It is surprising that so many people know Aristotle but not Adi Sankara. Adi Sankara’s intellectual prowess has to be experienced by reading his philosophical discussions. His devotional writings (hymns) are equally impressive particularly for its poetry. Even what little I have read is amazing.
In our relationship to this world and cosmos, Adi Sankara
asks us to jump from the world we experience through our sense perceptions to a
different plane which requires intuitiveness,insight and faith. Logic cannot
move us from the world of asat (not Real), tamas (ignorance) and mrtyu
(death) to the world of sat (ultimate reality or truth), jyoti
(light or knowledge) and amrita (non-death or bliss). We do not even
know what that place is, because “ eyes cannot get there, nor can speech, nor
mind”.
To Sankara, this world is real but “apparent real”, from one
point of view. But from another spiritual cosmic point of view, it is not “real” . It is a ‘”reflected real” like the
same sun showing up in different pots of water. He used a special word called mithya,
which is not the opposite of real, but an “apparent real”.
Chandogya Upanishad
says: “All this is Brahman”. Sankara said; “ brahman is the only
real (satyam); the cosmos is mithya. Jivan is nothing but Brahman”.
He said so because, everything exists on a base which is beyond and behind this
cosmos. That constant is nirguna brahman. That is envisioned by our
senses in forms as saguna brahman,
when individual life (jivan) comes into being. If there were no jivan
to think about all this, cosmos will still exist.
For a jivan to reach the brahman, it must
first comprehend the atman, which is the spiritual awareness factor in
oneself and then jump to the Brahman. Sankara argues that atman (Self) is
different from the mind because this Self (atman) understands several states of
mind such as “I am sad, I am happy” etc., It is also common experience for all
of us to feel “I know this” and “I do not know this”. Therefore, knowledge and
absence of knowledge themselves are objects of knowledge of a “knower”. The
Self of man (Atman) is that knower. Thinking cannot reveal Atman because the
process of knowledge depends on a knower (Atman). Atman must be posited before
knowledge. Atman is the “witness” and the light of the witness.
Now, I jump to a modern Christian scholar C.S.Lewis, one of
the most influential writers of the 20th century. He taught at both
Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He has written several books, most of them
in support of his faith in Christianity. His most well-known book is The
Chronicles of Narnia. In his book with the title Mere Christianity, he spends
the first two chapters establishing that just as there are Natural Laws (for
example, Laws of Gravity) in the
physical world there are Natural Laws in the moral sphere. It is amazing that
his logic in establishing the existence of an unseen moral force is similar to
that used by Vedic scholars and saints, notably Adi Sankara.
Just as there are physical laws of nature, there are laws of
Human Nature. C S Lewis starts by stating that we all know that we cannot
choose to disobey laws of physical nature. If we do, the results will be
definite and disastrous. But we can choose to disobey laws of human nature,
which deals with human behavior in relation to others, other lives. These laws
relate to whether we behave decently towards others. Most normal people will
know that they are disobeying decent norms of behavior when they actually do.
That is why they will ask for an excuse (excuse me), or explain why they did
what they did, get into an argument to show that they are on the right (which means
they know what wrong is) or tell you that you are wrong. In other words, that
person was aware of right and wrong.
Or take an example of a situation in which I could have
helped you but did not, because if I did I would have gotten into difficulty. In other words, I ought to have acted one way;
but I did not. When I behave in a way I ought not to have, “something” tells me
that I was wrong. That “moral” voice says that I should have overridden my
selfish “inhibition” and done the morally right thing.
Where did this knowledge of moral principle of right and
wrong come from and how? In C S Lewis’s words: “There is something above and
beyond the ordinary facts of human behavior and yet quite real – a real law
which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us.” He then asks; “What
is behind this?”
He answers as follows: “ Obviously there is a law which we
did not invent and which we know we ought to obey”. This cannot be found by
observation of facts alone. It is inside us. It influences us and commands us.
It is shown in our behavior.
That unwritten origin of moral law of human nature, we know
intuitively is a universal mind which is conscious and “has purpose and prefers
one thing to another”. Though not exactly the same as the description of Atman
by Adi Sankara, this definition of the moral force, which C S Lewis calls God
is not much different.
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