So I think a large number of us (myself included) were a bit
confused by the idea that “only consciousness is real”. I’ll try to recap my
understanding of this idea and convey how I feel it fits into our understanding
of Hinduism from previous readings and discussions.
In this week’s readings – particularly in the discussion on
the Vedanta system – we saw a Hindu school of thought make the jump from an
idea of an eternal self (atman) and an eternal/infinite reality (brahman) to an
assertion of absolute monism. That
is, not only is there a self, but this self is the only thing that exists and is real: “The
only wholly real entity is the Self, achieved by demonstrating the unreality of
the differentiated world, based both on the authority of revealed texts and on
reason (Torella 112).” I’ll focus on the latter part of this statement – the
notion that through reasoned and logic we can demonstrate that the self is in
fact all that exists.
As Ami pointed out in class, this idea (or, at the very
least, the logic that precedes it) is quite similar to the Cartesian idea of cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I
am. The reasoning goes something like this: If our consciousness is what gives
rise to perception and our understanding of existence in the first place, then
for anything else to exist within this framework, our consciousness must exist
and it must be real. I believe there is one fatal flaw in this argument.
Such an assertion has some notion of cause and effect
embedded within it. The cause is our consciousness perceives and understands
things. The effect is we have thoughts. This is contradictory to the Vedanta
system’s conclusion “that both cause and effect are unreal (Torella 112.” So
I’m not quite sure how to remedy these seemingly opposite ideas. Can we
separate the consciousness from a closed system of cause and effect? I’m not
sure we can…
Lastly, I think it is quite interesting how all of this ties
into what I would call a major part of the ultimate goal of Hinduism: “catching
the self”. Part of the idea of the self being all that is real arises from the
very fact that the self is capable of doubting its own existence. For something
to be real, then, must it be capable of doubting itself? Or at the very least,
must it be able to think about itself? Regardless, I think we can conclude that
some concept of reflexivity and looking inward at one’s own existence is
central to the Hindu notion of the self. Would love to hear everyone’s
thoughts, as I know some of this reasoning can at times seem rather circular.
One clarification that might help this discussion: consciousness, in the Vedantin sense, is not subjectivity. Rather, it is the sheer capacity for manifestation. Since something must be perceptible in order to manifest (because otherwise how would it ever be known to exist?), the capacity to manifest is aligned with the capacity to produce a perception. Consciousness is this capacity. Both subjectivity and objectivity arise out of it.
ReplyDeleteYour point on causality is well-taken. Vedantins, like many Buddhists, say that there are two different kinds of realities: the everyday reality and the ultimate reality. For Vedantins, reason works within the sphere of everyday reality. Certain kinds of arguments can bring a person to the point where they're receptive to a fully liberating knowledge that moves beyond dualities of any kind, including the distinction between cause and effect. Vedantins try to use reason to get beyond reason.
Other thoughts and comments? Keep up the discussion!
So what about creatures that do not have consciousness? Are they not real?
ReplyDeleteCreatures can be devoid of subjectivity (the sense of being a subject looking out on an object), but not of consciousness. Nothing exists that is not consciousness. Pratyabhijnā thinkers even take this a step further; they claim that everything that manifests does in fact share in some sliver of subjectivity, even if this subjectivity is so obscured as to be virtually not there. Somānanda's famous statement that "I know the pot and the pot knows me" points toward this dynamic. Later, more systematic thinkers like Utpaladeva will highly qualify this statement and focus on the fact that inanimate objects are, for all intents and purposes, insentient.
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