No Actual Third Classification
Susan: You said: “It is always good to drop concepts when they have served their purpose. Speaking as the Self, from the paramarthika perspective, we can negate vyavaharika. All the same, vyavaharika may be a teaching principle “
The whole point of the talk I heard was and the reason I mentioned it in the previous mail is, that it is NOT a teaching principle Sankara ever wrote about. Shankara only wrote about 2 levels, not 3. For example, snake and rope only has 2 levels, not 3. Or the pot (pratibhaasika) and clay (paramarthika) only 2 levels, not 3. So vyavaharika is an unnecessary concept. That’s what I learned and made sense to me. It is interesting to think about how these unnecessary concept come about.
Sundari: It’s a good discussion, and I understand completely why Shankara made that distinction. As I said previously, the scripture is clear that there are the two orders of reality, satya and mithya. If one is still an inquirer, I agree that you can skip or drop vyvaharika when you understand satya and mithya, and your discrimination is always based on that, because the 3rd classification, vyvaharika, falls under pratibasika, the subjective reality. But until you understand that, vyvaharika must be understood. – otherwise, we have the problem the Neo’s have, which is denying the existence of objects all together. They have no means of knowledge to explain WHY all objects are 1) subjectively experienced, and 2) only apparently real.
As a Self-realized and Self-actualized person who is no longer an inquirer, there is only satya, always. Who needs classifications, or Vedanta for that matter, at that point? All of Vedanta can be dropped when the knowledge has assimilated. The means of knowledge is just a means, not an end. It is in mithya. There is no end and no beginning, just you, Awareness. To Self-actualize, it’s really important to move beyond the teacher and get rid of teaching remnants, which includes haggling over technical issues….!
But all the same, the 3rd classification is useful for everyone, samsari, inquirer or Self-actualized person, to discriminate mithya from mithya. Though everything is experienced through the senses and therefore subjective (pratibasika), there is nonetheless a classification necessary from the mithya perspective for things that we can all agree exist in form, tangible things – i.e., the empirical reality. Otherwise there is no lingua franca that we can all subscribe to in order to talk about anything and be understood. Self-knowledge does not make the jiva disappear, it still has an apparent existence and must function in the world and transact with ‘things’ and ‘others’.
You could get really precious and start talking nonduality to seem very clever, but that’s not freedom. Ignorance is only a problem when you don’t know what it is, and free people live and talk normally, acting as though they are people and things are things, even when they know they are not. It is how the liberated mind sees and responds to the world that has radically changed because you know that all of it is a dream appearing in you with no actual substance.
The dream is dependent on you but you are free of it. It is you and not you, so the subject/object split no longer obtains. And then, who cares about our subjective reality (which continues for everyone, Self-realized or not), or if we all call a chair a chair, or a body a body? We know that no matter how we feel about or ‘see’ the chair or a body or any object, it’s actually just atoms spinning in space, and both atoms and space are objects known to me. What fun we can have at that point….
Susan: I have no classifications …
Sundari: Yes, of course the Self has no classifications. I was not confused about what you actually meant. I know you understand this – it’s just a technical issue.
I am quite sure we are both very clear and on the same page about this!
Much love
Sundari
