can see that there is no deep reconcile, but rather a transformation of feelings from hostility and resentment to agreeing to treat each other with respect. Obviously this ‘transformation of feelings’ is a long and complicated process, one which differs considerably between each circumstance of wrongdoing where forgiveness is appropriate. Sometimes there are cases in which the victim of serious wrongdoing requires a considerable amount of time to even begin the process of forgiveness, which leads us to the idea that if one is to forgive too hastily, as David Novitz mentions, it could be an indication of lack of self-respect or servility. Many other philosophers and theologians seem to agree with this view, as Jeffrie Murphy, Joram Haber and Pamela Hieronymi all hold that “forgiveness may be incompatible with self respect, because by forgiving we acquiesce in, or at least fail to protest, the claim implicit in the act of wrongdoing that disparages our worth”. In Immanuel Kant’s Lectures on Ethics, he suggests that a person who doesn’t become angry in the fact of wrongdoing lacks dignity. Aristotle thinks he who fails to respond to wrongdoing with the appropriate amount of anger, as he says in Nicomachean Ethics, is a fool, and since David Hume thinks that feelings like anger and hatred are “inherent in our very frame and constitution” he asserts that one who lacks such feelings exhibits a sign of “weakness and imbecility”. Margaret Holmgren however, differs from this view by saying that an attitude of genuine forgiveness towards an unrepentant offender is fully compatible with a victim’s self respect. This seems pretty understandable and it seems that generally a lot of people would agree, however what she finishes this statement with is the more controversial part - where an attitude of resentment is not. She thinks that if a victim opts an attitude of resentment in order to express that the wrongdoing was indeed wrong, she’s allowing the offender “too much power and importance,” thus failing to asses her own worth and not allowing herself sufficient importance. Firstly it seems that we need to make clear that Holmgren isn’t saying that there’s anything morally wrong with being resentful at some point, as Haber would seem to agree by saying that negative feelings such as resentment are not only natural but sometimes called for as an expression of aversion to mistreatment. However, what Holmgren is saying, is that in the long term, an attitude of resentment is not really compatible with self-respect, respect for others, or respect for moral value (whatever that may mean). So, what reasons does she give for this? Well, one way to look at what resentment does is implied by Murphy when he says “the message, I count, and you do not, and I may use you as a mere thing…”, this seems to be saying that we should perhaps view resentment as a sort of protest - a protest against the message that was communicated through whatever the harmful act was, namely, that you don’t matter too much. But Holmgren doesn’t think that this is quite how it works, because if resentment is sort of this feeling that you need to protest against the way a person treated you, and also to protest the estimation of your value as implied by that treatment, then it would seem that to protest the claim you slightly believe it to be true. Whereas if you simply don’t believe it, and have come to a point where you have completely regained your sense of self worth, then you no longer need to be resentful and if you are, then it seems like you’re still feeling like you need to protest. Holmgren thinks that once the offended party has come to properly address the wrong however, she will just know that she has moral worth, equal status to everyone else and deserves respect because; she knows now that the act was wrong and also why it was wrong, thus, if she respects herself she will trust her judgement and the actions of the wrongdoer won’t affect her. She will understand the wrongdoers “confusing actions” as opposed to reacting to them - thus distinguishing her status independently of his wrong behaviours. What also may play a part here is whether or not you value that person’s estimation of your value. Or whether it has the effect of affecting your own estimation of yourself. For example, if you feel the need to protest something, it implies that you feel that your character has been threatened, whereas if you believe in yourself and truly thought you were a good person, you would just say, well that’s not true and then move on. Bishop Joseph Butler suggested that this is like an inward witness to our sense of right, wrong and justice, whereas Holmgren seems to be saying that it is an indication of our vulnerability. The converse side of this is then, that once you have come to sense your own worth, and have a restored sense of your value, then, Holmgren thinks, there is no reason not to forgive, as “an attitude of forgiveness incorporates both a fundamental respect for the offender as a moral agent and a sincere desire that he will grow and flourish as a person”. This idea is also interesting as forgiveness could also be represented as that which encourages human flourishing, because if it’s true that letting go of resentful feelings is a good thing, it implies we should strive to achieve it because it is just that - good for us collectively. So, as we can see, finding a conceptually satisfying definition of forgiveness has proven extremely problematic; not merely because it is an idea which has a tremendous amount of scope within it, but also because it seems like every instance of it is different in some way. It seems that from the ideas discussed above, the key thing to note is that whatever forgiveness may be, it most definitely is not, and should not, ever be mistaken for justification, excuse or acceptance. This is because the consequences of not being able to properly partake in the process of forgiveness are too dangerous, and can sometimes produce far more sinister and irreversible problems for the victim.

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Evolution

"Evolution is not something to be glorified. One way—out of countless others—to look at biological evolution on our planet is as a process that has created an expanding ocean of suffering and confusion where there previously was none. As not only the simple number of individual conscious subjects, but also the dimensionality of their phenomenal state-spaces is continuously increasing, this ocean is also deepening. For me, this is also a strong argument against creating artificial consciousness: We shouldn’t add to this terrible mess before we have truly understood what actually is going on here."- Thomas Metzinger

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Female

"She pins you to hotel doors— not a goddess anymore, but she still looks like religion in high heels. She kisses you godless. Whispers, We dress like princesses to go out and kill kings."-

Ashe Vernon, from “Old World Gods,”

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Fire

"In fierceness, in heat, in longing, in risk, I find something of love’s nature. In my desire for you, I burn at the right temperature to walk through love’s fire. So when you ask me why I cannot love you more calmly, I answer that to love you calmly is not to love you at all."

- Jeanette Winterson, from The Powerbook

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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Pre-occupation

Excessive self-concern and self-occupation is the outstanding feature of human behaviour, and throughout human history, we find that self obsession has ultimately motivated and will motivate all activities and interactions. We think of ourselves constantly by living a life which is primarily focused on the ‘what-should-be’ rather than the ‘what is’. We keep thinking about ourselves endlessly: we must improve ourselves; we want a better job; we must fulfill ourselves; we want a better relationship; we want to be liked. It is this pre-occupation with the self and rivalry with the 'other’, which brings about apparent isolation and loneliness. In life, we usually fall into a routine or rather, a pattern. When one conforms to a pattern - be it religious, psychological etc. there is bound to be some contradiction between 'the pattern’ and 'what-is’ in reality. Because the pattern is what is of most importance to us - in that it is what we have decided for ourselves to be the way in which we can improve or better ourselves - the self then becomes supremely important. One needs tremendous energy to see this situation in its truth and entirety, and utter honesty is needed to recognise that to live in the 'what-should-be’ is essentially an avoidance from the actuality of 'what-is’. It is ones personal need for the urgency of knowing the truth that can help us accept the 'what-is’ in the present moment, however our very nature prevents us from doing so as we allow ourselves to believe that what we strive for is truth, when in fact our lives are facilitated by the opposite- self deception and illusion. Although one must be 'alone’ in this investigation, the means of attaining such truth are not alone at all, but rather representative of all humanity and life; A universal family which regards all separate selves as merely instruments through which a single unifying principle of Cosmic energy functions, bringing about consciousness, and at any moment, precisely that which is supposed to be. It is only through such a realisation one can end selfishness - the cause of the illusion of loneliness, and in its place allow for an undoubtable understanding that everything is connected in a oneness with all that is.

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somapancakes · 7 years ago

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BA Thesis

To what extent is the idea of “knowing Brahman” sourced in the Upanishads?

Abstract

This study attempts to examine the notion of ‘knowing Brahman,’ as presented by the Upanishads. It also looks at the suggestion that ‘knowing Brahman’ is essentially a way of completing the goal of the Hindu; to be released from the cycle of death and re-birth, attainting spiritual freedom. The study calls upon other sources in Hindu philosophy such as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Brahma-Sutras to analyse the extent to which this notion is available in theUpanishads. Also bringing in parallels to the Western philosophical ideas of Plato, looking at the ideas regarding language, consciousness, self-awareness and causality.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

- Pantheism, the Upanishads & the concept of Brahman.

- Knowledge of Brahman in Vedanta philosophy & its thinkers.

- The problem of language.

- Ways to conceptualise the notion of Brahman.

- ‘Knowing Brahman’ through applications in modern science and the concept of truth.

Chapter 2

- Spiritual freedom.

- Brahman as the controller of perceived reality and what is known.

- Purusha and prakriti.

- The notion of the self and the ‘best life’ in the Katha Upanishad & Plato’s Phaedrus.

Chapter 3

- Brahman’s Unity of Being.

- A shared consciousness.

- Sensory experience, mystical experience and defending the notion of Brahman.

Chapter 4

- Phillips’ parallelism thesis.

- Self-awareness.

- Non-dual Brahman - a causal objection.

Chapter 5

- Rejection of the causal objection.

- Concluding Thoughts.

- Learning Journal.

- Bibliography.

Chapter 1

- Pantheism, the Upanishads & the concept of Brahman.

Pantheism is the belief that the true essence of all reality is divine. In both Greek and Indian thought, it is seen as a ‘systematic critique of polytheism’ (MacIntyre, 2006:95). In Hinduism, we find many individual gods and goddesses, some of which are described as the ‘highest’ deity. Out of advancements in the theological reflection on the relation of these deities to the universe, the notion of Brahman emerged. The various holy books of Hinduism are the oldest known literature containing pantheistic concepts (Geisler, 1989:79). They present the notion of a single, all-encompassing spiritual force that ultimately controls reality and is manifest in every living being. This force has many titles - The Supreme Being, The Eternal, or most commonly - Brahman. The Upanishads - the concluding part of theVedas - attempt to show an articulated concept of Brahman (Thompson, 1999:330). They contain higher knowledge about the self and transcendental states of awareness. They do not present Brahman from a devotional perspective - Brahman is impersonal, mysterious and supreme, a being fit for contemplation and philosophical enquiry. The literal meaning of the word Upanishad is something like “connection” or “equivalence”, which, as will become clear, is an indication to what the overall message that the texts imply. They present a vision of an interconnected universe, with a common, unifying principle behind the apparent diversity in the cosmos. There are various interpretations of the Upanishads due to the multiple darśanas (schools of thought) found within Hinduism, however all schools do have a number of beliefs in common.[1]

Robert Hume writes that the ancient documents of the Upanishads were one of the first recorded attempts at systematic philosophy by the Hindus, and constitutes the earliest written demonstration of those Hindu concepts that explain how the world of experience can be rationally conceived of as a whole (Hume, 1971:2). Paul Deussen wrote in 1966 that “to every Indian Brahman today the Upanishads are what the New Testament is to the Christian” (Daussen, 1966:8), and interestingly, Max Muller points out that there are more publications of the Upanishads in India than that of Descartes in Europe (Muller, 1894:39). Hume suggests that the philosophy of the Upanishads has also made an influence in the West, where many philosophers have expressed their importance (Hume, 1971:3). For example, Arthur Schopenhauer unmistakably fuses doctrines of the Upanishads into his philosophy and commented on them by saying that they were the “most rewarding and most elevating reading that there can possibly be in the world. It has been the solace of my life and will be of my death” (Cit Mascaro,1965:8).

The concept of Brahman as Ultimate Reality is expressed, in part, to show how each of us are not only connected to our fellow humans, but also to animals, plants, and on a bigger level even - the entirety of the universe and then beyond that. Haridas Chaudhuri (1954), suggests that the Upanishads have been a source of inspiration in Indian culture for centuries, and that it is the notion of the Supreme Being that has had the power to creatively absorb the diversity and influences of India’s multiple cultural systems - to allow within it the “limitless toleration” which is needed to ensure peaceful growth among all of the spiritual practices and doctrinal systems we find in India (Chaudhuri, 1954:47).

- Knowledge of Brahman in Vedanta philosophy & its thinkers.

The Vedanta school of thought, developed from about 100 BCE onwards, holds the Upanishads as its principal texts, along with the Brahma Sutras. Modern Hindu philosophy still takes Vedanta as one of the main sources of inspiration, due to its important philosophical ideas and guidelines for meditation. Vedanta’s most prominent scholar was the mystic and philosopher Sankara, who lived approximately between 789-830CE (Lorenzen, 2005). Sankara taught that liberation for the individual could be attained first and foremost through knowledge, Jnana. Sankara’s philosophical system is referred to as Advaita-Vedanta, which is taken as a non-dualistic approach that suggests the individual human self and the Divine Self are essentially the same. Advaita-Vedanta proposes that the reality of Brahman is the only true reality, and is the all-pervading power of the universe (Dandekar, 2005). An earlier Indian thinker - Gaudapada, who taught that when one realises the illusion of apparent diversity and seeming dualities of life, pure consciousness is all that will remain, influenced Sankara’s Advaita-Vedanta (Fowler, 2002, 240-241). Vedanta attracted many other thinkers - one being Niscaldas, a North Indian monk who interestingly chose to write in Hindi as opposed to Sanskrit; rendering his writings in The Ocean of Enquiry or, Vica-Sagar, more accessible to a wider audience. However, unfortunately, because of his choice in language, his work remains unheard of to most western scholars. Niscaldas viewed his work as a handbook to liberation, which, when studied correctly was deemed sufficient enough in leading people of all backgrounds to realise their potential in the non-duality of the Self and Brahman (Allen, 2013:2-3). In choosing to write in Hindi he “felt not a trace of shame: There is a single reason for this: compassion is the crown of Dharma” (Allen, 2013:86). His choice to write in the vernacular is significant in that regarding scriptural authority, the path to liberation contains the unique factor of Sanskrit.

- The problem of language.

In ancient India, Sanskrit was the main language used by philosophers, scholars, holy women and holy men. It is the root of many modern Indian languages but unfortunately today it is only spoken by 1% of Indian people, most of whom are holy men and women. Sanskrit is sometimes referred to as Devabhasha - the language of the gods, and Hindus see it as a language composed of words that are not mere words - they are themselves eternal entities like Brahman. These entities are seen as originating from an act of divine Creation or, as simply that, which has always been and will continue to be in the future, self-sufficient and ever lasting (Deshpande, 1993:54). Amanda Wood explains that the problems which arise from interpreting the Upanishads, are not derived from overly complex grammar or long, technical words; they are found within the fact that classical Sanskrit can often causes confusion in translation due to the archaic meaning of words being forgotten. This could perhaps present a problem in that if the real meaning of the words used to describe ideas about ‘knowing Brahman’ in the Upanishads have really been lost, an analysis of how the texts speak of ‘knowing Brahman’ can never be fully complete. However, Woods adds that this is a relatively minor problem in relation to the problem of trying to understand the philosophical character of theUpanishads (Woods, 2003:1).

The notion of Brahman is one of such complexity, that a brief explanation of the main conceptions of this apparent overarching force seems appropriate. So, Etymologically, the term ‘Brahman’ means the Great, the Supreme, and it expresses the Hindu view of the true nature of reality. As the purpose of the Upanishads is essentially to stimulate contemplation and reflection, they often raise the philosophical issue of how words are used and what they really mean. In particular, commonplace words like “true”, “self”, “world”, “this” or “that” are open to intense scrutiny and interpretation precisely due to the fact that the Upanishads use these words in a way that subjects them to questioning.

This then, poses another question about how the Upanishads can be used as a source for knowing Brahman - if the words that are used to suggest the notion of Brahman can be put up for questioning, does this in turn question the notion of Brahmanaltogether? It seems this might be the case, however theUpanishads make clear that they are aware of this issue, and explain numerous times that Brahman cannot be learned through reading or writing. To know Brahman is to be Brahman. To experience Ultimate Reality. The issue of what kind of language theUpanishads use seems to be diminished however, when returning to the fact that the true meanings of those ancient Sanskrit words have been lost.

- Ways to conceptualise the notion of Brahman.

We can however, try to understand one main factor within the concept of Brahman, which is that it is said to have two interconnected modes of existence: Nirguna Brahman and Saguna Brahman - impersonal and personal, indeterminable and self-determining. Nirguna Brahman has been interpreted in different ways - Sankara’s Advaita-Vedanta school regards it as devoid of characteristics and attributes, whereas according to Ramanuja’s Vaishnavism, Nirguna Brahman, although is thought to have supernatural attributes - such as absolute beauty and truth, is free from natural and sensuous qualities. Vaishnavism also regards Nirguna Brahman as the spiritual pervasiveness and self-luminosity of the Supreme personality. Saguna Brahman is seen as the Supreme spirit which is understood as having the universal principles needed for certain cosmic functions such as creation, dissolution and maintenance (Nikhilananda and Sankaracarya, 1949:25-31). There is also an interpretation from Chaudhuri, which emerges as a nexus of both Sankara and Ramanuja’s ideas. This interpretation holds Nirguna Brahman as the supra-cosmic poise of being of Sanguna Brahman (Ghose, 1951:287-288). So, in in this way of looking at it, Nirguna Brahman is what sustains Sanguna Brahman. This interpretation only indicates the inexhaustible richness of content that the concept of Brahman holds and also alludes to the idea that, as presented in the Upanishads, knowing Brahman through understanding it’s multiple parts is not an easy task.

In its indeterminable aspect, Brahman is the great Silence, in that it exceeds all the verbalised expressions of human beings and surpasses logical conception. And the Upanishads explain how no notion or philosophical system can allow one access to the inner essence of Brahman. The Taittriya Upanishad 2.9 asserts that “Words and mind go to him, but reach him not and re-turn” (Mascaro, 1965:110). This could lead one along the path of thinking that this is almost a type of agnosticism - in that not being able to find a definite understanding proves confusing and frustrating, however this is not the case - although Brahman is unavailable to us through rational thought or empirical definitions, it is possible for one, through transcending the intellect, to discover a direct vision of Brahman. This apprehension of Brahman is called knowledge-by-being or knowledge-by-identity in the Taittriya. What this means that one can only realise Brahman by becoming one with Brahman. Hindu’s believe those terms such as Pure being, Pure consciousness and Pure joy are the closest way to rationally conceive of the nature of Brahman. This infinite being-consciousness-joy (sat-sit-ananda) is said to be the “primordial manifestation of Brahman in the intelligible sphere” (Chaudhuri, 1954:48).

- ‘Knowing Brahman’ through applications in modern science and the concept of truth.

Interestingly, Varanasi Ramabrahmam interprets this threefold sat-cit-ananda through reflecting upon the methods of modern science. He believes that the nature and mode of energy transformations implied by the notion of sat-cit-ananda can quite easily be understood by using concepts in physics, electronics and communication engineering. The Upanishads put forwards the notion of Atma-jnana, or Self-knowledge. Ramabrahmam expresses the view that Atma-jnana could be seen as a sort of “software” that is needed for dealing with things such as structure, function and control in the mind. Atma jnana touches upon the origin of psychic and mental energy as well as mental time-space. Ramabrahmam suggests that we can view Brahman as a sort of bio-oscillator - generating energy that pulses throughout the cosmos, enabling us to know, perceive, understand and be aware of, without it self ever changing. Brahman, with its attributes as Sat (essence, being or truth) implies the permanent existence of absolute reality, and the understanding that things in the perceived world are not, or rather, cannot, be ultimately real or true because everything in this perceived world is subject to time - everything is in a state of flux, from solid objects to ideas and thoughts (Seshagiri, 1970:377-382). With characteristics of Chit, Brahman allows us to perceive the world around us, and Ananda gives us the ability to be aware. In this way, ‘knowing Brahman’ could emerge from an understanding of these three characteristics as proposed by the Upanishads to be the product of atma-jnana.

Ramabrahmam is not alone in his interpretation of Upanishadicthought through a scientific lense. Sangeetha Menon also interprets the Upanishads through a modern scientific framework by focusing on how Hinduism as a religion has “coexisted with scientific pursuits” (Menon, 2008:1). She explains how Hinduism originates from a time when the possibilities of first hand human experience were the cardinal issues. Everything was understood within the context of these experiences, by a culture that viewed the subjective as a necessary component required in creating the objective. She says that even though Hinduism is a religion of many counterparts, it fundamentally represents a pluralistic philosophy. One which is tolerant and willing to include and integrate ideas and beliefs, after all, it is a living and growing religion. According to Menon, this means that Hindus must have the ability to push the limits of the dimension in which Brahman is known by incorporating new ideas whilst leaving the order of the religious system itself undisturbed (Menon, 2008:2).

The primal beliefs and principles in Hinduism help guide contemporary Hindus to involve themselves with all the issues that concern humankind - this necessarily includes issues of a scientific nature. These fundamental principles include an acceptance of diverse views; the ideal of nonviolence (ahimsa), the importance placed on living a life that is guided by detachment and reflection (saskhibhava), the ideal of truth (satya), and meditation (Thompson, 1999).

Satya (truth) is something that Science also claims to be in the business of, and it is a word which most of us use in everyday conversation, assuming we know what we mean by it. However, truth is a strange concept, with implications for metaphysical, spiritual, epistemic and ethical definitions. In Hinduism, the pursuit of Truth is a fundamental factor in gaining knowledge of Brahman. Menon describes how there is an “uncompromising connection” between on the one hand, how we think about truth, and on the other, how it is actually practiced in everyday waking life, which can make it a problematic value for the Hindu to try and live by. However, Menon says that if any notions of God and Truth seem incompatible, the Hindu will choose truth (Menon, 2003:3). However this seems to be a misinterpretation of what ‘truth’ means for the Hindu. Knowing the Truth, is, in essence, what it means to know Brahman. Thus there cannot really be any conflict between the two concepts because they are essentially the same. The Isavasya Upanishad says that the “face of the Truth is covered by a golden disc” and the Mundaka Upanishad says that “Truth alone prevails”. For the Hindu, means of knowing the truest Truth depend upon inner transformation, ontological insights and reflection whereas for the Scientist, finding out the truth depends upon objective experiments and evidence. However, the two are not without some connection. If we look at the Intricate Hindu diagrams of altars and Temples, we find that what they represent is extremely complex geometry, which in turn implies that Hinduism is a culture which doesn’t see ‘doing science’ as this kind of objective endeavour, but rather as an integrated part of ritualistic experience. For example the foundations of Hindu Temples are appointed by intricate geomantic rites, which are designed to specifically ensure the building becomes the proper microcosm it was intended to be (Rowland, 1967: 166-167). The Hindus of the Vedic period developed this mathematics, along with astronomy, linguistics and metaphysics to help them during rituals. They created a system known as the six limbs of Veda (Vedanga). The Veganda’s cover six areas of study : (1) Siksa (instruction), which explains how to articulate and produncicate the Vedic texts correctly. (2) Chandas(verses) of the Vedic texts. (3) Vyakarana (Analysis and derivation), in this discipline, the Grammar of the Vedas is explained. (4) Niruka(Etymology) (5) Jyotisa (astronomy/astrology) which was used to specify the correct time for ritual, and finally (6) Kalpa (Manuals for rituals) (Webster, 1995). What connects the Vedas, Upanishads and other Hindu texts is, that in each interpretation, the same importance is attributed to the scientific pursuit of knowledge of both Brahman and higher and lower realities (Menon, 2014:4).

Chapter 2

- Spiritual freedom.

The notion of our ability to be aware of these higher and lower realities can also be found in the idea of spiritual freedom. If we take the notion proposed by Sankara and the Vedanta school of Hinduism, that individuality is merely a manifestation of the same basic reality as universality, questions can be raised concerning the goal of the individual - the summum bonum of Kant (Kant & Abbott, 1788:92). For Hindu philosophers, the answer lies in the notion of spiritual freedom (mukti). To attain spiritual freedom is to be freed from ignorance, and to perceive the Truth directly - then one will have reached the goal of life. Mukti implies complete dissolution of emotional attachments and freedom from perceived polarities such as love and hate, pleasure and pain and attraction and repulsion - thus attaining mental equilibrium (samata). Chaudhuri explains how mukti implies a conscious awareness of the union with Brahman and the concept as a involves a type of transformation or reorganisation of one’s inner dialogue and world-view in light of the knowledge gained from experiencing the Supreme Truth (Chaudhuri, 1954:54). It’s important to note that this transformation is not a new or foreign condition - it is merely recognising our innermost essence, which we have forgotten and become disconnected from. Realisation is already within us, as atman is the eternal, permanent essence of our being. The problem is that due to identifications of the not-self with the Self, we have doubts and non-realisation. When the not-self is removed the Self remains alone. The question of how shall one reach the Self is answered simply by saying that there is no ‘reaching’ the self. If it were to involve reaching, it would imply that it is not there now, but it is. Thus the Self is already obtained, one must just realise this to attain spiritual freedom and become one with the Absolute (Herman, 1991; 13-14). It should be noted that in the West, understandings of ‘the absolute’ are very different from the concept of The Absolute as presented in the Upanishads. In the West, philosophical understandings of the absolute usually consist of either a denial of anything comparable to it, or as a sort of human construct which unifies the world of distinctions and relations. Herbert Spencer explained how if we view the absolute to be a denial of the relative, it is rendered completely unknown and unknowable (www.iep.utm.edu, 2015). However, if the concept of the Absolute is used to explain the essential identity of the self, suggesting that it is the ultimate truth of both the relative and finite world, then it would seem that to conceptualise of it as a denial of the relative, would not advocate the same kind of meaning. This is made clear in the Chandongya Upanishad 3.14. When its declared that “Saravm khalvidam Brahman” (All this is indeed Brahman), what this seems to imply is not that the self-contained and self-existent, finite world is unreal but, that it the truth is hidden behind it, and it’s essence is essentially just a manifestation of Brahman. Brahman is not unknown but not unknowable, and stands as the fundamental condition of all knowledge being potentially be realised. Brahman as an objective construct cannot be known to the mind, but with supra-intellectual experience (turiya or samadhi) one can realise the truth, and consequently realise Brahman (Chaudhuri, 1952:57).

- Brahman as the controller of perceived reality and what is known.

Throughout the Upanishads, the notion that the Supreme Being ultimately controls all that we perceive, is paramount in understanding the nature of reality. The Isopanisad mentions this and it’s also apparent in the Bhagavad-gita (9.10) when it is declared “As heat and light are distributed all around by a fire situated in one place, so the whole creation is a manifestation of energies expanded from the Supreme Being” (Cit Prabhupada, 1998). What this seems to be saying is that, like the sun, Brahman stays in one place, unchanging, but it’s light and heat are distributed throughout the universe. Sometimes a cloud covers the sun, or at night it is out of view, but this doesn’t mean that it has ceased to burn - we must just wait until nature reveals it to us once again. The Isopanishadand the Bhagavad-gita are expressing how this world of matter is just small portion of the spiritual world - which is sometimes hidden or covered over by material energy to create the illusion that it is not there. In order to know Brahman, one must realise that material energy is really just a different form of spiritual energy - for example, clouds are a product of the sun, yet they can hide it from us. We must just wait for the wind to move the cloud in order to see the light (Parabhupada, 1998:17).

- Purusha and prakriti.

So then, another question arises; what constitutes spiritual energy? The Bhagavad-gita (7.5) explains, “Beyond my inferior, material energy, is another energy which is spiritual. It comprises the living entities” (Cit Parabhupada, 1991). So, human beings are energy - energy that is spiritual. But why is this energy superior to material energy? Well, if we think of how the material world is, it seems agreeable to say that matter is something which can’t function of it’s own accord, whereas living beings do. What this means that we are capable of manipulating things. Thus the difference between spiritual and material energy and why the Gita explains the concepts as superior and inferior is that; matter can not manipulate us, but we can manipulate matter. We can imagine this by thinking about how well the most top of the range sports car can drive on the roads, but without a driver it is useless. However, it seems what this notion is trying to convey isn’t really a matter of spiritual energy being superior to material energy. As stated earlier, material energy is essentially made up of the same stuff as spiritual energy - since everything in both the material and spiritual world is a manifestation of Brahman. This notion can prove a little confusing as it seems to be a dualist concept being understood through a framework of monism, which is due to the early Upanishadic dualist approach to reality as conceived as a world with two realities - the higher and the lower - prakriti and purusha - the spiritual and the material. Knowing Brahman is recognising Brahman in every part of life and by experiencing the harmony of these dualities (Menon, 2014:4).

In Sankhya Philosophy, prakriti is used to explain the evolution of the universe (Dhavamony & Sundararajan, 2003:407). It is defined as that primal matter, the ultimate cosmic energy, or the material cause of the universe, and can also be understood as everything that is not the True Self - Brahman. However it is important to note that this differs depending on the interpretation in each Darsana system. Prakriti is the source of the five elements, known as Panchamahabutas - earth, fire, water, air and ether. These elements constitute the makeup of all beings in the world, which are the product of the union between atman (purusha in Sankhya philosophy) and prakriti. Prakriti is composed of three essential attributes, known as the Gunas. The first - Sattva (creation), represents qualities like goodness, harmony and balance. The second - Rajas (preservation) represents the attributes of passion, restlessness and activity. And the third - Tamas (destruction), represents qualities like laziness and dullness. These Gunas are said to explain the attributes of material energy and, since the Hindu view is that the mind is a subtle form of matter, determine and individual’s character (Pandit, 2005:62-63). The Vedas present a classification of individuals according to their Gunas, known as theVarna system[2]. The qualities described in the Varna system are all dependent on the manifestation of prakriti in the individual; this is explained in the Bhagavad Gita 4.13 as such:

“According to the three modes of material nature and the work associated with them, the four divisions of human society are created by Me. And although I am the creator of this system, you should know that I am yet the nondoer, being unchangeable” (Cit Prabhupada, 1998).

This apparently paradoxical passage seems to be implying that the union between prakriti and purusha suggests the underlying, perfect unity of all existence - the Brahman of the Upanishads.

- The notion of the self and the ‘best life’ in the Katha Upanishad & Plato’s Phaedrus.

Although this perfect unity of Brahman is at the very core of the philosophy of the Upanishads, there does seem to be a kind of relative difference between individual human beings and the Supreme Being from an objective point of view. The Isopanisadmakes clear the difference by describing the Supreme Being as “that greatest of all, who is unembodied and omniscient”. Thus implying we are different from The Supreme Being, in part, because we are embodied. This then would seem to suggest the notion that we are in a body, not that we are bodies. The Supreme Being is said to be eternal, and thus remembers everything. We however, because embodied, are subject to age and time, and have forgotten the truth, which, according to the belief in reincarnation, is that we change bodies every time we are re-born. According to the Isopanisad, this is why we have forgotten who we really are. Our bodies get tired and eventually become inactive. However, in dreams when we sleep we can become anything and anyone. The Isopanisad explains that similarly to dreams, in each new life we create a different environment. I may be an Indian or and American, a butterfly or a bull. In dreams we have no fixed position. The Isopanisad teaches that if we take this information and use it to create a meaningful understanding of life, we can develop pure consciousness, and after death need not return in another body - we return to, and combine with the Supreme Being in pure bliss, and are consumed by knowledge and eternity. So it seems that the Isopanisad is saying that human life is essentially meant for developing our consciousness in order to know the Self and in turn know Brahman (Parabhupada, 1991:31).

To gain knowledge about the Self (and thus Brahman) then, one could also look to the Katha Upanishad, which delivers an interesting dialogue between Naciketas - a man who wishes to understand the status of the self after death - and the god of death himself, Yama. Yama explains to Naciketas that one way view the individual could be through the analogy of a chariot. Yama compares the body to the chariot itself, the intellect to the charioteer, the mind to the reins, the senses to the horses and the object of the senses to the road. Interestingly this notion of a chariot-self is not unique to the Upanishads, as in Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates describes the soul as a winged chariot, by which a charioteer drives two horses. In Plato’s example, the two horses are distinguished by their inner traits; on the one hand we have the horse who is “on the more honorable side”, who has a calm temper and is obedient and aims for glory, and on the other hand we have the “hot-blooded” horse, who aims at the satisfaction of sensual desires. These two horses remarkably reflect the Chariot expressed by Death in the Katha Upanishad, and Elisabeth Schlitz suggests that both expressions are representative of a move toward a more internal way of conceiving of the individual, and provides an image of the self that effectively justifies the ‘best life’ (Schlitz, 2006:451).

The Philosophical issue of identifying, and more specifically, justifying what the ‘best life’ may entail is central to many of Plato’s dialogues including Phaedrus, the Republic and the Gorgias. In the Gorgias, Socrates puts forward a view which renders nature (phusis), and convention as necessarily opposed. He asserts that the rule of superior and inferior is needed for “natural justice”. He promotes a life where the individual sees himself as wise, powerful and strong, who “accomplishes his intentions without flagging through weakness of soul,” and Callicles asserts that an individual should see himself as superior and should aim to increase the satisfaction of desires, according to “nature’s own law,” and that to moderate one’s desires is for “simpletons” (Woodhead, 1961). Plato portrays Socrates as the one who wanders the path of knowledge and isn’t really concerned with desires, whereas Callicles is the one who believes that virtue in its truest form, comes in the successful pursuit of extravagant gratification and pleasure (Schlitz, 2006:452). Whilst the conceptualisation of the dialogues presented in both the Katha Upanishad and Plato’s Gorgias differ considerably, a bundle of essential, similar questions are raised; What do we ought to pursue in life? and what, if any, reasons are there for one to view the path of wisdom as better than a life concerned with the pursuit of sensual desires?

In the Katha Upanishad, when asked about the status of the self, Yama attempts to avoid the question by trying to distract Nachiketas with an offer of worldly riches and “any wishes in the world of mortals, however how hard to obtain”. Nachiketas replies by rejecting the offer because pleasures are transient and “weaken the power of life” (Mascaro, 1965:57). This response presents an argument which is opposed to the life of desires, in regards to the likening of pleasures with what is seen as ‘good’. However Schlitz thinks that Nachiketas’ awareness of the ephemeral nature of sensual desires alone, fails to propose a full rebuttal of Yamas perspective. Nachiketas seems to acknowledge the fact that if Yama had instead offered him an eternal life of pleasure, things would have been different and maybe even tempting enough for him to accept. He says ; “When a mortal here on earth has felt his own immortality, could he wish for a long life of pleasures, for the lust of deceitful beauty?” (Mascaro, 1965:57). This seems to suggest, much like the Platonic texts, that it is not the continuance of sensual desires, or the fact they are transient, but that the effects, and pursuit of, are, in some way, fundamentally opposed to living the “best” life, to knowing Brahman (Schlitz, 2006:445).

Following Nachiketas’ rejection of Yamas offer on the basis that bodily desires and the satisfaction of which, are ephemeral, Yama puts forwards an account that presents the problem as residing in the fact that sensual desires fundamentally lack value for the self. It becomes apparent here that Yama and Nachiketas are kind of on the same page, when Yama suggests that one shouldn’t choose a life of pleasure because it represents a direct rejection of a life in pursuit of knowledge, “which the wise man chooses”. Yama continues by again presenting the choice in regards to the two different lives. So, on the one hand we have the life of ignorance, whose object is pleasure, and devotees of which, “thinking themselves wise and learned, go aimlessly hither and thither, like the blind led by the blind”, and on the other hand we have the path of knowledge, whose object is in the good: ultimate knowledge of the self, and in turn the One Self, Brahman. The Katha Upanishadexplains how “the wise man chooses the path of joy; the fool takes the path of pleasure”. Thus It becomes apparent that the outcomes of each path are entirely different, and the one who chooses the path of wisdom will “rest his mind in contemplation on our God beyond time, who invisibly dwells in the mystery of things and in the heart of man, then rises above pleasures and sorrow” (Mascaro, 1965:58-59).

Yama goes on to consider the nature of the self, in light of the value of knowledge. He introduces the fundamental principle which allows for an understanding of the goal of life, which is to realise that there is a self that is higher than all others - Atman. This higher self is distinct from the body and it’s senses; “he does not die when the body dies”, resides in all living things; “concealed in the heart of all beings is the Atman”, and is immortal; “Never-born and eternal, beyond times gone or to come”. Yama explains to Nachiketas that “not even through deep knowledge can the Atman be reached” (Mascaro, 1965:59), implying that to choose the path of wisdom is a precondition of recognising the truth itself. He continues, through the use of the chariot image, by stressing the interdependence of the parts of an individual. In Yama’s explanation, the mind and body are presented as dependant on the intellect in order for one to find good direction;

“He who has not right understanding and whose mind is never steady is not the ruler his life, like a bad driver with wild horses. But he who has right understanding and whose mind is ever steady is the ruler of his life, like a good diver with well-trained horses. He who has not right understanding, is careless and never pure, reaches no the End of the journey; but wanders on from death to death. But he who has understanding, is careful and ever pure, reaches the End of the journey, from which he never returns. The man whose chariot is driven by reason, who watches and holds the reins of his mind, reaches the End of the journey, the supreme everlasting Spirit”(Mascaro, 1965:60-61).

So, the intellect as the charioteer is paramount to none in successfully attaining knowledge of the Self and in turn knowledge of Brahman, as it controls the senses - and thus controls desire - so that one doesn’t become distracted by the material world, and instead turns inward towards Atman, towards Brahman.

Chapter 3

- Brahman’s Unity of Being.

In Hinduism, the idea that there are multiple paths leading to a single truth is expressed through its many gods and goddesses, and also through the Unity of Being that brings them together. Ganesha, Hanuman and Sarasw are all examples of deities who represent the unity of Being. The Upanishads, through deep and meaningful spiritual language, examine the nature of human perception in the context of the Unity of Being, the limitations of language, and the infinite existence of the Universe. In the Kena Upanishad, it says that “We know not, we cannot understand, how he can be explained : He is above the known and above the unknown” (Mascaro, 1965:51). In this way, we are pointed towards viewing Hinduism as a spiritual system that recognises the limits of human beings and allows room for doubt, as opposed to a system that only offers certainty. This leads us to be able to conceive of the universe and Brahman as that which allows for diversity and dialogue - which is further reflected in the bright and complementary stories of gods and goddesses in hinduism - and can help mould us into well-rounded people (Kasturi, Viswanath, Kilwan & Narine, 2014:36). The Unity of Being, according to the Indian Philosophers, always remains the same, however each deity is representative of its diverse manifestations. The Mahopanishad holds the belief ofVasudhaiva Kutumbakam - ‘The world is one family’ (Chatterdee, 2005). And a similar idea appears in the Bhagavad Gita - “When a man sees all the variety of things as existing in one, and all as emanating from that, then he achieves harmony with Brahman” (Cit Prabhupada, 1998). The Divine Unity of Being therefore penetrates through everything. The Hindu greeting ‘Namaskaar’ also shows us how this notion really is one of the most important - translating to “I salute your form”. This is because of the belief that people, gods, animals and flowers are a product of the same existential space and originate from the same divine source - Brahman (Kasturi, Viswanath, Kilwan & Narine, 2014:37) In this way both the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahopanishad show how we can know Brahman through knowing our connection with all living beings.

- A shared consciousness.

This brings us to another interesting topic - the idea that animals, plants, people and gods share the same consciousness. To understand this we must first understand that sometimes there can be confusion between the concepts of mind and consciousness in Hindu philosophy, and to find a distinction between the two, we can look to the Aitareya Upanishad (3.1.2). This Upanishad explains how consciousness is the real knower and the mind is just another sense organ. The Aitareya sets out how various functions of the mind are classified within three categories - cognition, affection and conation[3]. Sangeetha Menon explains how all these attributes are recognised as the functions of consciousness. These are further analysed in the Kena Upanishad when it is explained how they are transformed into knower (praajna), intellect (prajna), and cognition (prajnana). It begins with an inquiry into what it is that underpins the psychophysical functions of thought, breath, speech, vision and action (Menon, 2014:7). Questions are raised about how the mind can think, who regulates breath, if the senses are autonomous, and how can the mouth, ear and eye enable us to speak, hear and see. In true Upanishadic form, the response presented first in the Kena Upanishad - “It is the ear of the ear, the eye of the eye, and the word of words, the mind of mind and the life of life” (Sharvananda, 1932), sheds little light on what these questions are trying to answer. However, further on in the Kena Upanishad it is said that it is Consciousness which is behind all of these things. Psychophysical functions can never know this however, because Consciousness is not only beyond what is known, but also what is unknown, it is beyond the grasp of knowledge and also ignorance. Yohan Grinshpon explains this as Upanishadic knowledge being “a renunciation of inferiority along with its vessel; it is transcendence of the very condition of inferiority” (Grinshpon, 2003). Consciousness is further defined in the Kena (2.4) as that “which comes to the thought of those who know him beyond thought.” This seems to be getting at the idea that Consciousness, aka Brahman is the fundamental requirement in making cognition and experience possible. Thus it cannot be explained by these means. The Kena Upanishad further speaks about this - “There the eye cannot go, nor can speech reach” (Mascaro, 1965:51), and the Brahadaranyaka Upanishad (3.4.2) says “you cannot see the seer of seeing, you cannot hear the hearer of hearing, you cannot think of the thinker of thinking, you cannot understand one who understands understanding” (Menon, 2006:16). Paul Deussen suggests that these types of Upanishadic statements are basically cleverly constructed to present the opposite predicates of distance, nearness, repose and movement. They are attributed to Brahman in a way that mutually cancels out each other and thus attend only to exemplify the impossibility of knowing Brahman through empirical definitions (Deussen 1966:149).

- Sensory experience, mystical experience and defending the notion of Brahman.

So then, if not through empirical definitions, how does one conceive of Brahman, and also know that what you’re conceiving of really is Ultimate Reality? In his article Could there be Mystical Evidence for a Non Dual Brahman? A Causal Objection, Stephen Phillips (2001) attempts to analyse the question of if experience alone can count as evidence for a spiritual monism. He explains how he thinks that this question is a lot more philosophically interesting than - does Vedantic scripture have truth or not? because this approach will yield better results, as the fact of the matter is, that sensory experience is how we know the world, whereas scripture only ever faces the same, well-known refutations regarding etymology and the like (Phillips, 2001:493). Phillips’ reading of Sankara’s work is fueled by two things : that the Upanishads are not only the main source of inspiration for, but also a guide to, certain ‘mystic endeavours’, and because of this, he postulates that Vedanta philosophy itself is mystical. Much Eastern philosophy is taught in terms of possible experiences. Experiences, which are available to all. Sankara’s Vedanta views Brahman-knowledge as the Supreme good (parama - purusartha), which is understood to be a state of consciousness that is available to a person whilst still within the cycle of death and rebirth (jivan-mukti), through mystical experience. A Self-realisation, Brahman-knowledge, Enlightenment experience is said to be of the utmost value to humans, and worth considerable sacrifice. Mystical experience has proven to be of interest not only to the philosophy of religion in the East, but in the west as well. Since The Enlightenment, where logic and reason became the superior tools over mysticism and belief based on faith (Schmit, 2006:242). Thus the attitude in the west became one which immediately faulted any belief based on that which had insufficient evidence to reinforce it. This created a space for psychology to try and understand why people are likely to believe, even though there is a lack of evidence. What this has to do with mystical experience, is, that if someone experiences something that can be shown to be a way of attaining knowledge of Brahman, then the evidentiary objection to religious belief would be dismantled. Phillips thinks that by showing such a knowledge source, there is sufficient, and maybe even enough worth, to defend the possibility of there being a belief about Brahman that has its foundation in truth. The key and most problematic part of this however, is that only she who has a mystical experience, and those, who have a similar conceptual understanding of mystical experience, hear her testimony, would have access to this evidence (Phillips, 2001:494).

It seems important to ask the question of what is a mystical experience? and what makes someone a mystic? But it seems that no one person has been able to define it in a conceptually satisfying way. In The Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, Jensine Andresen (2003) defines it as that which is “defined in contradistinction to so-called ordinary or mundane experience” (Andresen, 2003: 585), whereas, although acknowledging the fact that it doesn’t cover all uses of the term, Phillips explains it as “a psychological event of indefinite duration that a mystic subject takes herself to be a direct awareness of such a spiritual object as Brahman”(Phillips, 2001:494). Phillips thinks his definition leaves issues like if Brahman actually exists, and if the mystic is right in assuming the experience to be a direct vision of Brahman, on neutral grounds.

Chapter 4

- Phillips’ parallelism thesis.

Phillips attempts to show, through an attempt at reading Sankara’s philosophy from the position of Sankara himself - that mystical knowledge of Brahman, arises from the preexistent reality of Brahman. This could be understood by seeing it as similar to the way in which sensory knowledge arises from sensory connections - with preexistent sensory objects. Phillips seems to think that this analogy works well in trying to understand the concept of Brahman-knowledge through experience, however that it suffers tension within Vedanta metaphysics, in that they fail to give a causal account of mystical experience. Phillips thinks that this issue is rooted in the Vedanta concept of Brahman, rather than the mysticism that is integral to the Vedanta movement in general (Phillips, 2001:495).

In the commentary on the Brahma-sutra 1.1.2, Sankara says that mystical experience is an epistemic foundation for inquiry into Brahman:

“Unlike inquiry into dharma, the method of investigation or means of knowledge whereby Brahman-inquiry proceeds is not merely scripture and the general principles of understanding sentences. Rather, the method here is scripture along with experience et cetera, as may be required depending on the question or issue. For Brahma-inquiry culminates in an experience. Furthermore, Brahman is as an experiential object, something preexistent” (The Brahma-sutras according to Sankara Translated by Phillips, 2001).

What this seems to be saying is that to inquire into Brahman, is an experience of Brahman itself and that Brahman pre exists mystic discovery. Phillips interprets this in a way that is parallel to the way that sensory objects pre exist sensory experience. However, it seems that Sankara fails to out rightly say that scripture is authoritative based on mystical experiences, and says only that it has authority in its own sphere. This leads Phillips to ponder why Sankara fails to assert a metaphysical thesis regarding theUpanishads containing mystic claims[4]. It should be noted however, that Sankara does say that scripture allows us to see Brahman as intrinsically a subject - a subject which is basically the same as us, and to aid us in realising this (Phillips, 2011:496). Furthermore, one of the most important ideas in the Upanishadic scriptures and more generally in mystic practice is this concept of non dual self-awareness. This is the belief that there is an awareness that is innate to itself, one which has no need for ‘sense’ because it senses itself. This is what the Upanishads conceptualise Brahman to be. Philips goes on to say that from this self-illumination, an epistemological consequence can be postulated; because nondual self awareness is self-illuminating (swayam-prakasamana), it is also self-authenticating (sva-pramanya) - because nothing exists outside of it to have authority over it. So, Phillips understands this consequence, and does not have any issues with it. However, the thesis that Brahman is a single and supreme reality, with all diversity being its being, is much more problematic - a problem which Phillips thinks can be seen in the different ways of interpreting Sankara’s ideas in the sub schools of Advaita (Phillips, 2001:497). He outlines the first position as a kind of skepticism. Due to spiritual ignorance, the relation Brahman has to the world is unknown and unknowable, Phillips says, at very least in an explanatory sense.

For Advaitins, things seem to exist independently of Brahman, however, this is merely an attempt at meaningfully conceptualising of the world and Brahman through language, which Philips thinks holds within it a indeterminate, intellectually ontological position - much like the object of an illusion (Phillips, 2001:498). He acknowledges that this is in part what the nature of Brahman is - a complicated and confusing composition of abstract ideas, which in reality, according to the Upanishads, will lead us no closes to realising the truth of Brahman’s essential nature. Sankara, however, provides us with a suggestion of this in Brahma-sutra-bhasya (1.1.4.)[5], however, interestingly, Philips interprets it as an existential statement, because the statement presents Brahman either by contrast “Eternal”etc, or by relation to humans and the world - “all knowing” etc. Another passage, from Sankara’s commentary on Brahma-sutra (1.1.1), explains that: “Knowledge (or awareness) of Brahman is not dependent on a person’s action, but is rather, dependent on a real thing, like cognition of the real things that are the objects of such means of knowledge as sense experience,” and his point again is reiterated further in the commentary. If we look at these passages in context, it appears as the end of a long and complicated argument against a Mimasaka Upanishadic interpretation. This interpretation views the Vedicscriptures as being more valuable and important than experience, and thus Vedanta, finding its foundational beliefs in the Upanishadic verses regarding experience of Brahman as knowingBrahman would be seen as subordinate. Sankara seems to be rejecting this view as the Upanishads teach nothing of Dharma, they teach knowledge - knowledge of Brahman which is a product of Brahman itself being a pre existing reality - not the actions of human beings. Brahman is said to exists without human knowledge or mystical awareness and so to it exists without human action. Phillips brings this back to the statements made about Brahman in the Upanishads, and implies that they shouldn’t be viewed as injunctions like the Vedic ideas about right action, but rather as descriptions, due to the fact that Brahman pre-exists such practices, much like the way sensory objects pre-exist sensory perceptions (Phillips, 2001:498).

So Sankara seems to have acknowledged the Mimamsa idea that to inquire into Brahman, one must to understand the acts of religious duty or dharma, but suggests that that understanding dharma is a prerequisite for Brahman-knowledge. Thus again the sensory analogy can be drawn, this time however, with its emphasis on the conditions regarding human beings which must be met - regardless of if the object is of sensory or mystical experience - even though they are pre-existent and independent of human knowledge. An example of this in practice could be as follows. In order for me to see the apple in the bowl in front of me, certain things must be in place like, being in the vicinity of the bowl, having my eyes open etc, before the apple can allow an apple-perception experience even though the conditions and the objects pre-exist that perception.

So, from the claim that Brahman-knowledge is made possible by the pre-existent reality of Brahman itself, Phillips draws a mystic epistemic parallelism: Brahman allows mystical awareness of Brahman (according to certain conditions) just as sensory objects give rise to sensory perceptions (under certain circumstances)(Phillips, 2001:498).

- Self-awareness.

However, it seems that even this is an incomplete understanding, even if one experiences the mystical awareness of Brahman, how does one really know that it is true? Phillips then discusses a different side to the sensory analogy that concerns the nature of a truth condition on knowledge, or true awareness. Truth is important if we are saying that knowledge of Brahman is made true by the reality of Brahman as the knowledge of a sensory object is made true by the object’s reality. Philips interprets this as Sankara discussing the psychological event of experiencing an apple, not the proposition that somewhere in the world an apple exists. Here it seems Sankara is saying that cognitions such as Brahman-cognition,implies a reality, which is preexistent to all realities. Phillips thinks this can be elaborated upon by saying that this pre-existent reality can be viewed as a veridical cognitive cause (Phillips, 2001:499). We can understand this by saying that the apple is green, in part, simply because the apple exists and the state in which it exists appears to us to be green. The important thing to note is the truth-relation - is the apple really green? as opposed to the causal relations - why is the apple green? Sankara says that the truth of true cognitions is subject to the truths they imply. Thus it is Brahman who makes a mystical Brahman-knowledge experience true, just as a pre existing apple makes the true perceptual cognition ‘an apple’. Phillips thinks that from this we can see why Sankara rejects the Mimamsa interpretation of the Upanishads: Brahman-knowledge is more like sense perception than like correctly understanding dharma.

It is important to note that Phillips says that Brahman-knowledgeisn’t actually sensory - rather it is similar to sense experience in epistemic, relevant ways, and Sankara himself makes this claim in order to ensure the sense analogy is not misinterpreted or misunderstood.

From this, Philips find that the direct vision of Brahman underpins Sankara’s Brahman thesis in a similar way to which our sense experience underpins beliefs about objects within our proximal physical environment (Phillips, 2001:501). In alignment with this apparent parallelism thesis of Sankara’s, it would seem that a mystic could claim that her direct experience of Brahman evidences her claims about Brahman. The question of if this has much strength can be answered by referring to the sensory analogy; in that sense experience might be legitimised in support of sensory claims, so mystical experience might be legitimised in support of mystical claims, namely, that one has experienced Brahman.

- Non-dual Brahman - a causal objection.

Phillips attempts to show how, through analysis of Advaita’ssuggestions about Brahman, we fail to understand how the reality of Brahman could give rise to mystical knowledge of Brahman, thus dismantling the apparent parallelism thesis. He begins by explaining how the possibility of perceptual knowledge depends on a causal connection to the thing which we are trying to perceive. He says that in Hindu philosophy, often the decisions made as to what is true or not is dependant upon its causal relations, but that the actual process of doing this is in itself is very complex, perhaps because it is apparent that sometimes, when we perceive something, we just assume it to be the truth because we trust our brain and cognitive functions to work properly. However, sometimes what we seem perceive is actually an illusion, for example a mirage in the desert on a hot day. When we realise that what we perceive is not the truth, only then we begin to look for faults - to look for what is the cause of the illusion. If we look for the cause but fail to get what we want, it would be hard to say that you could explain the illusion through causalities. Phillips thinks that this is where the problem arises that Advaita fails to tell the causal story of Brahman’s pre-existing reality giving rise to Brahman-knowledge. He says that Brahman is unable to play the part of a cause because of its all-inclusive unity, since the logic of the concept “gives rise to” implies a different between cause and effect; “the causal relation is asymmetric and irreflexive and thus is not identical” (Phillips, 2002:503).

Referring back to the idea that Advaita Brahman thesis is divided into ontology, psychology and cosmology, Phillips says there are no issues with the psychological response a mystic would give to the charge of causal disanalogy, which would be something like - Brahman is self-illuminating, self-aware and nondual. Brahman knowledge is unlike sensory knowledge because it holds to distinctions between subject and object.

Phillips wants to know how Brahman’s Unity of Being can give rise to Brahman-knowledge through an experience that has the Unity of Being as its content. He asks : “is the mystic to experience Brahman’s identity with every blade of grass and grain of sand?”, and “how could omniscience be experience?’ And as the Nyayaschool of Hinduism explains, Brahman’s Unity is discovered by inference in a teleological suggestion that does not depend on the Unity of Being being directly perceived. Phillips thinks that it’s hard to imagine omnisciences as being the object of a human beings intention, as our existence is finite. He also explains how because Brahman’s relation to the world is indeterminate, it follows that the relation to human experience would also be indeterminate, which means that the mystic defense of this causal objection would fail. What he seems to be getting at here is that certain characteristics ofBrahman must be identifiable through experiences if they are to have dignity, thus they would be available to human comprehension.

Sometimes this relation is spoken about as material causality. Here it might be helpful to think of the example of a candle which can be melted down and re-shaped into anything, without the substance itself ever changing. So this can be an analogy for our awareness that is changed from one that is discursive to one which is immediately self-aware. Phillips also has a problem with the idea that Brahman is the material cause of everything and that we can experience this through Brahman-knowledge. Because self-awareness means one is only aware of the self - nothing else. What he seems to be saying is that if you take the example of meditation, you try to clear the mind of everything but the self. However Advaitasays that the self is Brahman and Brahman is everything - so really we’re not being aware of just the self, we are being aware of everything. Thus he thinks that there is quite a lot of metaphysical work that needs to be done before we can take seriously the mystic empiricism of Advaita, and that the consequences are that Sankara may need scripture in order to be able to defend the ontological and cosmological parts of Brahman against this causal objection. He concludes by saying that Sankara doesn’t have the grounds to be a fully mystical empiricist because his foundation is in sruti (that which is heard), not scripture (Phillips, 2001:506).

Chapter 5

- Rejection of the causal objection.

It seems Phillips may have misunderstood a few concepts in the process of coming to his concluding assertions. Firstly, we could look to the author of the masterpiece that is the Brahma-sutras, Badarayana. Of this scholar nothing other than his main work is known, and his dates are widely disputed - ranging from 2nd Century BCE to 200 CE. His ideas regarding Brahman’s relation to the world could help alleviate some of the tension between the issues presented by Phillips, who is suggesting that Brahman as the efficient cause of Brahman-knowledge can’t logically work because cause and effect are different from each other. However, Badarayana does not express these notions in this way. By making a standard philosophical distinction between material cause and efficient cause, Badarayana states that Brahman is not only the efficient cause of the universe but the material cause as well. If we think about how candles, on one level, are essentially just wax, but on another level, separate ones are obviously different in different physical ways - they could be different colours, shapes, and sizes. In this way, it seems Phillips’ assertion seems to falter. Here we can also refer to the Chandogya Upanishad 6.1 (Mascaro, 1965), where the wax candle analogy becomes one of a clay pot. The Chandogya Upanishad explains that this is the result of the knowledge of which the unhearable is heard, the unperceivable perceived and the unknowable known. Badarayana, like Sankara, has the authority of sruti for the assertion that Brahman relates to the universe in a way that is like clay to things made of clay. He rejects the notion that this is incompatible with other ideas regarding the universe being absorbed into Brahman and thus be rended as imperfect because of samsara, and explains that this is not the way to think of it (Plant, Collinson & Wilkinson, 2002:91). For if an object made of wax becomes melted, it is wax that remains, so too does the universe into Brahman - it will loose all its particular qualities and attributes and all that will be is Brahman. It could also be suggested that because in the West our ideas have been shaped in part by the Christian Orthodox beliefs regarding creation ex nihilo, which occur nowhere at all in Hindu thought.

A second misunderstanding seems apparent in his questions regarding mystical experience of Brahman as having its content as omniscience. He finds it hard to imagine how a human being can experience omniscience due to our existence being finite. Well, Hinduism holds the belief that our existence isn’t finite at all - this is the illusion which is imposed upon our being because we have been embodied and forgotten the true essence of our nature, Atman. And since Atman is just another manifestation of Brahman, we could say that in fact we are no different from Brahman and thus our attributes are also no different, meaning our existence is not finite at all, rather it is the opposite - infinite. This also dismantles his argument that Brahman’s relation to the world is indeterminable, since the relation is that He is us. This also answers Phillips’ query about Brahman being unavailable to human comprehension - Brahman is human comprehension.

- Concluding Thoughts.

So, it seems that the notion of ‘knowing Brahman’ as presented by not only the Upanishads, but also the Bhagavad-Gita and the Brahma-sutras, can be reduced down to the basic concept of experience. Since it’s through our experience we know about the world, it would make sense that it is also how we can know about God. Sankara’s Vedanta system places the path of knowledge on the highest tier; it is through his philosophy of oneness that the Hindu learns about the mystical elements of their religion. Of the multiple holy books within Hinduism, it seems that Upanishads, are the main source for a message that is conveyed throughout all - that to know Brahman is to be Brahman.

Learning Journal

At the beginning of the process of creating this study, my ideas were a lot broader in the sense that I was interested in Hindu philosophy – I knew that I wanted to learn more about it - but I was struggling to find a specific way of going about it. At first I was going to look at the relationship between Eastern and Western philosophy, however due to the tremendous scope of research and literature on this topic I felt my ideas needed to be refined and more specialised. I found Mascaro’s translation of the Upanishads and decided to focus mainly on the ideas presented within them. With this refined idea, I began my reading to find that the idea of Brahman as being essentially the same as all life really appealed to me for some reason – I found myself agreeing with, and understanding the ideas presented in the text. Throughout the research period, my reading of the Upanishads have made quite an impact on not just my worldview, but also as to how I treat other people, animals, plants and the environment in general. I have never really felt like my life required a space for faith or belief, however now it seems like there is a part of me which is conscious off this kind of universality between all beings and it has brought me a lot of happiness over the last few months. A few personal changes in my writing style also seem to happen whilst writing the study, which I think is down to the sheer amount of reading I have been doing, in that I seem to have found my own style of writing where my voice and opinions can be heard in a n intellectual and professional way, however I still think that there is room for improvement in some areas of my writing. Overall reading and learning about the Upanishads has been one of the most rewarding experiences, and one that I think I will take with me in the future to ensure a happy existence not only for myself but those around me too.

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