I am not a member of the Advaita Club. I am an outsider. Several have rejected me for what I have written. I submit this post for our mutual exploration. How valid is the underlying beliefs of Advaita? This is the essence of exploration.
Advaita posits that awareness (consciousness) is the alpha and omega of all existence. Thoughts, feelings, and sensations are seen within awareness. They come and go, but awareness is always there. Because thoughts, feelings, and sensations refer only back to their essence, awareness, they cannot “do” or be anything. This is a universe without cause and effect, it is awareness/consciousness itself.
Greg Goode, a person I admire and respect, but do not agree with, says in
Standing in Awareness, “...awareness is not geographical, the very notion of awareness as
a place or locale dissolves (italics in original).” This argument is based on the supposition that since the actions and moods of the mind can be “seen” by awareness, then the mind must be an object of awareness. Or what is perceived as mind, is, ultimately, awareness itself, seeing itself in the role of mind.
Is this true?
To prove this contention, we would need to observe an aware being without a mind or body. Has such an entity ever been found or observed? The obvious answer is no, so this contention must, at the very least, be held in serious doubt.
I would assert that as far as we can determine, the faculty of awareness is a
consequence and function of the mind/body and that the world demonstrates this contention a thousand million times over. In fact, it never has validated an awareness that is separate from a living body/mind.
Greg continues, “You, as this awareness, are continuous and unbroken even if arisings are present. The clearest experience of this is deep sleep. No arisings appear during deep sleep, yet it never seems as though you are absent.” Is this true for your experience? For me, I am utterly absent in deep sleep. There is no sense of continuity. Yes, upon awakening, I realize that for much of the night I was “unaware”, and since this event is replicated day after day, I must, at the very least, doubt Greg’s contention. And because I survive deep sleep as a mind/body, even if the activity of awareness clearly ceases, I must further realize that this process of deep sleep adds credibility that awareness is, indeed, a function of the mind/body. Were awareness truly continuous, it would notice the condition of deep sleep, but it does not.
Greg further claims that “arisings” (anything seen within awareness) “don’t actually do anything. They have no causal power.” Is this true? If can only be true if we reject the notion that things exist. Yet our everyday experience proves that this is just the action of desire that seeks to negate the power to make of things to make us feel bad or to fear the inevitability of our own death. For, if we are not the body/mind, death can never effect us. Yet, the wind blows, a tree branch falls, my car is struck, and a repair is needed. Arisings are nothing but power. The universe of cause and effect is observed (within awareness) as ever-present. Even if I’m inclined to reject the existence of things outside of their brief manifestation in awareness, I must at least have some doubt about the veracity of this claim as based on my every-day experience. Just because something is counter-intuitive and of esoteric origins doesn’t make it right or better than our apparent existence and the apparent existence of everything else in our universe.
For me, Advaita is a sophisticated belief system that appeals to people who are primarily intellectual. It is, as Greg has conceded, seriological in nature, meaning that it is oriented to the reduction of suffering and the promise of salvation. It is, therefore of a larger religious lineage that includes Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, but rejects Judaism, Buddhism, and Taoism (which do not affirm salvation). It does not stand up to basic inquiry or even doubt. It is, therefore, a dead-end.
The nature of reality is, instead, inherently paradoxical. What we perceive is, indeed, a consequence of awareness, but that is only part of the story. All perceived objects are connected and this is the fundamental, irreducible oneness of everything, yet objects are simultaneously separate and self-integrative. While there may be no way to separate a tree from the sun, earth, seeds, and rain that make it possible for the tree to exist, those elements will persist even in the tree’s absence. This is the loving and beautiful paradox of being; that of simultaneous connection and self-integrity.
This is communion, caring, compassion, and joy. We care and love others for their own nature. We might also fear and avoid them for their own nature as well. Life is rarely so simple as the reductionism of Advaita and that’s the blessing.
Finally, I really really like Greg. I admire him as well. The purpose of this post is simply to arouse discussion. I raise questions not to propagate my own version of REALITY, but to explore and investigate. The ultimate question is, what is true? And it is to that question which this post is committed.
Download: GreatQuestion
Tags: doubt, exploration
