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Advaita and Neoplatonism (1961)

Advaita and Neoplatonism

(1961)–Frits Staal–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy


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9. Concepts of meditation and knowledge

In the previous section several points of view regarding the relations between karma, meditation and jñāna have been reviewed. Now several definitions will be considered in order to analyse further what is meant by the terms for meditation (dhyāna, nididhyāsana; ef. manana, ‘reflection’) and knowledge (jñāna, vijñāna ; vidyā; cf. bodha, ‘thought’ cit, ‘intelligence’).

Already in the Śvetāśvataropaniṣad a characterization of dhyāna occurs, which shows how the sacred syllable Om becomes efficacious only through dhyāna and how on that account an all together novel effect is produced. Making use of the analogy of kindling fire by means of rubbing297 two pieces of wood (araṇi) together, the text says:298

 
Making his body the lower araṇi and the sacred syllable
 
Om the upper araṇi-
 
 
 
He can by that practice of rubbing which is meditation
 
(dhyāna) see God as the hidden (fire becomes visible).

It seems to be a mystery how from dry, dark, cold wood fire can suddenly spring; likewise it seems to be a mystery how the unmanifest divine can suddenly become manifest. That this phenomenon can be produced as the effect of a cause is clear from the text. The mysterious or magical efficacy has as its divine prototype the creator, who things silently in his mind and who subsequently materializes the content of his thought.299 The act of meditation is one of the remnants of the period when material and spiritual were not conceived as different and separate realms. Since the two are discriminated by the increasingly differentiating consciousness, their interconnection has also become mysterious or magical. Moreover, it becomes intelligible that Śaṅkara sees the same magical and unintelligible adhyāsa300 at work in the act of meditation and in Īśvara's creation.

 

More and better, though perhaps less suggestive, characterizations of what meditation really consists of can be collected from Śaṅkara's works. In the Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣadbhāṣya meditation is spoken of as a mental act of concentration, approaching the form of an object, dependent on scriptural injunctions and resulting in complete identification: ‘Upāsanā is mentally approaching (upa) the form of a deity or something else as delineated in scriptural passages relating to meditation, and concentrating the mind

on it (āsanā), uninterrupted by secular thoughts, till one is as completely identified with it as with one's own body, conventionally regarded as one's self’.301 Meditation cannot go beyond the world of names and forms (nāmarūpa), though it may help to reach the highest reach thereof. Therefore we read somewhere else in the same commentary: ‘Through meditation (vidyayā) the world of the Gods (devaloka) is to be won....therefore they praise meditation’.302

 

Concentration is especially stressed in a passage of the Gītābhāṣya:303 ‘Upāsana consists in approaching the object of worship by way of meditating on it according to the teaching (yathāśāstram) and dwelling for a long time steadily in the current of same thought, (continuous) like a thread of descending oil’. When the meaning of concentration is further analysed, it is seen that it is rather difficult to express what it positively contains since its content manifests itself only ultimately. Therefore the negative is stressed in the Gītābhāṣya,304 as follows: ‘Dhyāna consists in withdrawing by concentration (upasaṁhrtya) hearing and other senses into the manas (mind) away trom sound, etc, and other sense objects, then withdrawing manas into the inner intelligence and then contemplating (the inner intelligence)’. This leads further to the definition of the Vedāntaparibhāṣā:305 ‘What is called contemplation (nididhyāsana) is that mental operation, which, in the case of mind (citta) attracted to (external) objects by beginning-less evil associations, is helpful to turn it away from (external) objects and secure firmness (for it) in respect of the Self (alone) as object’. In the definition of the Vedāntasāra both aspects are mentioned:306 ‘Nididhyāsana is the procession of like thoughts referring to the secondless Brahman, dissociated from other objects like the body and so forth’. The positive characterization occurs already in the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya too:307 ‘By upāsana we under-

stand the lengthened carrying on of an identical train of thought.’308

 

The positive characterisation corresponds to the central Advaitic idea expressed as ‘the world is (in as far as it really is) identical with Brahman’. The negative characterisation corresponds to the same idea expressed as ‘the world is (in as far as it is different from Brahman) unreal.’ Both ideas may have the same significance; but the second is more especially Saṅkara's approach309 and is reflected in the definition of meditation rather as a withdrawal from the world than as a concentration upon the Absolute. Both, however, cannot be separated.

 

In one passage of the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya meditation and knowledge are very clearly differentiated; it may serve as a transition to the consideration of knowledge. There it is said,310 that meditation (dhyāna) and reflection (cintana) are mental (mānasa); they may be performed or not performed or modified (kartumakartum anyathā vā kartum śakyam) by a human being (puruṣena), because of their dependence on man (puruṣatantratvāt). But knowledge (jñāna) is the result of the means of right knowledge (pramāṇjanyam) and the pramāṇas refer to the things as they exist (pramāṇam yathābhūtavastuviṣayam). Therefore one cannot say that knowledge may be performed or not performed or modified (kartumakartumanyathā vā kartum aśakyam): it only depends on the thing (kevalam vastutantram eva), not on Vedic injunction (na codanātantram) and also not on man (na api puruṣatantram). Meditation is performed (or not performed), i.e. it is an act of the human being, taking its starting point from śruti. Knowledge is independent from man and from śruti; it is not an act,311 but it represents the things as they are. This quite phenomenological definition of knowledge does away with the subjective element of meditation as well as with the magical element.

Through jñāna Śaṅkara goes beyond the magical atmosphere of previous thought and arrives at an approach to reality which might be called gnoseological in as far as it places knowledge in the centre, but goes beyond the pure intellect.

 

According to Śaṅkara the objectivity of jñāna is a fact, while the objectivity of meditation is not. He explicitly denies the reality of certain identifications to which meditation may lead; they have to be understood figuratively. In the commentary on the Brahmasūtras, for instance, reference is made to mantras and arthavādas which have to be explained in a secondary sense, when the primary literal sense is rendered impossible by other pramāṇas.312 ‘The following arthavāda passage, for instance’, says Thibaut,313 ‘the sacrificial post is the sun’, is to be taken in a metaphorical sense; because perception renders it impossible for us to take it in its literal meaning. This is different from the archaic atmosphere of magical identification in the Brāhmanas.

 

The view that jñāna is objective ‘just like the things as they exist’ (yathābhūtavastu)-appears as realistic in the epistemological sense. But we have to discriminate between two kinds of knowledge: empirical knowledge of external things and knowledge of the Self. The first is adequate in as far as it reveals the second; in every experience the Absolute is given and can be revealed and discovered.314 The mechanism of knowledge is analysed in the later Advaita Vivaraṇa school in the following manner.315 It is hardly necessary to say that also this analysis shows that the Advaitic position cannot be adequately understood when compared with critical idealism in epistemology (Deussen; cf. Vijñānavāda).

 

According to Vidyāraṇya316 in empirical knowledge the mind when pervading an object assumes the form of that object. This constitutes a modification or (as translated by Mahadevan and by Bhattacharya) psychosis (vṛtti) of the internal organ (antaḥkaraṇa) in which there is a reflection (ābhāsa) of the intelligence-self (cit). But for the ‘known-ness’ as well as for the ‘unknown-

ness’ of an object Brahman-intelligence is required. The reflection of intelligence (cidābhāsa) is an appearance of which Brahman is the sole reality. Whereas ābhāsa reveals the object alone, Brahman-intelligence illuminates vṛtti, ābhāsa and the object as well. Such knowledge arises through the psychosis of the internal organ and is called vṛttijñāna.

 

In the case of Self-knowledge there is no external object, there is nothing outside, there can be no ābhāsa, no object and no subject. Concerning this jñāna expressed in the mahāvākya ‘aham brahmāsmi’317 the Vedāntasāra says:318 ‘Spirit (caitanya) as reflected in that state of mind, being unable to illumine the self-luminous Brahman, not distinct from the internal self, will be overcome as a lamp flame for example is, by the sun's rays, being unable to overcome them. And it will lapse into Brahman itself, not distinct from the inmost self, as its condition (upādhi), viz., the mental state, is no longer there .... Its being affected by the vṛtti is necessary in order that ignorance may be dispelled.319 The reflection serves no purpose here, Brahman being self-luminious’.320 This knowledge is called svarūpajñāna and is possible because of a characteristic of knowledge which is very much stressed in Advaita: self-luminosity (svaprakāśatva). In this knowledge none of the characteristics of vṛtti-jñāna remain. But it remains affected by vṛtti for the purpose of dispelling the ignorance regarding it. In other words there is vṛtti-vyāpti (pervasion by psychosis), and not phala-vyāpti (pervasion by fruit, i.e., reflection).

 

Self-luminosity explains not only svarūpajñāna but also empirical knowledge, for light is the condition of any possible reflection. In a suggestive comparison the self-luminosity of knowledge (jñānasvaprakāśatva), rooted in the self-luminosity of the Absolute which is identical with it, is compared to the lamp used on the stage when dance or drama is performed (nāṭakadīpa).321 The lamp illuminates the actors for the audience and the audience itself; but it shines even if the theatre be emptied of all persons.

Similarly objects as well as subjects are revealed by Brahman which manifests itself as self-luminous in the knowledge in which subjects and objects have altogether disappeared. In the unity which still is the mark of India's traditional culture, not only do philosophers take their illustrations from the stage and from nāṭyaśāstra, but dancers or actors also realise the symbolism of their performance. At present the stage lamp (valiya vilakku or kali vilakku in Malayāḷam) is considered essential and central on the stage of Kathakaḷi-the dance-drama of Kerala, the homeland of Śaṅkara.322 Its symbolic significance is felt and explained.323

 

Apart from being self-luminous (about which more below) knowledge is one and is said to rest upon one-ness, unity, as opposed to the multiplicity of works.324 Knowledge, not being an effect or cause, springs from itself and is svābhāvika. Its immediacy and the fact that it is not knowledge of an object distinct from itself (in the case of svarūpajñāna) causes its fruit to be also immediately present and not manifest only at a later time, as the fruits of action.325 Knowledge is therefore dṛṣṭa, goes beyond the magical realm and does not need an unseen, adṛṣṭa, entity like the Mīmāṁsā apūrva. Accordingly there can be no successive stages in knowledge either.326 The jīvan-mukti is a fact of experience, direct and immediate. Śaṅkara's insight into the absolute character of jñāna differentiates hirn from mystical philosophers who speak about numerous levels and stages of illumination, mystical insight and realization.

 

The concept of self-luminosity is analysed at length by Citsukha in the Tattvapradīpikā327 by means of a discussion of its several definitions. It may be referred to here as an example of the ‘logistic’ of later Advaita. When a thing is considered self-luminous if and only if illumination constitutes its very being and

nature, then we have not yet expressed that the illumination is caused by itself and not by something else, as for example the paraprakāśatva (‘alter-illumination’) of the Naiyāyikas. Thus, svaprakāśatva must be considered as caused by itself. But this knowledge must also be manifest, as no sane knower argues that he has, knowledge which is not manifest to him. Therefore it is to be jñānasattāka, always known and never unknown. As the same holds however for pleasure, pain and other similar feelings, the definition is too wide. It is therefore proposed to define self-luminosity as something which can never be the object of knowledge (avedya), as pleasure, pain, etc. are. But, the Naiyāyikas object and question, how it can be the subject of any discussion in that case? Again a refinement is brought into the definition, which ultimately characterizes the self-illuminating character of knowledge as follows: ‘Self-luminosity is that, which, while being not an object of knowledge, is fit to be called immediate.’328 ‘Even this elaboration of the concept might be made the target of criticism’ says Bhattacharyya.329 However we shall not follow these investigations, which exemplify the style of later Advaitic works such as the Tattvapradīpikā, any further.

 

It is sometimes held that, since knowledge is self-luminous, jīva is self-luminous too, as it is constituted by knowledge.330

 

The importance of jñāna lies in the fact that Brahman or mokṣa is the fruit of the knowledge of Brahman. Knowledge is the means to mokṣa (mokṣasādhana),331 which is the realization of Brahman. For this view there is considerable scriptural support,332 especially the passage of the Muṇḍaka: ‘he who knows that

highest Brahman becomes verily Brahman’.333 Jñānān mokṣa ‘from knowledge liberation’334 is the principal doctrine of Śaṅkara concerning mokṣa and concerning jñāna. It occurs for instance as the conclusion of the last chapter of the Vedāntaparibhāṣā entitled prayojanam, ‘the fruit’.335 ‘Thus, therefore, release results from Brahman-knowledge (tadevam brahmajñānān mokṣa) .... hence is established the fruit (iti siddham prayojanam)’.

 

Brahman is also directly conceived as pure knowledge. It consists of nothing but knowledge, ‘a solid mass of knowledge only’ (vijñānaghana eva), says the Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad.336 Therefore the term vijñānātman, ‘the Self of knowledge’, occurs.337 Śaṅkara comments upon the passage as follows ‘the word ghana (a solid mass) excludes everything belonging to a different species .... the particle eva, ‘only’, is intensive. The idea is that there is no foreign element in it’. We recognise here the idea of the actual infinite. The same passage is quoted in a text of the great commentary, where existence and thought are equated in Brahman;338 existence is thought and thought is existence (sattaiva bodho bodha eva ca sattā). Śaṅkara elaborates this at length, showing that Brahman is existence but not excluding thought, and thought but not excluding existence. Since it cannot have both as distinct attributes it is both, and both are identical with each other.

 

The ultimate reason for saying that knowledge is the only means to realise Brahman, which is neither a cause nor an effect, is that Brahman itself is knowledge or consciousness. This is manifest in the most famous svarūpalakṣaṇa, ‘essential, intrinsic definition’ occurring in the Taittirīyopaniṣad: Brahman is satyaṁ jñānam anantam ‘(true) reality-knowledge-infinity’.339 Later Brahman was mostly spoken of as Saccidānanda, ‘being-consciousness-bliss’.

In his commentary upon jñānam, the second element of the definition, Śaṅkara clearly states what should be understood here:340 ‘The term jñānam means apprehension (jñāpti), consciousness (avabodha). It denotes the ontological perfection (bhāvasādhana) (of knowing) and not the fact of being a performer of acts of knowledge (na tu jñānakartṛ). It denotes Brakman, in fact, in accordance with the terms satyam, and anantam, and true reality and infinity are incompatible with the fact of being a performer of acts of knowledge. For, being dependent upon the change of the fact of being a performer of acts of knowledge, how could Brahman be true reality and infinity? What is infinite, indeed, cannot be separated from anything else, and if Brahman is a knower it has to be separate from the knowing and from the known and it cannot be infinite.’


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