Hi James and Sundari,
I deeply appreciate all the work you, James, and all the teachers put in. It’s a blessing to have these resources available to us.
Sundari: You are most welcome; we are only too happy to serve these priceless teachings as best we can.
Cliff: I’m in a bit of a confused state after reading The Vedartha Sangraha of Sri Ramanujacarya by S.S. Raghavachar for the second time. There are some very powerful arguments that go against the grain of Advaita Vedanta; namely the reality of the world, as embraced by his interpretations and Vishishtadvaita in general. Are there any compelling arguments to refute his ideas? Should they be integrated with Shankara—how, I can’t imagine? Any general caveats that could steer me in the right direction. Should his ideas simply be dismissed?
Sundari: This is a good question, Cliff. We both weighed in on it below.
James: Yes, Vashistavata (Qualified Non-Duality) “goes against the grain of Advaita.” It wants to have its cake and eat it too; meaning it wants to see both duality and non-duality as true. But if duality and non-duality are different, which one is the truth? There are many opinions about Truth but there is only one Truth. Advaita means “not two.” Because they don’t appreciate that a means of knowledge needs to be logic compatible, they are free to indulge their fantasies.
However, it doesn’t hurt to take “qualified” non-duality as a provisional teaching, although non-duality means there is nothing to qualify it. However, if you think you are a born, created entity, then you will not accept non-duality because duality is all you know. The world doesn’t teach non-duality because there is only duality from its perspective. So, out of compassion Vedanta, which objectifies both for the purpose of revealing the Self, speaks to freedom-seeking people on the dualistic level, meaning it presents the two-self idea. If a person has sufficient faith in the teaching, it will eventually “negate” duality without changing the experience of duality, while simultaneously providing access to the non-dual Self.
Both duality and non-duality can be true if both words refer to the same thing. In this sense one might call it “qualified” non-duality with the understanding that nothing qualifies non-duality. With this understanding the world is taken to be real, but not remotely. It always appears as an object apart from myself, Consciousness/Awareness.
And it is a simple fact that whereas what I see may be me, I am never what I see. When it is understood in this way, duality “becomes” non-duality. I see that I have always been experiencing non-duality, am experiencing it now, and will always experience it, appearances to the contrary not-withstanding. It appears like a movie appears on a screen. It seems there is an association as you watch but the association doesn’t remain when the movie ends. To enjoy it I need to temporarily suspend the belief that I am watching a movie. But once the experience is over, I default to my original self. No harm done.
Without the help of metaphor, here is a logical argument that points out that there are not two realities. If there are two realities, we would experience two realities, but nobody experiences two realities at the same time. Non-dual means there are no temporal divisions. Everyone is the same Self experiencing the world as myself. That Self may be momentarily deluded and think that the world is different from it, but a bit of Vedanta will eventually disabuse it of this notion.
It must be this way because if something is known, it is possible for it not to be known. The problem with the post-Shankara people is that they were never taught by a proper non-dualist. No blame. They simply weren’t lucky.
Sundari: Yes. The subject-object split has not only never been dissolved by them, they work at maintaining it. They do not see or understand the inherent contradiction because they do not have access to the complete non-dual teachings. What they do not understand is that once the subject/object split is dissolved, then you enjoy the world for what it is, notwithstanding the apparent built in gains and losses associated with the inherent emptiness of objects. If you see everything as you, the Self, you can be attached to anything and everything without loss or fear. That is where love becomes life, and everything is about love, capital ‘L”. Not only as a legitimate unconditional non-dual feeling (parabhakti) but as non-dual knowledge too.
James: Duality is the icing on the non-dual cake. It’s where the joy, the love is. The Narada Bhakti Sutras point out this fact.
Sundari: Duality is a lot of fun when you know what it is, but it is cruel when you do not. Dualistic bhakti through the lens of nonduality is worshipping and enjoying the world as it actually is, not as it appears to be. Life becomes love, a devotional play. Everything here is about love.
James: Love is missing in this whole Ramanuja Vashistadvaita argument. These guys…dare I say it?…are emotionally challenged hair-splitting intellectuals. Six centuries later Vidyaranya Swami put them to bed with a clever humorous statement. He said that the world is “appearing non-existence.” If you don’t get that you are non-dual love and the world isn’t different from you, you’re going to have problems. What use is a philosophy, not that Vedanta is a philosophy, that doesn’t deal with love, the most important human issue?
Sundari: It’s very difficult to make everything about love because to a dualist, there’s so much suffering that contradicts it. But nondual knowledge takes care of suffering because the mind is identified with the knower of the apparent suffering. The knower’s nature is love.
James: Yes, if the world is real then then suffering is real. Pain is inevitable for the body-mind-sense complex because it is in the world, but suffering is optional. Suffering is unconsciously added because people don’t know they are actually whole and complete uncreated existence shining as non-dual love, the Self.
Sundari: For dualists life is an existential mess. It’s pointless.
A Means of Knowledge
James: To beat suffering, you must accept Vedanta as a means of knowledge for the Truth. The qualified non-dualists came up after Shankara. They couldn’t understand his brahma satyam jagan mithya jivo brahmaive na parah statement which means, “Existence shining as whole and complete Awareness (the Self) is real; the individual (jiva) and the Self are non-different. Here’s the analysis.
Brahma satyam jagan mithya is duality. It says the world (jagat) and the Self are different. Satya means real and mithya means seemingly real. But he removes duality with the qualifying statement, jivo brahmaiva na parah. Jivo does not refer to the created living and dying entity we are conditioned to think we are, although it is certainly taken that way by everyone who hasn’t been taught non-duality properly. If the world is mithya (apparently real), then the jiva is apparently real because all created entities are products created by the world. But nobody thinks they are apparently real. They think they are produced by the union of a real sperm and a real egg manufactured by two differently gendered real bodies, a mom and pop. So, the seemingness of the world is very difficult for people to accept.
The jiva Shankara is talking about is not a created entity. It is the non-dual Self momentarily deluded by the belief that it is the body. Brahma satyam and jagan mithya are different but they are the same too. To get your head around this idea, you need to include a third factor, the knower of both.
You Can’t Interpret a Means of Knowledge
The whole issue boils down to the fact that you can’t interpret a means of knowledge. Vedanta is a means of knowledge because it stands on its own – beyond personal interpretations or beliefs. You can interpret a philosophy or a school of thought, which are only the beliefs and opinions of individuals, or groups of individuals, and which only validate themselves. They are not true for everyone.
They do not teach the seeker that he or she stands alone as Awareness, which is the message of Vedanta. Most people familiar with Vedic thought, have the idea that there are six “schools” of Hindu philosophy of which Vedanta is one, or several different types of Vedanta, but Vedanta is not a philosophy. It is a means of knowledge. In fact, it is incorrect to use the word advaita with Vedanta because Vedanta is a dualistic means of knowledge that reveals the non-dual nature of reality by removing erroneous notions about it.
Sundari: As stated above, the most problematic statement you make is how to interpret Vedanta with reference to Vishishtadvaita in general. Everything should be worked out with reference to an impersonal means of knowledge, not the other way around. A means of knowledge is scientific. It can be verified by anyone. Without science, meaning knowledge, the world would grind to a halt.
James: Exactly. You don’t throw out the testimony of the ears because the eyes see something differently, because the eyes are just seeing what the ears are hearing. They just express it in two different languages.
Sundari: So, the Vashistadvaita guys are just using their own words, the meanings of which are arbitrary, which is confusing.
James: Yes.
Sundari: We need to establish common-sense words that point to the essence of our human experience and show how ignorance of the non-dual Self is producing suffering-producing words.
James: Vedanta is a word means of knowledge, unlike the sense organs. It doesn’t produce non-duality because non-dual reality is not produced. Non-duality is a fact, but it is a fact that is concealed by erroneous notions in the form of words: beliefs, opinions, biases, fantasies, etc. which we call Ignorance or Maya.
So, these are the arguments that negate the Vedarta Sangraha of Sri Ramanuja by S. S. Raghavachar, Cliff. You are absolutely correct when you say, “I can’t imagine how they can be integrated with Shankara.”
Finally, the arguments of the Qualified Non-Dualists are not powerful on their own. Their power is generated by the nearly universal belief that reality is a duality. People become defensive and naturally bristle with anger when they are told that the way they see reality is delusional. They are happy to defend duality tooth and nail. But these words lose their power when you have been properly taught non-duality. A proper teaching is logic compatible. So, qualified duality is one less idea you need to contend with. Nothing qualifies the Self.
Love,
James and Sundari
