Colleagues,
Let me state the background of what I write below.
I have studied texts of Keno, Mandukya, Tattirya Upanishads -
the source of much that Wilber describes (incl. but not limited
to Turiya). Secondly, I have put together a whole chapter on
consciousness in Indian philosophy in my book which I have
fondly titled "Awareness and Consciousness - Discovery,
Distinction and Evolution. The New Upanishad."
The first imp. thing to remember is the context of
these philosophies - most are complilation from various sources
with unknown authors. Most of it probably written between 9th
century BC and 1st Century AD because lot of these discussions
are part of writings by
Adi
Shankaracharya around 1st AD. Lot of this thinking rises
in the period of Buddhism's primacy and prevalence in India.
Indeed, there were 3-4 centuries after Mahatma Buddh when
materialism (in context of primacy of sensory inputs) and
atheism (Both Buddhism and
Jainism are
atheistic) were at its peak in India and the predominant
philosophy of India/Indians. Both Buddha's teachings and Jainism
are atheistic religions.
Lack of any outside God (in Buddhism &
Jainism) led to a major focus on the inside capabilities of
humans and their exploitation. Once informed that there is no
divinity outside of human body, the only other place to look for
it is inside. Mahatma (means great soul) Buddh and Mahavir (the
brave) Jain were contemporaries & both developed the art of
meditation. Jain indeed developed innumerable experiments with
human body through pain-pleasure, hunger-satiation paradigms to
which Buddha did not subscribe, and gave the world the middle
path.
The reasons for providing the aforementioned
background are
A) it is important to understand that these were
outcomes of exceptionally deep thinking cuddled in materialistic
and atheistic backgrounds. And an outcome of implosion of ideas
rather than explosion - vector of research - pointing inside
one's body & brain rather than outside. This is the period
of great inventions and discoveries. The time of
Sushrata
(the first known surgeon/physician to humankind) and many other
like him.
B) it is the peak of development of experiential
versus the myths. The concept of third party objectivity did not
exist at all. So the comparison could/should be made only
between the then two predominant schools of thought - mythical
and the experiential (though subjective). It is important to
note that this is the 'pre-faith' era (hence myths not
faith ruled). In India this was the age of peaking of
experiential sciences - creation of methods that could enable
individuals to practice and experience heuristically, that which
is propounded or projected to be achieved. There is no guarantee
that the nothingness (say in meditation) of highest form of
meditational experiences by one was same as that experienced by
other. But that both experienced something that they usually do
not (hence transcendental) and decided to title it 'nothingness'
was much better than experiencing nothing and just chanting
something foolish and false one was told (myths). The
experiential, therefore was a major progress over irrational
& false myths.
Now with this background, concepts of non-duality developed then
were completely disengaged thought. Disengaged from the then
existing reality. It was a few millenia in advance. Quite like
teachings of Buddh. For all subscribing to rationalism, this one
statement by Buddh encompasses truth, morality and most other
things. At the cost of reiteration...
"Don't believe, don't believe only because you have been told, or it has been transmitted to you by tradition, or you have thought on your own and adopted it. Don't believe what your Guru (teacher) has told you because you hold him in high esteem. Examine it, adequately analyze it, and when you discover a thought beneficial to all, good for the majority, in welfare of all living beings, believe in it, adopt it. Such thought will be path revealing, because that belief will be self-made and hence resolute."
Non-duality is a great hypothesis, but it is not yet
objective in its structure. It is at best a conjecture. As
described in Upanishads, it is not just subjective but is
experiential in nature. I think it is up to us to discuss, probe,
experiment & prove it right or wrong with methodologies that
are modern. I think neurocognitive sciences with physics in its
core, will prove or disapprove non-duality subsequently, till then
it is one of the greatest and brightest conjectures humankind ever
made. It has to be noted that at best, non-duality is not the
absolute truth but the representation of it. Quite like a sphere
is a representation of a complex plane. The Complex plane does not
exist, it is a mathematical abstraction for representing a sphere
(mathematically) on a Descartes plane. It is very important to
underline that the capability of an abstraction to solve certain
physical problem does not make the abstraction real. It is just an
information-manipulative, discovered reason for a physical truth
for which a real reason is not found or is not easy to be found
and in some rare cases a real reason might not exist (this happens
in case of informational truths, which have no physical existence
at all). A good example was Medeleev's table, which was (on basis
of a deduced rule) propounded much before real elements were
discovered.
The aforementioned is also a cause of endless
confusions, when the quantum non-duality is confused with the
Turiya and so on. Non-duality, non-locality, entanglement,
superposition, causality & retrocausality, co-occurrence are
very different in quantum mechanics & theory of fields that
they way these terms get used in philosophy. And philosophers pick
a physics idea operational under very specific conditions and
apply it somewhere, where it is not applicable and makes little
sense. It is important to note that phenomena existing in quantum
states do not scale to millimetres. They remain restricted to the
quantum world & are a truth of that world, which in some cases
is beyond our observation and even causality as we experience it.
Non-duality or non-locality in the QM and Upanishads is completely
different and not applicable, when exchanged in position.
Gregg, to bring my thought (that we terminated
for lack of time through our conversation yesterday) to
expression, I see that a quiet push to experiential sciences
is happening today through advanced IT, AI quatum computing
etc. It will lead to resolution of non-duality, as a spin off.
The kernel of objective science lay in Abrahamic
religions that created the society as the centre of experience.
Taking the experiential centre out from inside a human to a point
outside & common to all striping it of subjectivity to the
extent possible. These are salient features that are absorbed by a
toddler as he grows. I call it the social-subconcious - that we
teach & children learn without either us being consciously
aware of teaching & children of learning. It led to
termination of experiential (which would go no to be considered
Devilish, puritanical, pagan, prudish and worse case - witchcarft)
in west. This led to a need of socially acceptable knowledge
rather than personally experienced one. Subsequently, leading to
rapid development of technology as objective knowledge could be
easily & quickly disseminated through reproduced writing, the
need of tutoring was reduced substantially. Indeed monotheism
implied that the internal in all humans has to be concurred to one
external (hence universal morality & one God). This brought in
the need for uniformity - hence wars to convert the world to
Christianity, then Islam. The subjective & experiential was
considered chaotic. Which in some sense is true, because handling
plurality needs a very advanced culture. I see Communism was
actually the epitomy of Abrahamic thought when uniformity was
taken one step further than the spiritual (religious) to the
fields of sociology and even linguistically. All 15 Republics of
USSR were made to speak Russian and social equality became a norm.
But this required a major social differential to be settled -
Resources (Economics). Communism went ahead and made it uniform
too.
Capitalism in that sense is a less developed or less
than optimal aspect of Abrahmic thought. Communism took
externalization and uniformity to its true peak. The capitalist
west in some sense was standing 100metres below Everest, the
Germans (Engels & Marx) even devised the last lap gameplan,
but the Russians snatched the plan and acted on it taking western
monotheistic thought to its logical end - to communism the Everest
of Abrahamic thought. Once the absolute truth is taken from inside
of a human brain to a point outside, and everyone is asked to
match his internal state to the agreed or anointed outside point,
the next logical thing is to ensure that the milieu of existence
is also brought to uniformity, which was the undercurrent of
communism (It merits mention that I am in awe of certain amazing
features of Soviet Communism - like patronage of sciences, social
equality, etc. as I am personally a witness of it all. And I feel
immensely pained to see that Russians in the process of aping the
west, threw the baby with the bath!)
Capitalism (economics) ran contradictory to the
professed social uniformity as it allowed exploration of
subjectivity & the experiential as it made Corporations
explore that which a consumer likes (likeability being internal
& experiential in nature) and not that which is supplied.
Consumerism & Abrahamic thought is dichotomous. Fact is
communism really was a bid to execute equality and uniformity as
desired by Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity &
Islam).
The dawn of the objective (adjective) subjective
(noun) is approaching fast. Thanks to Google, Facebook, AI and
Information Technology, it is today possible to handle plurality
much easier. Thus, there is a major push to enable objective
(statistical) understanding of the experiential. This will lead to
development of the Experiential & Stoichiometric Sciences. And
will one fine day lead to proving or disproving of non-duality.
Will appreciate queries, if any. I hope I am clear
in my expression.
TY
Deepak Loomba
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I actually just caught this email and
watched the interview. Like you Andre, I was following
their conversation in great depth and can't say I
learned much, but still a great interview (Ken doesn't
tend to look so lively since he broke his legs, but he
looked good in this).
I believe you and I have a difference
of opinion when it comes to our ontologies, as I
almost always concede to a nondual reality in
discussions and my own logic.
I definitely agree Wilber loses many
people with his sort of cockiness. In his defense he
mainly lives in his ILP world wherein he is pretty
much worshipped, I can't imagine how hard it would
be to be extroverted and have that kind of following
without coming off as he does.
As a fan of Wilber, I'd like to think
that is the truest explanation. But while I'm sure
it contributes I think the man is really just that
sure of himself, a certainty that's been wielded by
far worse hands.
Regards,
Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.
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