Hinduism - Lesson 23

Now, let's this is really important point here. Breman can have contact with the world and even become embodied without compromising any of his defining attributes. He's going to say, this is like Clay being made in different kinds of pots and vessels and plates and everything else. The clay remains unchanged, even though it takes on different shapes and forms. So he is going to open up the door for popular mukti ism, popular Hindu worship and so forth. Let me give you another quote of his again, to get a little feel for how to manage the rights. Again, you don't need to know this quote. This is from his through. His comments I mentioned earlier, although either this is a term they used for what we would say air the outside air, although air is separately contained in each one of a number of objects such as jars and pots, they undergo increase in decrease because in those days they had clay pots, they got broken all the time. You know, you could begin melting down, heat them up and reshaping whatever it is, not itself in itself touched by their imperfections. He's trying to really fend off Shankara here, who says the minute you identify Brahman with particularities, then you have to associate Brahman with karmic imperfections, people's sinfulness, people's karmic indebtedness. So he say, No, that's not true. This is the sun, although it is seen, reflect a number of bodies of water. An equal size is not touched by their increase in decrease. You have a great ocean of water. You can have a little puddle of water that reflects the sun, but that little puddle could completely evaporate. It wouldn't change the sun. The sun is mainly been reflected in this, but we can learn about the sun by looking at its reflection of water. 

Likewise, the supreme self. This is a reference to Brahman drought dwelling within various shape beings. Some material like the Earth and others intelligent like ourselves remains untouched by their imperfections. So he's trying to demonstrate how Brahman is untouched by karma, and yet still allowing for a dynamic relationship between the worshiper and Brahman. And that's obviously very important. Even in Chakra, I don't think Shankara is actually free from this potential problem because he still has in the lesser when you have the world's collapse and you have the world sort of back in the Brahman, if it isn't one of the great delusions, the karmic deadness is still present latently in Brahman before it spewed out again. So even Shankara has to wrestle a little bit with the US, but Ramana is even more so trying to find ways to bring the presence of God into people's lives. The minute you have God contacting the world, people get worried about, Well, what in what way does this could sustain God? This is the whole Gnostic problem, the New Testament. If you really accept the incarnation, then you're going to an actual embodiment of the eternal God. Then that God is going to be stained by his contact with our human sinfulness. This is why you have all these Christological heresies, like any ascetic kind of Christology, like man of a sadism which wants to abolish the humanity of Christ, mano for sight, one nature only divine nature. They're trying to wrestle with this basic problem. Can God have true interaction in the world and remain untouched and is exactly what Ramanujan is dealing with in these passages in the SRI by SHO. He So in terms of Brahman, he argues that Brahman is the efficient and material cause of the universe. 

Now this is a little bit tricky because Shankara will say the same thing, but Shankara says, Yeah, he's deficient in material, but the material is so gona but he's actually saying Brahman is the efficient material cause of the universe, not with any qualifications. He uses the example of the egg metaphor, the inside an egg you have a and what I would say is a snake. It's all curled up, you know, in very small form, aggregates open, and the snake rolls out of the egg shell in the same way the world is manifested. It is all wrapped up tightly inside of Brahman, but eventually it breaks out and is manifested. But there's no differentiation between the world's material essence and the essence of Brahman. That's a continuity that Shankara would not accept. So he actually, rather than going for two levels of Brahman are Guna sadhana. Romana accepts two modes of Brahman Karana Brahma Karia Brahma is the way he is in the Sanskrit. It simply means the um, manifested Brahman. The manifested Brahman Brahman hidden Brahman revealed. He is an outer lump of a clay, the lump. Of Clay can take on many forms. Take one. On the clay we saw this in the havoc is you can shape into vessels, cups, pots, whatever. But it doesn't change the clay ness, the essence of the clay rates unchanged. Whether you make it into a pot or to a ball or to a ball, it doesn't it doesn't reflect the doesn't change the essence of it. So Brahman is untouched, though he is being manifested in various forms and shapes. Questions or comments about his view of Brahman. So the difference is, yes, that's true. We can never forget that despite all of our monies as kind of relational development of theism, he is accepting the basic premise of advisors, and that is that there is only one essence in the universe. 

He's simply saying that the play part is made of clay. So he's acknowledging that karmic in crustaceans, lack of knowledge, lack of works and devotion are all part of this karmic in crustaceans that need be removed. But see, you have the same problem with Shankara as well, because in Shankara he can say he's monastic all he wants, but he still has to posit to reality. He has Brahma, you have Maya. So in a sense you have him set up to potential. You know, he won't say to absolutes, but he has these two realities to deal with was the same thing where a monitor, even in a monitor, is trying to break down this, you still have to wrestle with questions about the origin of karma because they claim claiming that karma comes from the the last manifestation. But at some point you have the initial manifestation. So what is the origin of evil? What is the origin of karmic and crustaceans in the world? So these are potential problems for a manager. But he simply claims that his affirmation of the material consistency between Brahma and the world is not the same as equating Brahman with the karma that's been encrusted in the world. So therefore, you could say that Shankara has a problem with saying he has Brahma and Maya, and Ramana just still has Brahman and karma. I mean, you could say that there would be a potential. I mean, mud eventually exploits all this. If we had time, we can develop an idea. Let's see now we can give you a little more of some of his own sayings on this. Maya from Monism rejects the notion that the world is an illusory perception. I don't even think that Shankara fully supports that. 

But certainly Shankar's followers, some of them dead and Brahman is a definite, rejects the notion that one illusory perception all knowledge is genuine knowledge, even though mistakes occur in the act of cognizance. So he's trying to reassert the power of knowledge, both mistaken identity and empirically valid perception are related to the objectively real and as such could be called valid perceptions. This is going to really develop a lot. The idea of the snake rope. Now you remember the snake rope analogy. What? How did Shankara use snake rope? What was his application of that? And in general, we you see. Okay. Right. So he's trying to create a tension point between the reality that's perceived and the actual reality that's there. And so it's as analogy to say the world have as appearance, which is different from what you may perceive. Ramanujan is not going to accept this interpretation of rope snake because he says, wait a minute, how does the person think that it's a snake? On what basis does a person believe that a curl of rope in a darkened tent is a snake? How does he know? It looks like a snake. He's seen snakes of war and he has the qualities and attributes of a snake. So there must be some relational, some connection between the attributes of a rope and the output of a snake. Okay, He was wrong. He does a snake. But does that mean that the snakes do not exist because they have ropes and they could have been a rope? I mean, it could have been a snake. So he begins to raise questions about this and he says the fact that it is only a rope, this is a death definite challenge to Shankara here. In fact, it's only a rope does not invalidate the reality. 

The snake so you find Romanos is just challenging the whole Anchorite world, saying that you cannot dismiss human knowledge and the reliability of human knowledge. I develop this point a lot in my book on this whole conception of propositional truth statements, because once you cannot accept propositional truth statements, then the whole Argumentation Foundation breaks down. How can Shanker make his arguments? How do we how are we sure that his arguments are not illusory? So he makes the same point. This is Ramanujan. If Shankar is correct, then all perceptions are unreliable. Both snake and rope. That's my addition. And there can be no basis for the claim that scriptural statements are authoritative either. That's Ramanujan. So what he is saying is that if Shankara is true, then we can't trust. If you walk into this tent at night, you look there and you see a snake and then you realize it's a row. Well, how do you know it's not a row? How do you know it's not just a kernel of electrical wire? How do you know it's even a rope? You're still being deceived. You thought it was a snake. It's a rope. There's a rope. It's electrical wire. That's an electrical wire. It's actually some stick twined up sticks or whatever. I mean, there's no end to it. How can you trust anything Ramanujan says? He says Shankara is putting a doubt at the very root of our ability to have discourse. And therefore, how can you speak authoritatively about scriptural statements? How can we be accurate about his knowledge of the upon shards? Maybe the punished shards are illusory. I mean, he he's really banging away here at Shankar's worldview. Yes. In the end, with the claim by he doesn't accept Maya as illusory, except Maya as simply the inability to recognize our dependance on Brahman. 

That's how you define Maya. Maya is our inability to see our connection to Brahman. But it is not the realization that we have no reality other than Rodman. He doesn't accept that. Does anybody talk about post-modern thought? I didn't. It's like there's nothing real. It's only your perceptions. I mean, I can see Buddhism and Shankar would be very upset if you had to say that, because he would say that you're trying to make him into a Buddhist. He's not. He's not trying to say all this. All that matters is my perception. He is trying to desperately argue for the reality of Brahman as the only reality, a great subject out there. So he has a reference point and this is he has those as point. He has a reference point to a reality that is not like the Buddhist bureaucrat, joy, that the of the language can sound like. He doesn't take seriously the world and therefore you can take not take seriously propositional truths. And for your next two years slipped into postmodernism. But I think the foundation is profoundly different. If I much more support in the Buddhist camp than the Hindu camp, in my view, for postmodernism, I can't wait. I wish we had time to show you some of the statements from Shankara, but I mean, in the Buddhism class, we'll definitely look at this. But he he really attacks the Buddhist. If you want to get a shank right mad him a Buddhist. Okay. Ignorance for a manager. This is this will be the same for his view of Maya. So to help you for money is our inability to perceive that all of the manifold forms of existence are utterly dependent upon Brahman. So he is actually going to create a possibility for devotion. 

Now, let me just give you a little story about Ramanujan. Ramanujan goes through the whole ashram system as a young man. I didn't give you the story of his life, but he has it. Both these men have dramatic. And also there's a lot of cultural tensions here. Shankara is from Kerala. He's from southwest India. Ramana is from Madras, the other side of South India. To this day, there's a tremendous tension in the Tamils in the Middle Ages. They all think they have the true India. There's a lot of within India, a lot of tension between Tamils and Polyols. So the fact that Shankar is a multi ally and monitor the Tamil reveals a lot of just the whole insight into the the way Indian culture has developed. So you have Plato, one side of India, whereas on the other and they're always in tension each other. So one of the things that Ramanujan does is that he, like Shankar, goes to the whole standard system. Everybody has to go through the standard system of becoming recognized as a philosopher. They all write commentaries on Upon a Shore. They don't just write their own works. So they go through that very, very carefully. So going through the guru system, so they're being taught by gurus that teach them the mantras, the sacred mantras. So once you get into that system, as you get closer and closer to the teacher, you begin to be given more and more secret mantras that only people can know at certain levels of of knowledge. So Ramana, as it goes to the same system, will finally, after years of study and years of memorizing the upon the shards and all of this, all the mantras, he finally gets the point where he is going to be brought into the presence of the of the man, his main disciple and disciple who is going to whisper in his ear in a closed chamber, the most sacred mantra of the whole, that part of South India. 

Only probably three people, two or three or an entire world know this mantra, and Ramanujan is going to hear it. This is like big day. It's like you're coming to your graduation service, like giving you a diploma. They whisper you this mantra. He goes into the chamber and they whisper this mantra to the manager. Okay, He now knows the mantra, the sacred mantra. He goes out onto the balcony. All these crowds there to celebrate has been invested with this new, you know. And what does he do? He shouts the mantra down to the whole crowd. Okay, this is not making the people happy. This is a very radical thing to do. There are a lot of disputes about whether this happened or not historically, but the followers monitor say that it happened and it very well indeed could have happened, Roman, as it was demonstrating, at least symbolically here, that I believe philosophy should be for the people, not for a select group of Brahmins. So his whole first thrust is find a way to empower the masses of India with true religious experience. Shankara is about denying everybody's experience. Romans is about empowering everyone's experience. So the result is Ramanujan developed what's called the body soul analogy. Now he's trying to create a metaphor for how Brahmin relates to the average worshiper or to the world of worshipers. And he he uses the body soul analogy. We are the body. Brahman is the soul. He is that M and animates invigorates the entire body just as this is a middle ages kind of analogy. Brahmin and it souls the world by constituting the soul of the world and all entities constitute the body of Brahman. He is not really using the word body here in the way that we would use the word body. 

This is kind of a classical use of the word body. You know, an apple has a body. Everything has a body. That which is in souled is a body. And what is his thinking? So what he does is that he develops a whole series of what he calls the defining relationships. And I just briefly mentioned these. You do not need to know these terms, but if you're going to do any further ceremonies, this is absolutely we're now getting into the heart of Romano is this whole thought. Everything he teaches about God in the world revolves around the so-called body soul analogy. And the whole idea behind this is to demonstrate that the world is and all of us are in an inextricable union dependent relationship with Brahman. And so he develops three defining relationships the. First is what he calls I gotta ask, which is support. And the thing supported Breman is the support. We are the thing supported. He uses several analogies to make this clear. Let me give you some of these analogies that be helpful. He gives the example of, for example, a ring in a person's ear. The person who bears the ring is the ring bearer. The ring is there by virtue of the ring bearer. The ring has no meaning apart from the ring bearer, and therefore the ring is dependent upon the ring bearer for its existence. It cannot exist apart from is not intelligible. Apart from the word cow has no meaning unless there is some reality to which that sound is related. He talks about a staff bearer and a staff person who carries the staff. What is the meaning of a staff unless it is there for the staff bearer? So this whole thing of support and thing support is developed extensively in reminders. 

And this is about where all these three relationships are there in your handouts. The second is the NTER. In the AMA, the controller and thing controlled Brahman controls the world. We are that which is controlled. Everything in the world is controlled by something. He is the example of the charioteer driving the chariot. God is the charioteer. He drives the chariot. We are the chariot. But there's this relationship that's just so powerful here. He's trying to say, okay, the chariot is not capable being understood apart from the charioteer that drives it. And yet they're related to each other. There's dependency upon the chariot, to the charioteer. He quotes from the Brethren Yaka he dwells in all beings, yet is within all beings whom no beings know, whose body is all beings, who controls all beings from within. He is yourself the inner controller A.I.M. with that word. Enter Yama with that the Immortal. This is him saying that at the microcosmic level, the inner life of the individuals animated by Brahman and has no existence apart from Brahman, he is the inner controller. So that draws on all of the punishment attacks related to anti-human and finally Satan Sasha principal entity subordinate entity. There is that which is the principal and that which is the subordinate entity On the microcosmic level. The material body is in subordinate to the inner life of the spiritual body. Your spirit is the principal, the ortman is principal, the material body is subordinate, but the relationship is linked. The purpose of the physical body is to give honor to the spiritual entity. Likewise, the entire material world exists to give honor to the principal entity of the universe, which is Brahman. This is obviously standard cosmic homology is simply saying that the relationship is there, the link is there. 

It's very, very important. What you should know at this is that essentially a monitor develops a series of relational terms to bring out the essential nature that the worshiper is in relationship with God. And it's a dependent relationship. It is. It is a bhakti. It is a ratio of the devotional dependance upon God. That is the nature of true knowledge for Montejo to use his own expression here about salvation, the soul or self. And in this case he's using the soul here in a different way than we saw earlier. This is the self of the woman is a mode of God distinct but always in an inalienable relationship like the body is to the soul. One's individual reality is not swallowed up by and in that of Brahman. So he is not going to accept the destruction of the self. No, no, it's Shankara. The destruction of your consciousness being lost in Brahman. There is a relationship, an I vow relationship between Brahman and the worshiper is simply the I Thou is not other than Brahman, it's a relationship within the body of Brahman. So he has relationships within Brahman that will be eternal. And this flows right out of another school of thought. We haven't had chance to develop this, but in the Zamka philosophy, number one on this list, they also believe in these two eternal things, Perugia predicted. And Romano Asia is accepting a lot of the thinking behind that, that we have eternal relationships. We're not lost in Brahman. So to give I again some quote from her manager here and this is get the gist of this what he's saying here to maintain that the consciousness of the eye, they're always preoccupied with this eye thing does not persist in the state. 

A final release is, again, altogether inappropriate. See, Cenk is going to say by I here he's referring to what some would call the jive ottoman, the individual ottoman that is lost in Brahmin, according to Shankara. He said this is inappropriate. It in fact amounts to a doctrine only expressed in some different words Buddhism. That final release is the analysis of the self. So this is Roman is his way of politely saying he's very rarely polite. But here he's being a little polite because he knows how sensitive this is. Shankara is nothing but a closet Buddhist. Okay. The eye is not a mere attributed to self, so that even after this destruction, the essential nature of the self, it might persist. It causes the very nature of the self. So he's saying the eye. When you say I am worshiping God, that I is not something that you, you know, some perceiver that's buried down there will be lost someday. That is part of the nature of the self that will persist even in moksha. You can say I worship Brahmin. Shankar would never say that there is no worshiping Brahman. Once you are simply Brahman, you're lost in Brahman. Here you have I all worsening context. Even in the state of Moksha is the very nature of the self. So he is basically saying if you don't have this, then you're you. All you have is Buddhism. For Shankara, John, the knowledge is the apex to its karma and bhakti can only point. That's a quote from Eric Lott for Ramanujan Party is the apex to which karma and Jannah can only lead. If you go back to this whole thing here, this is Shankar's adventurism. We have seen this throughout the course. Devotional works are a subsidiary role merely helpful? Only if they lead to true knowledge. 

And then once you come that latter, the latter kicked away because you've made it to the higher knowledge. And that is Shankar, that Vedas and Ramanujan will not accept this. Now, are you ready for my graphic here? I hope this works. I must show you before your very eyes what reminds you. Does this whole scheme here? Are you ready? There we go. Now, Now we have ramanujan's modified non dualism. Looks like this. He is going to argue that all of your knowledge and works must lead to devotion. This is why he is the popular philosopher of India. We're now seeing that this big wall here is not as firm as we thought because he's going to provide the philosophical support for all this because he's saying, okay, all this bhakti ism is creating this sense of dependency upon God. That's a good thing. That's a great thing. We'll have to extend more as we are almost through this. We need a little more to go. But I want to stop there or take a little pause and see if we are clear on the role of bhakti in Ramanujan. We have like 5 minutes to go. Yeah, it seems like Ramanujan. If we didn't have the presupposition of non dualism, he would have been a Christian in the way that he's thinking of God as eternal. And we are absolutely dependent on Him. If he didn't have the similar ontology being in some essence, I think that you would come to the fact that we need some sort of that. Where does the the essence of the clay touch the pot, touch the karma and not be tainted by it? I mean, that's that that's the only missing link, it seems to me. Where am I? No, there's no question this is a warm theism feel. 

I want to show you a quote here. If we are going to come back to this little thing here. But this is Mark's muter quote. I really summarize what you just said. Mark Smith was a very famous scholar who studied Hinduism his whole life and taught at Oxford, another place where he makes this great quote here, it must be admitted that in India, instead of one Vedanta philosophy, we have two springing from the same route, but extend its branches in two very different directions that a chakra being kept for the unflinching reasonable who supported by an unwavering faith in monism, do not shrink back from any of its consequences, but then go on to say, which is the point you just made. Another letter is trying. Hard to reconcile their monism with the demands of the human heart that required and always will require a personal God as the last cause of all that is. And an eternal soul that yearns for an approach to or a reunion with that being none of other than mean or made that point. And that summarizes what you just said. There's no question the manager is opening the door for a much more powerful potential for discourse about God in the Indian context, not been relegated everything to cirkunov. So it's good. But, you know, like so many things, some of the worst challenged Christianity or heresies of Christianity, Islam is a big challenge. Christian Not because it's so bizarre, but because it's so close. You have Christianity, you have so much of that are doctrines, but you take Christ out and you so you end up with nothing. So in the same way, the manager is not prepared to accept the ontological distinction between creation and creator is simply not present. 

He's a modernist after all is said and done. He's saying, I don't distinguish for myself. Ultimately in God be out here, this is too Christian. But you're right, it's wrong. At the ontological level. The linguistic level is sounds very positive. Okay. Any other comments or questions about this? Yes, he's a modernist, but he says would he agree with what Max Mueller says about him? That in the ultimate end is the human being longing for being united with this God? But but I still separate. Yes, he would agree with that statement, not the AI is separate. The AI is in a devotional separation, but not an on to logical separation. But yeah, he would agree with that. Yeah. That is part of the terms need to know. So make sure that we are well aware of this. And this has actually been something that's divided the followers of Vishnu in South India, I may have told you about the Tata Gali and Vada Gali, the people who are known only by a half inch of paint that I mentioned to you. Well, this is that we're finally there because the only way to tell the difference between the those who follow provocative property is how long the line coming on their forehead goes. This actually refers to a dispute that broke out among followers over a monitor about how much did he tie into the political tradition. As we saw last time, one of the features of Ramana is the popularization of the way of knowledge in the sense that invades the Bhakti movement and begins to find a philosophical foundation. In the book, the System. The question arose whether a monitor was seeking to expand bhakti to include all the followers, but yet still provide special favor for those that were in the way of knowledge. 

So the way this eventually developed was a schism within Ramanujan, thought about whether he taught padmavati or property and for whom. The basic distinction which we've already discussed with the Monkey King analogy, is whether or not what is your role in being saved? Essentially, this is a discussion about faith versus works. The act of devotion, which is the monkey analogy, would recall that the baby monkey has to cling to the mother by his or her own power and strength, even though the mother monkey carries her around. Whereas a kitten, as you know, is carried by the scruff of the neck by the mother with complete passivity by the kitten. In the same way, they argue that the penalty is for those who have true knowledge about the way of body and ways they can actively pursue their moksha, which would include everything from studying the Vedas to following the Guru all across the of the whole chart that we've been looking at. So various forms of active devotion word for gurus would teach. If you follow this particular path, then you will achieve moksha. That's peda bhakti, whereas the property is a movement which says that even the lowest devotee who may not realize their role or their need for their role is by simply trusting in, for example, Krishna. They will be saved without any works involved at all. So this would be the triumph of the vocalism over works. If you go back to our chart that we looked at last time, this incredible tension that goes throughout Hindu philosophy, that the place of devotion works and knowledge, this would be a view that devotion does actually finally triumph, that it really doesn't matter how much somebody knows what they're doing or the precise works. 

If their heart is devoted to God, then they will be saved. So that distinction we had not had time to actually discuss. So typically as a rule, the ten Galli tradition, the Southern tradition or the tradition that follows ten Gali, which emphasize the grace of God, would be more likely found in South India. The thought of Gali in North India. All this discussion is about based on his interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita. The text that we looked at in one of our Mahabharata is abandon all duties to all dramas and just surrender to me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear I. Geeta 1866. That particular passage is the passage by which all of this discussion is mostly centered around the. Well, that's what the dispute is over. Monitors, writings are actually ambiguous at this point. The powers are divided over this point. And so some are saying that the kind of buck D that Romano's was actually promoting was provocative, which would involve particular path or multiple pathways to God, whereas the property would simply say, as long as you're devoted to Krishna or some other secular deity, then the actual instrumentality of that by God is not part of your business. Essentially, you simply your job is to trust, in fact, abandoned all works. They would interpret this Dharma as abandoning work and simply trusting is essentially a bit of the argument that we have in our own tradition regarding the role of faith versus works to rely upon. Works is, in a sense, I would argue, a form of abandoning bhakti because true bhakti ism would involve total surrender. Whereas if somebody is following a particular work's path, it might imply that they are trying to earn their salvation. So this is essentially the argumentation you would find very familiar in terms of some of the discussion that's going on between our many in ISM and and in reformed versions of the trilogy in the Christian tradition.