Thanks. From my point of view that requires a faith in scripture, which you claim is a “competent witness.” Because so much contemporary nondualist(ish) discussion happens in a context reluctant to admit to being “religious”, faith tends to be explicitly abjured. But I think there’s often an element of denial in unthinking obeisance to the dominant secular culture.
Personally, I don’t think “faith” is available to all of us for various reasons (background enculturation, inherent scepticism, etc). It’s kind of like eye colour. You either have blue eyes (faith) or you don’t. Even the wish for it in someone who claims not to have it actually presupposes faith. The one wild card is what’s experienced in the purportedly activating “presence” of teachers (darshan?). I’ve read various accounts of encounters with jnanis like Nisargadatta (including yours), and my guess is I wouldn’t be susceptible. I’d be the doubting Thomas. And would probably have grossly offended the locals with my cheek and lack of bhakti. But who knows? I’ve unexpectedly fallen head over heels in love with women, with dramatic and unpredictable effects. So anything’s possible with us strange humans.
I appreciate Nisargadatta’s several suggestions that a modicum of provisional faith can be enough – ie. just sufficient to take the first step, from which enough confirmation is received to take the next, and so on. That might seem manageable even for a sceptic.
James: There is a big difference between blind faith and faith pending the result of an investigation. What if I tell you that I can show you the way to verify Vedanta’s counterintuitive assertion that you are unborn immortal whole and complete existence shining as awareness/consciousness? You might be inclined to learn the method of Self inquiry, since its statement about what we are removes a hard-wired well-earned sense of mortality. Whereas, if I can’t offer a practical way to prove my assertion, Vedanta is nothing more than a religion.
Vedanta is not a religion but it is not antagonistic to religion in so far as the religious impulse…to connect or re-connect to whatever gave us the precious gift of life and live forever…is as hard-wired as the belief that we will be denied eternal life when we die. It is a practical, seemingly hidden, means of Self experience/knowledge that frees the non-dual Self of the belief that it is mortal. A belief is not evidence of anything except itself, whereas direct experience/knowledge is. If you are not born, you cannot die. At the same time the religious impulse is very useful in so far as it prepares the mind to understand this life-saving knowledge.
Most Western people in the spiritual world are atheistic and have thrown the religious baby out with the bath because of the misery inflicted on humanity in its name, putting them at a disadvantage. The problem, however, is compounded by the foolish belief that nothing can be done to gain freedom from mortality…which is partially, but not absolutely, true. But if a person can see that freedom can be purchased with an effort to remove ignorance, he or she is well on the way to immortality. It should be a no-brainer to make this choice because maintaining ignorance is much more arduous than removing it with the help of a valid means of Self knowledge.
