SELF-KNOWLEDGE

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Adhyatma Yoga and Advaita Vedanta

The highest wisdom experienced by the Seers of Truth has been passed down from ancient times to the present day through a line of traditional teachers. Its metaphysical side, Advaita Vedanta, establishes by reasoning a non-dualistic explanation of the universe; its practical side, Adhyatma Yoga, gives guidance on the life of thought and action, so that the purpose of life may be fulfilled. The essential teachings are:

The universe is a phenomenal expression of the supreme Reality, which is by nature Existence-Consciousness-Bliss Absolute.

Our innermost Self transcends the limitations of body, mind and ego, and is not other than the supreme Reality.

The purpose of life is conscious realisation of this identity, and this can be achieved while engaged in the duties of life.

Self-realisation gives unbroken peace, poise and bliss. It is the ultimate goal sought consciously or unconsciously through philosophy and religion, art and science.

The one Reality reveals and pervades all beings, and underlies the highest teachings found in the world’s religious traditions.

Shanti Sadan is a Centre of Adhyatma Yoga, founded in 1933 by the late Hari Prasad Shastri, where the teachings continue to be given and practised in the traditional way.

Information about meetings and events can be found at shantisadan.org/meetings

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Winter 2025

Vol. 76 No. 1

Contents

The Temple Cave of One’s Own Self

Seeing Beyond Differences

The Nature of Truth

The Absolute as the Lord of Maya

Giordano Bruno, Friend of Truth

Educating the Mind

Upanishadic Ideas in the Taoist Texts

Does Experience Affect Consciousness?

Direct Experience of Reality

Nicholas of Cusa as Scientist

Being and Becoming

The Temple Cave of One’s Own Self

If we consult a dictionary for words that begin with ‘self-’, we will find among the eighty or so entries two main types of word: those which point to certain qualities, and a few abstract nouns suggestive of something deeper. Thus we are reminded of qualities which many would feel are assets, such as self-control, self-sufficiency, self-help, self-defence—all suggesting that we are doing a good job in getting through life. On the negative side, we have words like self-deception, self-conceit, self-righteousness and self-will. There are crossovers and ambiguities; the happenings of life often prompt us to see qualities like self-assertion and self-love with a fresh understanding, and our attitude may change completely.

Turning to words of more abstract meaning that start with ‘self-’, we pass into a less colourful but vastly more spacious terrain. Consider words like self-existence, self-consciousness, self-evident and even the minimalist ‘selfhood’, defined as ‘the quality by virtue of which one is oneself; that which constitutes one’s individuality’. Such brief explanations, which keep self free from finite qualities, are clearly insufficient, and leave us in doubt whether any form of words can lead to inner clarity.

This mystery about the true nature and composition of the self is at the heart of the non-dual philosophical enquiry. The self-realisation that it leads to reveals that not only are we a mixture of qualities supported by a ground that is self-existent, self-evident and self-conscious, but that these abstractions have their true being as the ultimate ‘I’ and that ‘I’ is subtle, boundless and one without a second.

The true nature of the Self cannot be denoted by words, and is itself nameless and formless. And yet, as our examination of the self- words indicated, Self cannot be other than self-conscious, self-existent and self-evident. But a deeper kind of self-enquiry is necessary in order to realise the Self directly. Self has to be realised as free from attributes, whether these be qualities of character or the more refined and abstract conceptions generated by the mind in its speculations.

The enquiry into what turns out to be the total freedom of the true Self (moksha) is not wholly unfamiliar to reflective Western writers and philosophers. Of particular relevance is a state of being that the poet Tennyson entered into as a result of silently repeating his own name:

Till all at once, out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the individual itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being.

It was an experience ‘utterly beyond words, yet clear and sure, where death was an almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality... the only true life’. His poem ‘The Ancient Sage’ confirms that to realise that which is Nameless one must ‘dive into the Temple-cave of one’s own Self, there brooding by the central altar’.

In practice it is hard to realise the inner freedom, because our I-sense seems to be inextricably bound up with the qualities of the mind, whether we feel these are assets or liabilities. Sometimes egoism in the narrow ‘selfish’ sense, seems rampant, and this self-will blocks higher insight. But we are also taught that self, I or ego is the great clue to the indwelling presence of the supreme reality, because of its interiority. When we silently enter the temple cave of our own highest being, looking inwardly ‘beyond personality’, the certainty of that higher nature will manifest. As the dictionary says of self-realisation, it is the fulfilment by one’s own efforts of the possibilities of development of the self.

Seeing Beyond Differences

The practice of meditation involves both stilling the mind and filling the mind. The two overlap and have the same aim, which is to be free of what seems to separate us from what is most real and fulfilling in ourselves and in all.

We find that stilling the mind relieves us of much tension and distraction, revealing a relative peace and expansiveness. And we find that the most effective way to quieten the inner noise and chatter is to focus on a chosen thought or symbol, an idea with qualities that attract and absorb our full attention.

Ideal subjects for meditation and contemplation are distilled from the non-dual wisdom teaching that our own essence, our self, is awareness-consciousness, which is identical in all human beings. And underlying the outer world of matter and energy is a principle more subtle than physical energy. Ultimately, the realisation is that the Self in everyone, and the Reality in everything, is pure existence-awareness-perfection.

At the time dedicated to meditation practice, we do not discuss or analyse the philosophy behind such statements: we take them as reliable signposts and focus one-pointedly on what they indicate. It is at other times in our life of inquiry that we read or listen to the teachings, and then think deeply about them and integrate the essential ideas into our view of the world.

Here we will reflect on a question at the heart of the non-dual philosophy, remembering that the reason for doing so is to gain an understanding that will resolve confusion and doubts and lead us to inner clarity, serenity and focus.

We hear, and we understand, that ultimately all is one. And this makes sense. How could there be more than one reality? And we find that this oneness can be conceived as comparable to an ocean in which all the objects are like waves. The ocean is vast and continuous and the waves are small and separate; but ultimately the ocean and waves are all water.

With analogies like this we find a way of beginning to recognise unity among diversity, and to see an unchanging, universal reality underlying what is apparently transient and divided.

We know that such analogies are not perfect. There is one way in which the analogy of ocean and waves— and clay and pots and the rest—are clearly inadequate, which could leave us with a restless uncertainty.

It may be said that things relate to the One as waves to water. But objects do have the defining qualities which make them what they are. There is a real difference between rice and sand, between fruits and leaves, even from the same tree, as trying to eat both will confirm!

So in active life, can we really see through the differences and say that all is ultimately one? Can we? Or is it only possible to hold the view of unity in philosophical discussions and meditation sessions, but not in practical life? If so it will bring us limited contentment.

It may be said that the differences and divisions among things belong to appearances and not to reality. Can this distinction solve the difficulty? We know, for example, that the colour of objects depends on the workings of our eyes and nerves. How things appear, taste and the rest, depend on our senses and metabolism. And we know that what seems to be solid matter from our usual point of view turns out to be much less dense when scientifically analysed. Therefore many of the different features of the way things appear, turn out to be just that, appearances rather than entirely real.

To say that the appearance of things is different to how they really are, does not mean that they do not exist in their own way. If we all see a stone and an apple we know that in both cases our senses are interacting with something, and those somethings must be different.

What is that something behind the appearance in each case? Philosophers have called it ‘the thing-in-itself’. Or it may be referred to as the ‘noumenon’, where ‘phenomenon’ means the world of forms as we experience them, and ‘noumenon’ means this ‘thing-in-itself’ behind the appearance.

As students of non-duality, and meditators looking for the direct experience of non-separation, we find a deep question here. We understand that things are not merely ‘all in the mind’; they exist independently of our mind and senses. At the same time, the noumena behind phenomena have their own particular qualities and they change, so that apples are good for eating and stones are good for building, but not the other way around! We find therefore that these things-in-themselves are not just appearances, they obey the laws of cause and effect, and at the same time they are different from the One, the non-dual, the ultimate Reality, which does not come and go, and is not divided in time and space. And so the whole world of forms seems to be not just an appearance and not absolutely Real either. What then is it?

Compelled by the significance of this question, and what seem to be the undeniable facts of our situation, thoughtful human beings are widely led to the conclusion that in some inexplicable way the world of forms and change has come into being out of the original absolute oneness, and that this creation must be the effect of some supreme creative power that originates in the absolute.

If this line of thought is followed, it leads to a picture of Reality which includes the original oneness, the creative power, and the created world. And within the created world are we human beings, experiencing the interaction between our senses and the rest of the world.

According to this account, it may be said that the world as created by the creator is what is called ‘the thing in itself’. And the phenomenal world we experience is the interaction between our mind and nerves and the rest of creation.

Something like this vision is found throughout the religious and philosophical traditions of the world. But does it really resolve all the difficulties? Or does it leave more questions than it answers? On this view, reality has become divided and formed something separate from itself. But there is no explanation of how that could be. This is clearly not a fully satisfying conclusion. And it leaves us uncertain about the reality beyond our mind; our experience is still restricted to the level of forms and change, including the radical change we call death. So long as these gaps in our understanding remain, there will be cause for inner restlessness.

It is often said, rightly, that the mind cannot solve these ultimate questions, being itself a detail of the whole, and that the solution has to be sought in transcending the mind. So let us try to understand our situation in a way that is most conducive to the inner clarity and serenity that opens a way to transcendence.

We have been thinking of how everything comes into being as a process that unfolds in space and time. We have conceived of the original oneness becoming multiform—perhaps with something like a bang!—and that from there evolves the universe of forms, in which emerges life, and eventually human beings. Apparently associated with human beings, is self-consciousness, and now Reality seems to include both Reality in itself and our apparently individualised experiences of the world, with all the complexity that involves. What a drama!

The change of perspective that may help us is this. It is to appreciate that the phenomenal world and our situation do not have an origin in space and time. How then does it occur?

Words are limited, but we may point to the answer by saying that the phenomenal world and mind cannot be separated. It is not that one precedes the other; they necessarily occur indivisibly. We may think of the phenomenal world as experienced by mind, or of mind as occurring in the phenomenal world; the meaning in both cases is identical. Wherever there is mind, there is the phenomenal world of cause and effect. And wherever there is cause and effect, it is being known in the mind.

Now it is clear that the world of causality and mind, or of mind and causality, is not itself the product of a causal or mental event outside or prior to mind and causality. Where there is no experience in the mind, there is no phenomenal world. Where there is no phenomenal world, there is no mind, no experience. There is non-dual being-consciousness-absoluteness.

Are we implying that individual minds may be understood as something like particles of what could be called universal mind? And that the objects with which our minds interact are also comparable to fragments of the universal mindstuff? Provisionally, yes, we could say so. We may usefully conceive of each individual mind as an instance of mind in general, just as every movement is an instance of motion. Where there are no movements, there is no motion; and where there is no mind, there is no world. There is absolute Self, and no otherness.

The practical point is that as we practise contemplation and meditation there is no need for disquiet, confusion or anxiety regarding the origin and nature of the world, or what might happen if we withdraw our attention from objects and bring the mind to stillness. All will be revealed as in its right place, or noplace.

In active life, and in scientific and philosophic investigation, we consciously use our mind and senses as instruments, knowing that our experience is the interaction between these mental instruments and everything else. At these times, which may be much of the day, the conscious use of the mind as a tool is the best way of dealing with practicalities. And it is also good practice for the way of inner inquiry, because to make the mind an instrument is to effectively affirm that mind is not Self.

Self is the conscious awareness that ‘reveals’ the mind and phenomena. And this being-awareness is not from a point in space and time, or from within the mental world. Conscious awareness, Self, is transcendent. The Self, our true Self, does not know, or witness, a ‘field’ of experience from any finite perspective; Self is the whole unbound, infinite conscious-awareness which makes all and any experience possible.

The highest goal, the essential need, is freedom from the apparent experience of being contained in the mind-world of space-time, and to know directly our true Self as absolute being-consciousness-bliss. And we find ourselves seemingly isolated and separated precisely when we are identified with the mind: when our lived experience is that this individual mind and body is my self, and that the phenomenal world I experience through the mind affects my self. This is what seems to hide our true nature as absolute conscious-reality.

How are we to uncover our true identity? Evidently, by ceasing to identify with the mind and its contents. Does this mean that the mind has to stop working entirely as a centre of experience? No, this is neither practical nor necessary. The need is to quieten those mental movements, the thoughts and feelings, that express separation and isolation.

These are the thoughts of acceptance and rejection, of like and dislike. When the mind ceases to affirm multiplicity through separative reactions, and meets all experience with equanimity, then the mind effectively becomes no-mind, transparent. Then phenomena are known for what they are, and the light of absolute consciousness shines in, and through, all forms and changes.

What is needed is in principle simple, but evidently in practice requires patience, determination and balance! How are we to find the inner resources and skill required to wean the mind off its habitual reactions?

It is by learning, in principle and practice, that bliss cannot be extracted from any finite object, outer or inner; and that the ultimate root of suffering also, is not in events themselves, but in the mental reactions.

Our equilibrium is not disturbed by objects, but by the mind’s own reactions of acceptance and rejection which affirm, this affects me. The trigger and potency of such reactions is gradually lost when through reflection and experience we learn that all phenomena have their place in the phenomenal world; and that Bliss is not found in anything or anywhere: Bliss is the nature of the Self. The more we realise this, the less our sense of identity is invested in the moving mind, and what remains is the true I, non-separate pure being, limitless consciousness, taintless bliss.

How does this apply in daily life? In the course of each day we are likely to have pleasant experiences, less pleasant ones, to spend some time with our closest life companions, and some with relative strangers. All this is an opportunity to live consciously, sensitive and receptive to every quality we meet. Each form can remind us that all forms are transient. We recognise the same pure consciousness as the one reality in each and all. Then, all joys, consciously experienced, will confirm that true joy and beauty is found where there is no separation.

B.D.

The Nature of Truth

Why ask: ‘What is Truth?’ The question springs from one of the most fundamental urges in the human mind. This instinct to learn the truth or reality of things, is the spur driving scientists to make their discoveries. It is present in every human heart, and if this urge is stifled, we are reduced to the position of a machine or lower animal. Only we ask the question: ‘What is Truth?’ and when this question is no longer raised, we cease to be human.

The reality of an object is not in the attributes revealed to our senses. A single object gives different sense impressions in proportion as our sensory faculties are developed. To a one-celled amoeba an extremely limited impression is given; a child apprehends much more, but less than a mature person; while one who has learnt to develop intuitive wisdom, has much fuller and clearer impressions than the normal person.

In what then does the ‘reality’ of the object exist which gives such diverse impressions? It cannot exist in the impressions, so we must connect it with the ‘unchanging nature’ of the object by which alone we can identify it as the ‘same’ object appearing in different guises to different persons. The first thing we can say about the reality of an object is that its nature is the same or ‘unchanging’. As a working definition, (for in the absolute sense it is indefinable) we may say that reality, or Truth, is ‘that which does not contradict itself’. Appearances are contradicted by subsequent knowledge, and so they cannot be absolute Truth. It is misty and we think we see the stump of a tree on the hillside. Coming nearer we find it is a man and, nearer still, that it is a well-known acquaintance. Appearances, because contradicted by subsequent knowledge, cannot be called absolute Truth.

Falsehood would be meaningless if there were no truth. Consider the self-contradiction in the proposition: ‘There is no such thing as truth’, which condemns itself as false and hence asserts the existence of truth! Nor can we escape the fact that the recognition that worldly objects are transient points to a permanent reality (the only standard by which their instability can be gauged). This continual flux of the phenomenal objects must stand on an unchanging substratum.

The Upanishads teach an Absolute Reality and a relative one. Absolute Reality is that which can never be denied, which transcends time, space, causation, or any of their modifications or effects. Relative reality is the reality as between objects, between mind and phenomena and so forth. ‘Mithya’ is the word used in the dictum ‘God is real and the world “unreal”’. ‘Unaccountable’ would be a more accurate translation than ‘unreal’. The non-dual philosophy does not consider the world to be unreal in the sense of non-existent, like a creature of the imagination. If it were so, no impressions of it would be possible such as are experienced by us. But the philosophy holds that it has no independent existence, resting as it does on the substratum of Absolute Truth, Reality or God, all terms attempting to describe the one indescribable Being. Can there be more than one Truth? The Upanishads speak of the Absolute Brahman as One without a Second, because one, two and three are only concepts of our world of time, space and causation, which Truth infinitely transcends. Truth or God must be One without a Second and it is on the substratum of Truth that the whole world exists.

A corollary of the above is that if you know God or Truth, there is nothing else to be known: in other words, you will be omniscient. Do not try to ask: ‘What is God?’ or ‘Where is God?’ for you are thereby reducing Him to an object of a certain size and with certain qualities. Realize that the enquiring voice within you asking ‘What is God?’ is God Himself, and turn your mind inwards to learn the true nature of your own Self, which is God or Truth.

H.P.S.

The Absolute as the Lord of Maya

From the Shankara Source Book, Volume Two, Shankara on the Creation

The usages to which Shankara puts the term ‘maya’ may be analysed briefly as follows. It is found in certain non-philosophical contexts in the non-technical sense of duplicity or dishonest dealings in the world, but these passages have no relevance to our present enquiry. Its most common meaning is ‘magic’. It is clear from the literature of Shankara’s day that there was a widespread belief that certain strolling magicians had the power to induce visions and hallucinations by hypnotism, not of mere individuals alone but also of whole congregations of spectators. In fact there is evidence that such mass-hypnotists still existed in India in recent times. Two well-known literary works, probably composed about Shankara’s day, the romance of Dandin in called ‘The Ten Princes’ and Shri Harsh’s play ‘The Pearl Necklace’, provide colourful pictures of a mass-hypnotist, armed with a peacock’s feather wand, conjuring forth magic visions at the court or palace of a king. Another source makes it clear that mass-hypnosis was involved, in that it speaks of the juggler’s power to attune the minds of many observers gathered in an assembly to one and the same false vision.

Magic or hypnotism per se have nothing to do with philosophy. But Shankara puts the word ‘maya’ in the sense of hypnotist’s magic to philosophical use through comparison. Invoking the Indian rope trick he can say, ‘Just as the real magician is different from his unreal image climbing the rope, so is the supreme Lord different from the individual soul’. Often the intention of such illustrations is not merely to bring out the illusory nature of the object that has been compared to the magic display, but also to emphasize that the Creator of it is not touched by his creation and that the latter is effortless.

Shankara also uses the term ‘maya’ in a religious rather than a philosophical sense, inspired by Brahminical and Vedic sources.

Shankara was able to preserve this tradition because he took the Maya of the Lord, the great cosmic power of the Lord spoken of in the Epics, Purānas and earlier tradition, as that through which, though remaining one, He* manifested as the universe in all its variety. Maya so conceived was a power comparable to that of the masshypnotist, a power exercised without effort and involving no activity or change on his part, of hiding his true nature as infinite Consciousness and appearing under manifest finite forms that were illusory and did not, from the standpoint of the highest truth, exist.

Shankara identified the traditional religious conception of the Lord’s ‘power of Maya with the ‘name and form’ spoken of in the Upanishads. In this sense it was for him neither identical with, nor different from the Absolute. It was non-different from the Absolute and so not a second thing over against it, in that it was entirely dependent on the existence of the Absolute for its existence and never available without the latter.

This also followed from the fact of its being a mere illusory appearance. But an illusory appearance is not only an ‘appearance of’ but an ‘appearance to’. As ‘appearance of’, an illusory appearance cannot be anything real and different from that of which it is an appearance. But as ‘appearance to’, it cannot be identical with that which witnesses it as an object.

The Witness of the world-appearance, by the very fact of being Witness of it, is different from it and not affected by its distinctions, nor is it any of the psycho-physical organisms that form part of the appearance, for within every psyche there exists a changeless principle of Consciousness witnessing the rise and fall of its vicissitudes, and therefore different from it. It is impossible to point to any differentiation in the latter or to anything which could cause any differentiation in it. Hence it has to be accepted as the one Witness and knower of all experiences, the same in all bodies. Shankara calls it the Self (atman) and also the Lord (ishvara). The world appears before it and is therefore not identical with it.

But there is also the other aspect of the world-appearance, its aspect as ‘appearance of’. Ignoring the ambiguity in the word ‘appearance’ and adhering to the meaning ‘false appearance’, we may say that it is never available without the reality of which it is a false appearance. Hence, while a false appearance is not determinable as identical with that of which it is an appearance, it is not determinable as different from it either. Where, as in the case of the world-appearance (prapanca), the reality is Consciousness, this has important implications. Because the Absolute is pure Consciousness (cit), it is not merely the passive ground of the illusion, as the rope is the mere passive ground of the appearance of the snake. The objective, non-conscious element in the world-illusion, some phases of which are mental and are illumined by a reflection of Consciousness, has no existence independent of pure Consciousness, any more than the illusory snake has existence independent of the rope when a rope is mistaken for a snake in the dark.

Thus the world is through and through penetrated by Consciousness, as the snake is by the rope. Consciousness not only witnesses the world-appearance but is reflected in it and witnesses the reflection. As reflected in certain phases of the world-appearance, the more subtle phases that constitute mind, Consciousness appears to become diffracted into separate units in line with distinctions in the external reflecting medium (upadhi). Such distinctions affect only Consciousness qua reflected in the medium, and not pure Consciousness, which is ever and everywhere one and the same, a mere Witness.

Units of reflected Consciousness constitute souls (jiva). Belonging to the phenomenal world, souls have the powers of knowledge and activity within that realm in varying degrees, ranging from the powers of plants upwards through the animal and human kingdoms, and reaching even higher to celestial beings and deities, culminating in the world-soul, otherwise known as Prajapati, Hirayagarbha or Brahma, at the top. They depend for these powers, which fall wholly within the world-illusion, on the Light of the Witness, which is itself not literally a power, though it is sometimes referred to as such when considered in relation to its illusory external adjuncts. In truth, however, it is not in any way characterised by motion or change, and is for that very reason eternal and real.

The view that the Lord, though pure Consciousness in his true nature, is somehow at the same time an active being manipulating his power of Maya, is appropriate and useful for the development of the religious consciousness, which is a necessary preliminary before the final stages of the spiritual path for most people. But if it is taken as the final truth, it will imply that the Lord is an agent and is subject to change and is consequently Himself phenomenal. The stricter usage, therefore, is to reserve the terms Hirayagarbha, Brahmā or Prajāpati for the world-soul and to use the term ‘Ishvara’ (the Lord) to denote pure Consciousness as Witness and that by whose Light the worldsoul and all living beings carry out their powers of activity and knowledge within the phenomenal world.

Within the world-appearance there are deities or powers which carry out their cosmic functions owing to the presence within them of the Light of the Lord, who is Himself a motionless, actionless Witness. So Shankara says, ‘Thus the lordship, omniscience and omnipotence of the Lord exist relative to the limitations and distinctions of nescience only, and in reality there can be no practice of rulership or omniscience on the part of the Self, in which all distinctions remain eternally negated in knowledge’.

Nevertheless, precisely because He is thus pure Consciousness (cit), He is the only effective root of all activity and knowledge, for He is that which alone exists. Thus, although He is in the true sense bereft of all form, body, organs or action, He is in fact the effective controller of the world-display. For ‘The cosmic powers take up and lay down their activities in a controlled way through the mere proximity of the Lord as actionless Witness’.

Thus the Lord, though without bodies and organs of His own, carries out activities through the bodies and organs of the deities or cosmic powers. The conception of unmoving mover is illustrated by the analogies of a magnet and a king, both of which cause directed activity in others by their mere presence.

The forms assumed by the Lord when He undergoes manifestation as the phenomenal universe are a means to the liberation as well as to the bondage of the individual soul. As the false image of the snake, though illusory, leads on to the discovery of the rope, so the world-manifestation, with the Lord at the heart of it, should be taken basically as a means to the liberation of the soul from nescience and as a kind of grace.

But for Shankara the Lord is the Absolute in its form as pure Consciousness, ever free, ever transcendent, and it is his motionless Light that appears as grace when viewed as associated with a certain phase of the external adjuncts set up by nescience.

Thus Shankara says, ‘In the state of nescience, where the individual soul is blinded and does not distinguish himself from his instruments of action and knowledge (the senses and mental and physical powers), his repeated rebirths, in which he has the powers of agency and enjoyment, can proceed only by the permission (anujna) of the highest Self, who, in the name of the Lord, dwells in all beings as their Witness, the controller of their actions and the source of their intelligence. And the liberation of the soul can only come through knowledge proceeding from his grace (anugraha)’.

In any instance of false appearance, the reality is not only hidden: it is also partially revealed, and such revelations display variations of degree. The rope-snake hides all but the bare outline of the rope, while the reflection of a face in a mirror, likewise illusory and displaying features such as the specks on the mirror that do not belong to the face, reveals the nature of the reality of which it is an appearance to a greater degree.

The circumstance which prevents us from realizing our own true nature as pure Consciousness is attachment to the forms set up by nescience, and the deeply rooted habit of taking them for real. The purpose of all religious practices, when viewed in the context of the path to liberation, is to weaken the hold of the illusory forms by developing a counter-awareness of deeper levels of reality hidden beneath the more superficial forms.

These ‘deeper levels’ of reality are themselves ultimately illusory from the very fact of being accessible to the understanding and will. They are, according to the rather drastic formula of Shankara s Commentary on Gauapada’s Karika II.4, ‘false because seen’.

Nevertheless, the contemplation of the Lord as manifest under illusory forms relieves the mind of its burden of attachment to the grosser and more oppressive phases of the world-appearance, in particular to the objects of crude sense-enjoyment. Thus it prepares the soul for the final rejection of all forms as illusory, consummated through the non-dual practices.

Shankara says that wherever in the world there is a special emergence of glory and power, there the Lord has manifested through the world-appearance in a form suitable for worship (upasana).

A.J.A.

* Students of non-duality will need no reminding that Reality is genderless and transcendent. The conventional use of masculine pronouns is retained here in line with scholarly practice at the time of writing.

Giordano Bruno, Friend of Truth

‘It is precisely among the heretics of every age,’ wrote Albert Einstein, ‘that we find men who were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling, and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists.’ These words are well applied to Giordano Bruno, the Italian philosopher and poet, who was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600. To the onlooking crowd, Bruno was a monster, a man who hated God, an impenitent heretic; the world was best purged of him and his writings. Thankfully, most of the writings have survived and allow Bruno to speak for himself. They reveal not only a rich and creative personality but also a mind rooted in love of the divine.

Bruno, born at Nola in the Kingdom of Naples in 1548, lived in the age of the Reformation. It was a time of religious conflict sometimes degenerating into wars of religion. Italy was safe Catholic territory, but its rulers were anxious to prevent the infiltration of Protestant ‘heresies’, and to this end, the Inquisition was established in Rome in 1549.

In his writings, Bruno has depicted himself as a thoughtful child, unwilling to take things at face value. Amusingly, he has related how his parents first taught him philosophy. The ‘parents’ were the two mountains that dominated his youth, Mount Cicala, the playground of his childhood, and the distant, volcanic Mount Vesuvius. One day, while contrasting the beauty of the flowerladen slopes of Mount Cicala with the apparent bareness of Vesuvius, Cicala spoke up, and told the boy not to trust to appearances. Instead he should go to ‘Brother Vesuvius’ and see for himself. Sure enough, a close look revealed that Mount Vesuvius too was carpeted with flowers, and was not at all grey and bleak. To complete the revelation of the trickery of the senses, the child gazed back at ‘Brother Cicala’, which also looked barren and uninviting when viewed from afar. Bruno concludes: ‘Thus his parents taught him to put all things to the doubt.’

It was probably the thirst for education, rather than a sense of vocation, that led Bruno, aged seventeen, to join the Dominican friars, one of the holy orders of the Roman Catholic Church. He was admitted to the great convent at Naples, where St Thomas Aquinas was buried. For some years, it appears that Bruno—now Brother Giordanus—was an ideal friar. Brilliant and studious, he was ordained priest in 1572 and three years later gained his doctorate in theology. He mastered the Dominican methods of memory training and was called to Rome to give the Pope a display of his powers. His literary talent emerged in an allegorical work, now lost, which was dedicated to the Pope. Outwardly it seemed that the Church had gained a loyal and learned son.

But inwardly, Bruno’s condition was as unsettled as Mount Vesuvius on the eve of an eruption. He was putting things to the doubt: the Holy Trinity, the Sacraments, the worship of saints, and the Church’s policy of crushing heresy by force. He was also infused with a burning desire for true wisdom. Later, he told of the spell cast on him by the goddess of wisdom, Minerva:

Her have I loved and sought from my youth, and desired for my spouse. I have become a lover of her form, and I prayed that she might be sent to abide with me, that I might know what I lacked and what was acceptable to God.

The wisdom he favoured, however, had more in common with the non-dual teachings than with the precepts of the Church. Bruno was being drawn to those writers and sages who talked of the underlying unity behind appearances. He was turning away from teachings which placed God outside and above the world and far from human nature. He was steeping himself in doctrines which proclaimed that God was everywhere and in all things, and that human beings themselves were of divine origin. These included the hermetic writings, attributed (falsely) to Thrice Great Hermes, a legendary sage of ancient Egypt, which declared:

What a miracle is man, a being worthy of reverence and honour; for he passes into the nature of a god as if he were a god... He despises that part of his nature which is only human, for he has put his hope in that part of him which is divine.

At length, Bruno, his mind filled with such ideas, grew more outspoken. He started suggesting to people what they should read. The images of the saints vanished from his cell. He was found in possession of heretical books. Finally, in 1576, aged twenty-eight, he was accused of one hundred and thirty heresies. Bruno fled, first to Rome, then northwards and out of Italy. His years of wandering had begun.

Radical ideas about the divinity of humanity and of the universe were becoming for him settled convictions:

Wisdom, truth and unity are one and the same thing. Truth is the unity that presides over all... (it is) the divinity, the sincerity, the goodness, the beauty of things.

Journeying between the cities of northern Europe, with a mind dominated by such sentiments, Bruno came to see himself as a spokesman of ‘the ancient and true philosophy’. A trained scholar of wide erudition, Bruno, on arriving at a new city or town, would seek out the educational authorities and apply for permission to give public lectures. His length of stay depended on the broad-mindedness of his hosts and their tolerance of his rather impassioned temperament. His time in Geneva, for example, was brief. Listening to a lecture by the leading scholar, Antoine de la Faye, Bruno detected thirty errors, and promptly published his findings. The outraged authorities arrested him and he was obliged to destroy every copy of the mischievous tract. In Paris his series of lectures on the divine attributes made him famous, and he was patronised by King Henry III. He wrote his first treatises on the art of memory. These works, however, departed from the traditional genre and contained occult ideas. They were means of conveying Bruno’s metaphysical views, and what he presented as memory exercises had the further intention of awakening higher centres of consciousness, leading to ‘union with the world soul’. It is not surprising that in 1583 the English ambassador in Paris sent a warning to Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State:

Dr Jordano Bruno Nolano, a professor of philosophy, intendeth to pass into England, whose religion I cannot commend.

In England, Bruno found a friend in the French ambassador, Michel de Castelau. He lived for two years at the French embassy, near the Strand. He also gained the support of Sir Philip Sidney, the poet and courtier. His genius flowered and was expressed in six lively dialogues in Italian (his other works were in Latin).

Controversy raged when Bruno went to Oxford to expound his ideas about the universe. He was a vigorous opponent of the prevailing view, based on Aristotle, that the universe was finite, and came to a definite end at the ‘sphere’ of the fixed stars, the outermost of several heavenly spheres that revolved around a central motionless earth. Coupled with this system of spheres was the belief that God—Aristotle’s Prime Mover, or the biblical Father in Heaven—was hidden in some divine celestial realm, far away from this corruptible earth.

For Bruno, this was nonsense. Not only did he champion Copernicus, who held that the earth revolved around the sun. He also delighted in the insights of Nicholas of Cusa, whom he called ‘the divine Cusanus’, who argued that the universe was potentially limitless. (See page 42.) Bruno went so far as to declare that the universe was absolutely infinite, being the expression of an infinite God. There was ‘a single vast immensity’, an infinite space containing innumerable globes. The heavens were not more divine than this earth; an indwelling all-pervasive divinity animated the whole equally. Therefore:

We have the wherewithal not to search for divinity removed from us, since we have it near and, in fact, within us, more than we ourselves are within ourselves...

To the conservative academics of Oxford, Bruno seemed an outrageous fellow, and probably not quite sane. One of the scholars, George Abbot, recorded his impressions:

...he undertook among very many other matters to set on foot the opinion of Copernicus, that the earth did go round, and the heavens did stand still; whereas in truth it was his own head which rather did run round, and his brains did not stand still.

Bruno’s belief in the infinity of the universe, as a reflection of God, was joined to his conviction that the divine infinity was hidden in the human heart. In his mystical work, The Heroic Frenzies, one of the characters asks: ‘How do you understand that the mind aspires to raise itself?’ Not by raising one’s hands to heaven, says Bruno, but by proceeding to the depths of the mind:

...to descend more intimately within the self and to consider that God is near, that each one has Him with him and within himself more than he himself can be within himself, for God is the soul of souls, the life of all lives, the essence of essences...

It was during his stay in England that Bruno penned the following sadly prophetic words:

Come! Come! We see how this man, as a citizen and servant of the world, a child of Father Sun and Mother Earth, because he loves the world too much, must be hated, censured, persecuted and extinguished by it. But, in the meantime, may he not be idle or badly employed while awaiting his death, his transmigration, his change.

Back on the Continent, the work and the wandering continued. Bruno was in Frankfurt in 1591 when he received a warm invitation to join a nobleman in Venice, Giovanni Mocenigo, who wished to learn ‘memory and other secrets’. Rashly, he accepted it, and reentered his homeland. Responding to the hospitality of his new pupil, Bruno started to speak freely. The heretical ideas rolled forth. Mocenigo told his confessor, and the result was the denunciation of Bruno and his deliverance to the Venetian Inquisition. He was in turn transferred into the much sterner hands of the Roman Inquisition; he was then to spend nearly eight years in the Roman dungeons.

Bruno had never ceased to be a Roman Catholic and he still believed that if only he could put his ideas to the Pope, they would be understood and valued. Little did he know that Pope Clement VIII was committed to severe measures against heretics. In December 1599 Bruno was given a last chance to retract. It was now that he finally took his stand and declared that he neither should retract, nor would retract, nor had he anything to retract. His reply to those who pronounced his sentence was:

Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.

Here are some of Bruno’s thoughts from his Cause, Principle and Unity:

Nothing should torment us. Nothing should vex us. This unity is stable and eternal. All else is vanity and is like nothing. Nay, all that is outside this one is nothing... Those philosophers who have found this unity have found their friend, wisdom... and it is the highest good, the highest perfection, the highest beatitude.

A.H.C.

Educating the Mind

Men’s natures are alike.

It is their habits which carry them far apart.

Confucius

The Chinese sage, Mencius, was once asked by a disciple how it was that while human nature is common to all men, some are great and some small.

Mencius replied that the important point was habit—the habit of following either our lower or higher faculties. Inferior minds, he explained, were those which followed only the bidding of the senses. The inferiority lies in the fact that the function of the senses is inevitably determined by their objects; when pleasurable objects impinge on them, they cannot help following blindly wherever they lead; in the same way, such minds are bound to be repelled by painful or unpleasant experiences.

Greatness involves the cultivation of our higher faculties. This means utilising them constantly so that they become highly developed.

The faculty of the mind, for instance, is thought. Focused, conscious thought is conducive to achieving its object, but when it is not so employed, it fails to achieve anything. So it is with all our faculties. They are, says Mencius, implanted in us by nature. If we take our stand from the first on the higher part of our being, the lower part will not be able to rob us of it. It is simply this that constitutes the great human being.

By not developing our power of thinking, the mind fails to achieve anything; by exercising it in thought, its powers of conception, its faculties of reason, intuition and will, can be enormously developed. Indeed the potentialities of the mind are almost infinite compared with the possibilities of achievement in the physical realm. One has only to think of the geniuses of history to realise what vast riches are lying hidden within the mind’s depths, waiting to be called forth by those who devote themselves to the mastery of this instrument—one’s own mind.

The important point is clearly habit. Unless a habit of exercise and training is formed, the full possibilities of achievement cannot be realised.

But there is more than the mere fact of habit involved here. There is the question of what is most worthwhile, and Mencius stressed that it is the habitual cultivation of our higher faculties which is most worthy to be practised.

The great are those who habitually cultivate their minds. The fact is that we can live at any level of our being, identifying our ruling interests with the physical, sensual, emotional, intellectual, or contemplative planes of our life.

If we understand something of the workings of our mind, we have an enormous advantage, because we can choose consciously and wisely, otherwise we are left at the mercy of chance and environment. Moreover, since the cultivation of the mind is not as easy or attractive in the initial stages as self-indulgence and immediate pleasure, most people choose the pleasant rather than the good. Their will having compromised its sovereign rights, their mind is left uncontrolled, not master of its fate, but at the mercy of circumstances, and a prey to agitation and anxiety from a thousand quarters.

To sum up, the secret of success in any sphere is self-discipline and training the habitual exercise of the faculties which we wish to cultivate. The development of the higher faculties of the mind not only offers infinitely greater possibilities. Such culture brings more lasting satisfaction to ourselves and others. This is the basis of the higher training of the mind, which includes techniques like meditation and contemplation, which are designed to awaken and develop the faculties latent in the mind.

The functions of the mind have not been much investigated in the West, from the practical point of view, and most of the people who have employed their mind to good purpose have done so without probably being quite sure what it was they were doing. But those who know exactly their aim and how it is to be best achieved, will always be at a great advantage; they will waste little energy and time in mistakes.

One further question remains: What are the main activities of the mind, and in what lies its highest achievement? Broadly speaking, the mind has three fundamental ideals or goals which it tries to seek. One is Truth, which it approaches through intellect and reason; another, Beauty, which it approaches by way of the emotions; and the third is the Good, which it approaches through its moral sense.

Although all these ideals may be provisionally sought in the external realm, as a scientific law, or a beautiful object, or an ideal state, all fundamentally are connected with that element in us, which we call spiritual, and which must eventually concern itself with a region above the mind itself.

Hence non-duality in philosophy and practice aims to enable us so to develop and refine our instruments of perception and intuition that we can actually discover, by direct experience, that transcendent reality underlying all, which is the True, the Good and the Beautiful.

A.M.H.

Upanishadic Ideas in the Taoist Texts

by Hari Prasad Shastri

The points of contact between classical Indian thought and Chinese thought are few. The Chinese, from the time of Yao and Shun, have been a practical and down-to-earth people, while the Brahmins of India have been more inclined to reflection, philosophical speculation, and worship of the spiritual law called Dharma. Yet some of the mystical writers of China, Lao-tsu, Lieh-tsu and Chwang-tsu, and the amplifiers of their doctrines in the Sung dynasty, speak the very language of the Upanishads and live and breathe in a region similar to that of Yajnavalkya, Shankara and others.

In China nothing definite is known about either Lao-tsu or Lieh-tsu, although we have a legendary outline of the life of Chuang-tsu. Ssuma Chien of the Han dynasty, the greatest Chinese historian of ancient China, gives us no information about these great philosophers whose works have exercised such an influence on Chinese life and thought, but some Taoist thinkers of the Tang dynasty, in which several rulers professed to be followers of Taoism, held that Lao-tsu was an Indian rishi, who came through the Himalayas riding a bull, and after spreading his doctrine in China, returned to his Himalayan retreat.

The adherents of the mystic school in China call the nameless principle the ‘Tao’. Many renderings have been given of this word, but none is comprehensive. It seems certain, however, that what Lao-tsu and his followers have called Tao is that principle, unconditioned, attributeless and ever passive, yet infinitely and eternally creative, which the Upanishads call Brahman. The conversation between Duke Han and the wheelwright, reported in the words of Chuang-tsu, shows how Tao is beyond all authority and proof. The same thing is said about Brahman or Atman, which is not to be obtained either by reasoning or by hearing. Here is a summary of the Upanishadic doctrine of Brahman in the words of the Tao Teh Ching:

The way that can be walked upon is not the eternal way;

The name which can be uttered is not the eternal name.

The Upanishads are emphatic on the merit of knowledge and the ultimate futility of rituals. Shri Shankara, in many of his writings, regards attachment to ritual to be a barrier to the realization of Atman. This also applies to the Taoist texts. Chuang-tsu performed no rites on the death of his wife. Nowhere does Lao-tsu recommend any ritual. He is critical of Confucius’ love for rites and ceremonies. Chuang-tsu is, at times, rather rude to the sage of rectitude, taunting him on his ceremonial dress and appearance.

What, then, is the means to illumination? In the Upanishads it is called ‘paravidya’—the higher learning. Even the Vedas, insofar as their subject matter concerns rituals, are called the inferior learning. A similar doctrine is found in the Tao Teh Ching, where book learning in itself is held in ridicule:

To know the Eternal is called enlightenment...

That is knowledge by which the Imperishable is reached.

This is called profound identification.

The same tendency is found in many passages in the Upanishads.

We also find that the Taoist cosmogony has similarities with Upanishadic thought. The evolution of prakriti (primordial matter or nature) started without any personal directive will, the mere proximity of purusha (the infinite, qualitiless, spiritual power) being a sufficient impetus. The undifferentiated state of prakriti which evolved into akasha (space or ‘ether’), its first product, is called Chaos by the great Lieh-tsu. These are his words:

There was in the beginning Chaos (Hun lun), an unorganized mass. It was a mingled potentiality of Form (Hsing), Pneuma (Ch’i) and substance (Chib). A great change took place in it; and there was a great starting (Tai Chi), which is the inception of Pneuma.

The Tao is dissociated from activity and is the root soul of the evolution in Chaos. The Purusha of Kapila or the Atman, as described in the Chandogya and other Upanishads, is pure intelligence, without any activity at all. Sansara or the world process in its totality is eternal. So say the Upanishads and the systems of thought founded on these great classics. Lieh-tsu seems to think so as well, for he says:

That which has life returns to that which is lifeless; that which has form returns to that which is formless. That which is lifeless does not eternally remain lifeless... Things exist because they cannot be otherwise... The soul is heavenly and the bones are earthly.

This great sage holds that life and death, existence and non-existence, creation and destruction (the return to the cause) are the inherent law of nature, and that the world is revolving on an eternal wheel.

An attitude of aloofness from the affairs of the world, at least in the period of probation, is recommended in the sacred classics. Under the influence of Shankara, Sannyasa (renunciation of worldly ties in favour of single-minded spiritual practice) became a high ideal of the aspirant.

The beautiful hills of HangChow and the mountain retreats of Shangtung are studded with Taoist hermitages in which the Taoist sadhus live and practise** just as the Sannyasis live in retirement in Uttarakashi, Tapovana and Gangotri. During a visit to the Taoist monastery, Great White Cloud, in Chekiang, I noticed the same atmosphere of serenity, purity and love that I had felt in Uttarakashi and Rishikesha.

According to Manu, Vyasa and Bhishma, the Dharma, the higher ethical code, differs according to time, place and the stage of one’s personal spiritual evolution. The ethics of a householder are different from the ethics of a monk or a student. Let us hear what Chuang-tsu has to say on this subject:

What is good for me is not necessarily good for others, and vice versa. The stork has long legs, but it would surely resent any human interference with their length; the duck, on the other hand, has short legs, but it would not be thankful for an artificial improvement on their stubbiness. Hsi Shih was a beautiful woman, but when her features were reflected in the water, the fish would have been frightened away.

The highest ethical conduct, according to the Gita, is to live detached from the mind and the buddhi, established in the serenity of the Empire of Atman. Chuang-tsu is convinced of the presence of Tao in all, and the reason why we confuse what is right with what is wrong is that by identifying ourselves with matter, we prevent the natural workings of the Tao in us.

Be independent of subjective ignorance and individual egoism. Discover the universal Tao in your being, and all will be well with us... Let us make our appeal to the infiniteness of Tao and pitch our tents permanently there.

‘There is no happiness in the finite existence,’ says the Chandogya Upanishad.

Chuang-tsu opposes the dualism of Yin and Yang of the Confucian school. The Taoist writers, like the teachers of the Vedanta, are strict monists. Kwan-yin-tze, the greatest of the Sung dynasty Taoist scholars, says:

Heaven and earth and all things contained therein are no more than my essence, my spirit. There is nothing that dies; there is nothing that is born... To the wise there is one mind, one substance, one reason; and these three are conceived in their oneness. Therefore they do not repress the notone with the one, nor do they injure the one with the notone.

Many passages in the writings of this great Taoist scholar read like verses of the Bhagavad Gita:

All things change but the essence pervading them is changeless. The wise know this oneness of things and are never disturbed by outward signs...

The wise, abiding in the eternality of things, think of this changeless aspect and remain undisturbed.

Just as nirvana or moksha (release) is the ideal of the non-dual aspirants, so Wu-Wei is the ideal of the Taoists. Wu-Wei and Nirvana are similar conceptions. Both condemn assertion of egoism; both advocate a life of peace and at-one-ment with others. On Wu-Wei, which has much in common with the ideal of the sthitaprajna (one established in Wisdom) as given in the second chapter of the Gita, Lao-tsu speaks as follows:

Therefore the sage conducts affairs with non-assertion; he practises the doctrine of silence. All things are working, and he does not refuse to work with them... He who asserts is defeated; he who seizes suffers loss. The sage asserts not; therefore he is not defeated... The sage desires not-desiring, prizes not the treasure that is unobtainable, learns not-learning, returns to what the masses have passed by, and thereby he assists in the natural development of all things, but he never dares to assert himself.

In the non-dual texts the need for a Guru is emphasised. In the Gita Shri Krishna says: Know That, through service of the teacher.’ Taoist regard for the Teacher is well-known to those who have lived in a Taoist monastery. Lieh-tsu’s instructions on the methods of attaining WuWei give high importance to proximity to the Teacher and loving service of him.

** The writer lived in China from 1919 to 1928

Does Experience Affect Consciousness?

In the Thousand Teachings of Shankara we find a dialogue between a student who has found a difficulty in the non-dual philosophy, and a teacher to whom the student turns for guidance.***

The problem is this: it is taught that the true Self is pure consciousness, which is not affected by any limitations and change; thus to know one’s true Self is to transcend suffering and physical death. It is also taught that Self as consciousness is the ultimate knower of all knowledge and happenings. But knowing is an action, which involves change, so how can the Self be both beyond the realm of action and change and also be the knower of all knowledge? Is there not a contradiction here? [The Thousand Teachings, prose part, section two, verse 74]

The teacher responds to the student in this way: You are saying that Self is the knower of everything that passes through your mind and therefore that the Self changes. But in truth, the fact that the Self knows all the changes proves that the Self does not change. If the Self changed it could not know all the changes in the mind. [2:75]

This is a subtle point, but reflection on it leads to deepening insight. The teacher is saying that the unchanging Self always knows everything that is happening in the mind at any one time. In contrast, the senses do change; for example, we can look in one direction and then in another, and therefore what we see is only a part of all there is to see. If the Self were changeful, then its knowledge also would be partial, but in fact the Self witnesses the whole of the mind-world simultaneously, and must therefore itself be unchanging.

What has been said so far points logically to the conclusion that the Self is unchanging. It has not yet directly addressed the student’s problem, which the student now repeats rather bluntly: ‘To know’ is a verb, which means activity. So it is a contradiction to say the knower is absolute and changeless. [2:76]

To this the teacher says: No. When an impression is produced in the mind this is action and change. But it is not yet knowledge. Similarly, the process of building a house is not the same as a house, although the house is sometimes included metaphorically in the idea of housebuilding. [2:77]

The student replies: The process of forming a cognition may not in itself be knowledge, but it ends in a result which is a change in what is known by the Self. So the example does not show that the Self is unchanging.

To this the teacher responds: That would be right if there were a difference between knowledge and the knower. The non-dual understanding is that ultimately there is no such difference. [2:79]

The student is distinguishing between knowledge and the knower. He is thinking that the impressions and ideas formed in the mind are knowledge, and the one who is conscious of them is the knower. He is forgetting that the processes in the mind which are commonly called knowledge, are not really knowledge, they do not know themselves. Real knowledge only occurs in consciousness. It is clear that there is no difference between consciousness and the one who is conscious; we do not ‘have’ consciousness, we are consciousness. Equally, there is no difference between knowledge and the knower, when we remember that impressions and ideas in the mind are not in themselves knowledge. When true knowledge is carefully distinguished from mental processes, it is found that true knowledge is identical with the nature of consciousness. When this is grasped, there is progress in Self-knowledge.

The teacher leads up to this insight in manageable steps. The student still thinks that when there is consciousness of changes in the mind, then consciousness is changed. The teacher says: No, this does not follow. What changes is only the reflection of consciousness, like the changing reflection of the unchanging sun in moving water. As was said before, the very fact that consciousness is conscious of everything simultaneously that enters and changes in the mind, shows that consciousness itself is absolute and unchanging. [2:8083]

Then comes an interchange mixing deep insight with human-heartedness. The student says: Well then, how am I at fault if the impressions and ideas of external objects seem to cause changes in consciousness, which is my true nature? The teacher replies: You, in your true nature, never were and never could be at fault! The only fault is in the ignorance (which is never really real) that mistakenly sees changes in the mind as changes in the conscious Self. [2:8485]

After this, the student seems to be satisfied that knowledge, rightly understood, does not involve change in pure consciousness, the Self. He now moves on to what he sees as another problem. He thinks that consciousness is affected by the differences between waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep.

The student asks: If consciousness is unchanging like dreamless sleep, how do waking and dreaming occur? In reply, the teacher points out that the states of waking and dreaming come and go; they are replaced by each other and by intervals of dreamless sleep. Logically, this means that the states of being awake and dreaming are ‘contingent qualities’, like clothes and possessions; they are not the conscious Self and do not change the Self. [2:8689]

Now the student finds himself in the discomfort that comes after one point of view has been shaken and before a new clarity emerges. He says: Well then, consciousness must be something contingent that comes and goes, because I do not experience it in deep sleep as I do in waking and dreaming. Or maybe consciousness is not my true nature?

One might imagine a kindly smile on the face of the teacher as he replies to this. He says: That cannot be right! If you can seriously think of your conscious Self as not your conscious Self, please carry on. I could not work that out in a hundred years—even if I were non-conscious! Consciousness is self-existent and self-evident as it never ceases.

The pupil says: But did I not just give an example of where consciousness does cease? I do not have any experience in dreamless sleep. [2:92] The teacher replies: What you said is not an example, it is a contradiction! You said that in dreamless sleep you are conscious of no objects. How could you know the absence of objects if you were not conscious? What I said was: knowing is consciousness. It is eternal, self-evident and requires nothing else to prove and reveal it. [2:93]

Now the student turns to another problem, which concerns empirical knowledge: the knowledge of the world obtained by various means. So far, in order to show how consciousness is eternal and unchanging, the teacher has been distinguishing between the true knowledge which is identical with conscious awareness, and mental processes which are not knowledge in themselves. Now the student points to the generally accepted principle that empirical knowledge arises from the right use of ‘instruments of knowledge’, which include observation and reason. Applying these instruments involves action. And so, the student thinks, here is an example of what the non-dual philosophy accepts is knowledge, and which does involve action and change, thus contradicting what the teacher has said about true knowledge being actionless and eternal. [2:94]

The teacher’s first response to this is a rather subtle logical argument. Some of us may find it so subtle that it feels like mere logic-chopping, and choose to pass over it. But the teacher’s intention is practical: the aim is to jolt this student into a fresh outlook. The teacher says something to this effect: You cannot divide knowledge into eternal knowledge and empirical knowledge. If you knew there was such a distinction, that would itself be knowledge, which would necessarily transcend any distinction between eternal and empirical knowledge. [2:95]

This argument seems to make little impression on the student, who restates his problem in simple terms: Empirical knowledge is different from eternal self-knowledge. Empirical knowledge depends on the use of instruments of knowledge. [2:96]

The teacher responds to that saying: Then the knower is known—is proven to exist—without any other knower or instruments of knowledge. [2:97]

A lot is left unsaid here by the teacher who is driving directly to the central truth. He accepts that with empirical knowledge the mind is active using observation and other methods. But it has already been shown that this in itself is not knowledge. These mental activities are processes, like the workings of a camera. There is knowledge only when the results of these processes are known in consciousness. This true knowledge, consciousness, is self-revealed, and does not depend on anything else.

The student still has doubts, so the teacher spells out further reasoning on the essential point that although knowledge of objects depends on instruments of knowledge, nothing is needed to know and prove the existence of the knower.

He says: The existence of the conscious Self requires no further proof. If someone wanted proof of the existence of the Self through a means of knowledge, who would be the one seeking that knowledge? It could only be the conscious Self.

Efforts to attain knowledge are directed towards the objects of knowledge, and these efforts involve instruments and action like observation and memory. These efforts are not directed towards the ultimate knower. If they were, there would be one seeking to know the knower, and another seeking to know that knower, and so on in infinite regress.

The knower cannot be known as an object through any means of knowledge, simply because the knower cannot be in any way separate from itself. Memory applies to the object remembered, not to memory itself. In the same way, all means of knowledge are directed to the objects known, not to the knowing Self.

The Self is self-luminous and self-proven. If it were not, the Self would be composed of parts and dependent on another. The Self cannot be non-self. Thus it is proved that Self is the eternal light of consciousness, the ultimate knower, dependent on nothing else. [2:99-101]

After all this the student finds another objection: If the knower is not where the instruments of knowledge operate, how can it be the knower? [2:102] The teacher replies that it makes no difference to true knowledge whether it is preceded by mental operations or not. In either case, knowledge itself is the same. True knowledge, as opposed to mental activity, is conscious awareness and nothing else. [2:103]

Now the student asks: How can the absolute unchanging Self be connected to the instruments of knowledge? Obviously it cannot be in the same way as a craftsman uses his tools, because the craftsman is active, while Self is not. [2:104]

Without going into much detail or trying to explain the inexplicable, the teacher says simply that it has to be accepted that the instruments of knowledge, and the mind that uses them, do operate in the light of the conscious Self yet without any action by the conscious Self. The Self does not act, and the Self could not be caused to act by something other than the Self, because that other would be another Self, which is absurd. [2:105]

Now it seems that the student is convinced and wants to concur with the teaching, but still finds some points hard to fit together. He says: Surely the body is known directly without using any instruments of knowledge. So could the body be the Self? The teacher replies: The body is not known in sleep. So knowledge of the body is not continuous and therefore the body cannot be the Self. The same is true of the senses and all they reveal. [2:107]

Finally, expressing the last remnants of doubt, the student repeats: Is it not a contradiction to say that knowledge is the result of using instruments, and that knowledge is self-luminous and eternal? No, says the teacher. We said before that mental operations are not knowledge. They lead to the results which are revealed by consciousness. That consciousness, which knows everything in the mind simultaneously, is Knowledge. [2:108]

The student now expresses the realisation that he has been brought to. He says: Then knowledge is the self-luminous Self which requires nothing else to be known. All phenomena depend on others and exist only as made known by consciousness. Thus in the last analysis, they do not exist at all. The snake seen in the rope never really exists, and ultimately the objects seen in the waking state have no existence other than their being known. In this way, ultimately, there is nothing real other than eternal consciousness. [2:109] Yes, says the teacher. Knowledge ends illusion. You have attained the state beyond fear. You will never again suffer the pains of transient experience.

Having thought through all that is indicated in this dialogue, we may choose to put aside words and simply reflect that the light of conscious awareness itself is alone true Knowledge, the Real, our Self.

P.H.

*** The Thousand Teachings is the one text that is not a commentary on something else and which most scholars agree was definitely written by the great philosopher sage of nonduality Shri Shankara himself. It is partly in prose, partly in verse. The prose part is divided into three sections, and this imagined dialogue forms the second section. This article is about the second half of the dialogue. The first half of the dialogue was considered in an article that appeared in the Autumn 2024 issue of this journal.

Direct Experience of Reality

What is the chief concern of the non-dual philosophy? It is to awaken us to a life-experience that brings lasting fulfilment. This greatest gain is not the result of any worldly success or achievement. Rather, it is uncovered in the depth of our own being through developing a particular way of life and of thought. Within us is a hidden capacity which expands through purification and finally reveals the Truth of Self as eternal, infinite, one with the Self of all.

There is a tension caused by our awareness of the perfection of the ideal and the imperfection of how we feel ourself to be here and now. This tension will persist until we finally awaken to the perfect freedom of the non-dual wisdom. This is because the enquiry probes into the roots of our experience. What we take for granted is challenged and ultimately replaced by a higher understanding.

What then seems to us to be the nature of experience? Duality. For the unillumined mind, our experience can only be dualistic—a continual interplay of subject and object. In this mode of experience, the subject is the mind, and the object is whatever the mind is aware of at any given moment. Duality seems to be the necessary form of this mode of being, and any other account of experience goes against common sense.

The teachings of non-duality challenge the apparently certain truth of this dualistic interpretation of experience. Non-duality affirms that within and behind plurality, underlying both subject and object, there is an infinite Reality, which supports and makes possible the outer display, but in itself transcends it. For the teaching is:

The Infinite is that where one does not see anything else, does not hear anything else, and does not understand anything else. Hence the finite is that where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else. That which indeed is the Infinite, is immortal... It is established in its own glory, or not even in its own glory! (Chandogya Up.7:24:1)

The Absolute is no thing, but it is clearly not nothing. All that exists depends on That. It is the real being of all. The non-dual philosophy is called darshana, a word meaning ‘seeing’ or ‘sight’. It suggests a realisation as clear and evident as when a sense object comes within the range of our physical sight. But in contrast to the seeing of the senses, and even to the inner seeing of mental forms, the illumined vision is not where one ‘sees something else’. It is not experience within the framework of the subject-object relationship. It is immediate experience, but not experience of anything to anyone.

The Infinite is our true Self, and direct experience is self-knowledge. This Self transcends the dualism of self and other, self and God.

When we reflect on that condition where we see nothing else, hear nothing else, understand nothing else, we find that true love, based on self-forgetting identity with the beloved, is rooted in that fullness of being. In the sincerity of true love, differences are washed away in the sense of togetherness with the beloved.

The secret of both a loving relationship and inner unfoldment, is one and the same. It is to identify, not with our individuality, but with the being and consciousness that is the true Self of all. Love and knowledge are not really two different departments; the more one loves, the more one knows, and the more one knows, the more one loves.

Once we have grasped the secret of self-effacement in love, we need to be sure that the object is worthy of our love. Human nature is almost inexhaustible in its range and depth, but it cannot be the ultimate goal in life, because all humans belong to the realm of the finite. They change and perish. Only when we consciously extend our affection and sense of identification to the formless principle, which is the supreme light that reveals all form, can our love have its source in the direct experience of Reality.

The Absolute, Brahman, is the All, and knowledge of the Absolute is the true object of our love. This recognition dissolves all tension caused by a wavering understanding, and is superseded by the perfect understanding of the one-without-a-second as identified with That.

The highest experience of humankind, the visions of the saints, the insights of the philosophers, and the special terms they use to formulate the subtle Truth, are within the realm of the mind, and fail to encompass the highest, or communicate the nature of that Reality where one does not see anything else, does not hear anything else, and does not understand anything else.

Yet whatever the state of our understanding, the destiny of each and every one of us is to awaken to the supreme knowledge that we have never really been separated from.

The means to this transcendence is the supreme gift conferred on us by the non-dual teachings on the identity of the Self with Brahman. It is a return to the home that we have never really left. The perfection of Self-realisation is our natural state and this is the goal of all evolution and progress.

B.D.

Nicholas of Cusa as Scientist

The conclusion of an article on ‘Cusanus’ that was begun in the Summer 2024 issue of this journal

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), known as Cusanus, saw nature as a symbol of the Divinity. But what he asked of a symbol was not so much force and liveliness as clarity and certitude. ‘Nature’, he wrote, ‘is the book in which God has written with His own hand’. But he did not believe that the meaning of this book could be understood through mere subjective feeling. It must be investigated in detail. And the proper instruments for this task, he believed, are logic and numbers. Only they can set up the standard of necessity which rules out the arbitrariness and uncertainty of personal feeling and opinion.

Cusanus maintained that all science is nothing other than the unfoldment of what lies in the mind. The mind unfolds space from the principle of the point lying within it, and likewise unfolds time from the principle of the ‘now’. And in the same way, all the acts by which it seeks to control nature must be preceded by some form of ideal projection. All arts and skills are rooted in creative projections of this kind.

Cusanus expressly says that the categories of logic, the concepts of geometry and arithmetic, the compositions of music, the discoveries of astronomy and also the technical inventions of the scientist are to be regarded as evidence of the independence and eternity of the human mind. For when it is said that man is made in the image of God, the sole point of likeness is the mode of their creative activity.

For Cusanus, the Absolute bears no proportion with the finite, and the Absolute and apparent individuals are similar neither in their nature nor in the results of their acts. The human mind acquires the form of life as a reflection of its divine source. The mind halts at no particular goal. Here Cusanus provided the ‘Faustian’ mood of the Renaissance with its deepest philosophical justification. The drive towards the infinite is not taken as hubris on the part of the mind but as the mark of its divine calling and indestructibility.

Before Cusanus died he made provision for scholarships for twenty poor students and built a charitable home at Cues to house thirty poor people over the age of fifty. The home has now become a national heirloom, and houses his library and scientific instruments. The library consists largely of the works of St Augustine and Dionysus and many pages of Eckhart’s works, well annotated by Cusanus in the margin.

Deeply rooted in the great mystical writers of the past, his thought looked out into the future. His mathematical thought had direct influence on Copernicus and Leonardo, and indirect influence on Galileo, Kepler and Descartes. His cosmological and metaphysical ideas were broadcast in a distorted form and without adequate acknowledgement by Bruno, through whom he influenced Spinoza, Leibniz, Goethe and Schelling. In certain aspects of his thought he looks forward to Kant and Hegel.

An exalted view of his place among philosophers can only be taken if one keeps one’s eye fixed on the form of his system, making generous allowances for its comparative poverty of empirical content. But one thing is certain: he provides an example of how one whose main aim in life is the practice of the presence of God and whose chief study and delight are the mystical writers of the past, can yet make contributions to the scientific and philosophic thought of his age that go beyond that of any other individual; and the system he contrived has clear affinities both with Advaita Vedanta and modern science.

A.J.A.

Being and Becoming

An Allegorical Vision, by Hari Prasad Shastri

Being is caught in the ocean of becoming. Becoming is an emanation of being, through which the being wants to express what is latent in it; but under the force of the cosmic limitation, it ceases to express what it ought to and becomes attached to the becoming through the sheer habit of the love of objectivity.

In this ocean of becoming there are apparent individuals comparable to whirlpools which are in constant circular motion. The centre of each such whirlpool is an almost infinite abyss, and when the being is caught in it, it may go on revolving, conscious only of objective environments, for ages.

Beyond these ‘whirlpools’ stands the higher part of being, the transcendent aspect unaffected by becoming, and it makes gestures to the submerged being to come to the surface and swim through the whirlpool. The lower being is lacking in strength to overcome the billows and breakers. The higher being reminds it of the perfection lying latent in it, and emphasises the necessity of faith in its own perfections. If the being listens carefully, then the very idea of its innate perfection dissipates the closing whirlpool and the being finds itself freed from its tyranny. Each step taken towards the higher beckoning aspect is a step towards freedom.

There are many stages of the journey, but with perseverance, faith, renunciation of its empirical ego and detachment from environments, the being finally overcomes the whirlpool, and when it proceeds towards the guiding star, it finds that the guide was no other than a projection of its own latent being.

In fact the whole process is subjective.