2/26/13
Verse 11
“I,I,”
thus, all that are spoken of,
when
carefully considered, inwardly are not many; that is one;
as
the receding I-identities are countless
in
their totality, the substance of I-consciousness continues.
Free
translation:
What are spoken of as 'I', 'I', when carefully considered,
are not separate entities. Within the total Substance these are only modes,
while the continuity of the ego is maintained by the connectedness of the
attributes into which it is modified.
Nataraja
Guru’s
The repeated 'I, I' contemplated from within
Is not many but remains One; divergent egoity
Being multiple, with the totality of such
The Self-substance too continuity assumes.
The
second of two difficult verses opened its heart to the group, and we were able
to share many exquisitely enlightening insights. We have gotten into the
beneficial habit of intensely harmonized focus, and it is really taking us
places.
The
two verses are a matched pair. The first demonstrates what could be called a
horizontal unity: two people side by side see that they are the same. The
present one presents a vertical unity: the continuity through time of a kind of
golden thread running through all the innumerable I-identities we have had
through our entire life. Even as we engage with the myriad attractions and
repulsions of our days, there is a constant focal reference point of self. A
string of points through time becomes a line, a thread. When charged with bliss
it becomes a golden thread.
Deb’s
opening idea was that if we can access this unity in all manifestations we will
not be overwhelmed. Michael saw Nitya’s presentation of it as a clever gambit
to convert the multitudinous world outside into a seamless inner awareness.
Outside events appear to be beyond our control, but when we realize that they
are an internal production staged by our brain, the door is open for us to
become active participants in our own life.
We’ll
have to call on a Malayalam speaker to tell us what word is translated as
‘substance’ here, which is the source of the unity. One of the epiphanies Nitya
was most fond of—in part because Nataraja Guru was impressed, and that was an
exceedingly rare occasion—was equating the Absolute with Spinoza’s
all-permeating substance. Here we find it worked in as “the substance of
I-consciousness,” and in the free translation it is taken to another level and
even capitalized a la medieval style, where the ‘I’ is merely a mode within the
total Substance. This is definitely a nod to Spinoza, who both gurus admired
immensely. But it is unlikely that Narayana Guru knew of him. So what did he
have in mind?
Modern
neuroscience is approaching the substance of consciousness from a provocative
angle. Estimates are that several billions bits of information strike the
nervous system every instant, but out of that welter of information the very
clever brain selects a tiny fraction, a couple of hundred that seem most
important. It then fleshes them out with previous memories, arranges them in a
plausible time sequence, embroiders them with expectations, and presents the
amalgam as “reality” to our awareness.
This
works very well, ordinarily, and most of the time we aren’t even aware of it,
but it has a tendency to screen out new information and substitute stale
imagery that worked in the past. We can easily become stagnant, fixed in a
dream reality, overlaying our wishful thinking onto a miraculous universe. The
net result is to dull the beauty, converting the splendor of ten thousand suns
into a black and white rerun. Our study is intended to revive our appreciation
of the total reality we have unintentionally so drastically reduced, by finding
ways to open back up to it. Aging doesn’t have to be a one way slide into the
past, beating against the current.
In
terms of how the Gurukula defines this quest, it is to recover the unity
residing at the core of the apparent multiplicity. The ‘I’ as we know it is a
persona constructed to interface with the multiple aspects of our environment.
The witness—pictured as the contemplative sitting beside the tree in Verse 9—is
our true self, and is not affected by the passing show of events. The ‘I’ that
is affected is a confection of the entangling vines climbing up the tree, or
what’s called the ego. Enlightenment involves shifting our center of identity
from the ego to the witness, or to the core of our being, the karu. We don’t
give up the ego, but we shift our focus away from it as the center of the self
so it can assume its proper role as an adjunct.
Michael
(cleverly!) described the way we buy into our constructed reality as throwing
ourselves under our own bus. Our beliefs are like a big, heavy vehicle lurching
down the road, and we commit psychological suicide when we cling to our limited
outlook. Often we run right over ourselves, flattening our best intentions on
the pavement.
Michael
also brought up the most important idea of the evening, that we have to lose
faith in our persona before we can mount the energy necessary to discover our
true self. Our attention has been directed for our whole life into bolstering
and perfecting our persona, so we naturally hold on tightly to it. We were
instructed by authority figures to define ourselves as they wanted to see us,
and added on our acquired likes and dislikes. The “psychotic breaks” that seem
so widespread these days, mark when people begin to perceive the insubstantial
nature of their constructed reality. Unfortunately, in a world where buying
into the illusion is all-important, such psychotic breaks are treated as a
terrible disease to be cured as quickly as possible. The result is to make them
virtually permanent features. But wise gurus, as well as radical psychologists
like R.D. Laing, see such breaks as part of a healing process. It is much
easier to integrate a scary and antisocial aspect into our sense of self if it
is welcomed as a potential cure instead of being treated as a terrible
affliction. The door to the Unknown should have a welcome sign on it, instead
of the more usual “Abandon hope all ye who enter.”
It
is a supreme challenge to lose faith in the meaningless part of ourselves that
everyone around us cherishes, or at least takes for granted, and turn to that
which is routinely spurned. The least we can do is provide a nurturing
environment for such a positive change of heart. If, instead of fearing that we
are “losing our grip,” we developed trust in the excellence of our inner
arranger: that super-intelligent subconscious that is constructing the newsreel
we watch all day long, we would have a much easier time abiding in our own
skin. We should be grateful of the blessing if and when our persona is
shattered. Being terrified is a learned response, though deeply inculcated. We
could try another tack.
Susan
pointed out that it’s hard to let go of our I-identity, because it feels comfortable.
We’re used to it. Our sense of self is built around it.
That’s
exactly right, and that was Michael’s point. We stick with our illusions as
long as we feel comfortable with them, and imagine they are our self. The self
of Narayana Guru’s Self-instruction is another matter, and we will be gradually
sinking into it as we forge ahead. It doesn’t come to light just by our wishing
it would, but that’s a start. It is like a seed buried in warm loam. It needs
time and care to slowly come into the light. We begin to care for it when our
illusions no longer support us: as we look at them, they begin to melt into
thin air. What will be left of us when they are gone?
Mick
quoted one of his teachers that we must always insist that we are formless,
unbound, and not conditioned. It goes along with one of my mottoes:
self-description is stultifying. The more we describe ourselves, the more we
limit ourselves. Instead we can dare to let our identities (and people’s
perceptions of who we should be) run off us like water off a duck’s back.
Jan
suggested that scrutinizing all her various I’s is an important precursor to
finding her sense of unity, and that’s where her compassion comes from. It is
also important to realize that compassion for others is an extension of having
compassion for ourselves. Realizing that everything we encounter is within us
makes compassion come alive. Moni, who is expert at extending compassion to her
unfortunate clients, even when she feels put upon, talked at length about it. A
key aspect is that just going along with what other people ask for is not
necessarily being compassionate; it is abandoning our role in deciding where
and when to render aid. Compassion has to be more dynamic, nuanced. It has to
emerge from a solid foundation within us.
At
accident scenes I occasionally encountered people with brain injuries, and they
typically ask the same burning questions over and over, because they don’t
remember having just asked you, and they haven’t processed the meaning of the
answer you just gave them. They are extremely upset and need attention badly,
and they can tie you up all day answering questions like “Am I all right?” or
“Where am I?” Sometimes the compassionate thing is to leave them and attend to
another injured person. It helps to realize that nothing will satisfy them, but
it’s hard to pull away, regardless.
We
talked a lot about loss of the sense of self, which is extremely painful and
disabling, but it now appears that it is yet another construct of the brain.
Our sense of self is closely tied to our persona, which we have built up all
through our life and identify with in ways we barely suspect. Our true self is
deeper, and can’t be lost. But the persona is our means of interface, and to
get along in the world it is an invaluable asset. We want to keep it healthy
even as we exhume our lost beingness. This is a delicate matter that many fail
to successfully negotiate.
After
digging seriously and honestly into this pair of challenging verses, we ended
with a good infectious laugh, ostensibly over my ludicrous enthusiasm for each
and every verse of That Alone, but really as a kind of “laughter of the
immortals” as Hermann Hesse put it, expressing, along with relief, a barely
contained joy. We’ll see if we can finish with such a fine flourish after every
class. It’s a way of releasing the intensity, and returning to our familiar
self, though our golden thread has grown a little longer and is glowing
somewhat brighter.
Part II
Nataraja Guru’s commentary:
VERSE 11
The repeated 'I, I' contemplated from within
Is not many but remains One; divergent egoity
Being multiple, with the totality of such
The Self-substance too continuity assumes.
HERE we touch the paradox of the one and the many which
started to puzzle philosophers from pre-Socratic days in
the West and the early pluralistic Vaiseshika and dualistic
Samkhya philosophers on the soil of Indian wisdom.
The notion of unity in terms of self-consciousness, which was
touched on in the last line of the previous verse, based on metaphysically
conceived form of contemplative experimentation, is further analysed here with
its dialectical implications.
Even within the domain of unitively-understood metaphysics there is room for
the one-and-the-many paradox to persist. A monist in the philosophical sense or
a monotheist in the theological sense should not be confused. This, however,
often takes place. One who sees all as one, in the context of non-dual or
unitive understanding of the Absolute, is the truly wise man. The latter
implies a dialectical approach which is not given to the mechanistic reasoning
of even correct theologians and philosophers. Reason has to go one step beyond
even the intuition that Bergson postulated. When the faculty of
dialectics which, as the
coping stone of wisdom in man, attains to its full scope of directing and regulating
thought-processes through its ascending and descending movements,
as we have elsewhere
studied, one would be able to think of an Absolute that unitively combines being and becoming
and even the one and the many by one single act of understanding.
Plato's Parmenides analyses this possibility masterfully.
Even in the Bhagavad Gita we find one allusion at least where the possibility
of an absolute notion of reality viewed from the dialectical rather than the
rationalistic angle is present. Referring to the various forms of sacrifice
open to men, the author of the Gita envisages the possibility of a
wisdom-sacrifice to the Absolute as follows:
'Others also, sacrificing
with the wisdom-sacrifice,
worshipfully attend on Me
(the Absolute) unitively,
dualistically, as also
many-sidedly, facing universally
everywhere.' (IX.15)
The possibility of seeing the one and the many together in
the notion of the Absolute, which is really above even
mathematical symbolism, has remained one of the puzzles
of philosophers, both Eastern and Western, through the
centuries. 'The Absolute is above all count' as the Guru
Narayana himself says later in verse 68 of the present work.
In verse 87 the non-predicability of the Absolute is alluded
to further. The very first verse of the Book of Tao (Tao Teh
Khing) which term represents the purest notion of the
Absolute in Chinese philosophy, describes the Absolute in the following
striking manner:
'The Tao that can be told
Is not the Absolute Tao:
The names that can be given
Are not Absolute names.
The Nameless is the origin
of Heaven and Earth
The Named is the Mother of
all Things.'
How then, it could be asked here, is it possible to speak of
the Tao that cannot even be named in the mathematically-conceived language of
the 'one and the many'? Although the notion is not predicable in the usual
rationalistic and mechanistic terminology of a living language, the subtler
language of dialectics can be used to reveal its inner structure. When we say
in algebra 'let x be the unknown factor' we have in reality started saying
something about it, and at the same time not said anything definite about it.
Mathematics as the handmaid of mechanistic physics which uses static notions
expressed by symbols, can still, as Bergson points out, be limited in its scope
of revealing absolute reality, especially in its negative aspects. Bergson sums
up:
'Metaphysics is therefore
the science which claims to do without symbols.' (14)
Although this is true as far as it applies to the mechanistic
sciences, in modern times after the work of Pascal,
Descartes, Leibniz, Poincaré and Eddington, there are newer forms of
mathematics which can bring even the negative aspects of the Absolute under
scientific scrutiny. We reserve for a future study the explanation of such
mathematical possibilities.
For the present we shall content ourselves by referring to
the possible meaning of a symbol like the square root of minus one, which can
refer to nothing that we can visualize mentally but would still be capable of
valid interpretation in pure non-utilitarian higher mathematics which could be
put at the service of metaphysics more aptly than at the service of ordinary
physics. Modern physicists are feeling more and more the need for some such
precise language.
When the Guru here states that the sum total of the
divergent multiplicity in consciousness attains to continuity
with the One which represents the Absolute in a more
finalized sense, he is only
delving further into the structure of the notion of the one Absolute. The Absolute can
have
a positive and
a negative side. The conflict between the two has to be overcome by a
dialectical approach. The one and the many can co-exist without contradiction
or paradox in the mind of the trained dialectician, while to the mechanistic
thinker who is not a true contemplative and who is incapable of using higher
mathematical symbols like the square root of minus one there is a glaring
intellectual cul-de-sac out of which he cannot jump.
In this verse the Guru is just broaching the subject of
transcending contradiction and reducing contraries unitively. In later verses
we shall see him going deeper into the application of this dialectical approach
which eluded even masterminds such as Bergson, and continues to trouble the
mathematical though sceptical genius of a Bertrand Russell. Whitehead,
being an avowed Platonist, does not view the Absolute except from the positive
side of lasting intelligible values. The correct method of the approach of Guru
Narayana will become more and more evident as we proceed.
'THE SELF-SUBSTANCE TOO CONTINUITY ASSUMES': In modern
physics we have begun to be familiar with terms like 'the continuum of
space-time'. This language which is non-Euclidean and non-Newtonian is
sometimes called that of Relativity as opposed to the Absolutism implied in the
older classical science. Einstein is the one primarily responsible for this
change-over. But when we examine closely the physical theories of Einstein we
find that a new form of Absolutism in terms of the unit or constant velocity of
light lurks at its core.
In reality Relativity, especially when it refers to time, is
only the dialectical counterpart of the Absolutism of space. Giving primacy to
space above time, Einstein preferred to take a position at the other or lower pole of the
vertical axis to which both what is called Absolutism and Relativity could
equally belong.
The relation between the Absolute and the Relative as the two
terms referring respectively to Einstein or Newton, is itself one to be
understood in the subtler light of dialectics. The Absolute that cannot be told
about, as in the quotations above, is the neutral and silent Tao of Chinese
Taoism.
Einstein's Relativity with a capital R corresponds to the
'Mother of All Things' of Taoism, rather than to the Newtonian notion of the
Absolute which would correspond to the 'origin of Heaven and Earth'.
Dialectical methodology and epistemology are still in the process of
formulation at the present time, and neither Einstein nor Eddington has arrived
at the omega point which marks the positive opposite limit of the negative
alpha of the Absolute. Like the space-time continuum, the Absolute and the
relative Absolute have to be understood unitively as belonging to one and the
same context of the Absolute that cannot be told about. Both physics and
metaphysics would then derive from this central normative principle a correct
methodology and epistemology. The following extract from Eddington will help us
to see how the continuity between the one and the many, as suggested in the
verse of the Guru here, is quite in keeping with the language being vaguely
formulated at the present time by first-rate physicists who may be expected to
be quite matter-of-fact and not merely sentimental in their approach to
reality:
'We take as building
material relations and relata.
The relations unite the
relata; the relata are the meeting
points of the relations. The
one is unthinkable apart
from the other. I do not
think that a more general
starting-point of structure
could be conceived...
The relation between two
human individuals in its
broadest sense comprises
every kind of connection or
comparison between them -
consanguinity, business transactions, comparative stature, skill at golf - any
kind
of description
in which both are involved. For generality we shall suppose that the relations in our
world-material are
likewise composite and in no way expressible in numerical measure. Nevertheless there must be some
kind of comparability or likeness of relations, as there is in the relations of
human individuals; otherwise there would be nothing more to be said about the
world than that every thing in it was utterly unlike everything else. To put it
in another way, we must postulate not only relations between the relata but
some kind of relation of likeness between some of the relations. The slightest
concession in this direction will enable us to link the whole into a
structure'.(15)
It is not hard to notice from a scrutiny of the above
extracts that the modern physicist is, as it were, at the end of his tether in
the matter of building an intelligent structure of the physical world. The
physical and metaphysical worlds have to be linked through co-ordinates that
are common to cosmology and psychology. Man is finally the measure of all
things, whether cosmological, psychological, or both. The four-dimensional
world with space gives us the relativist picture of reality; and the one which
gives time primacy over space gives us the absolutist picture. Both have again
to be related as between relata, as Eddington puts it. There is no escape from
subtle dialectics here. Instead of turning one's face against it or hesitantly
asking for 'the slightest concession' as Eddington does, the bolder and more
straightforward approach would be to adopt the methodology and epistemology of
dialectical reasoning on which the Guru Narayana here relies. (cf. our later
work on 'An Integrated Science of the Absolute')
The continuum here presupposed as existing between the
divergent self and the One Self is thus to be understood in the light of the
dialectics which will unravel itself stage by stage as we cover verse after
verse in this sequence of verses. Eddington's reference in the above quotation
to business transactions and golf as linking one person with another might be
considered as referring to outer aspects of life needed for understanding the
physical world. The problems of contemplative wisdom concern the inner rather
than the outer. Hence it is that we see that the Guru Narayana takes care to
eliminate extraneous factors so that in the dark room postulated in the
previous verse, pure relations between one man and another could be more
clearly visualized. Pure dialectics operates best when outer or extraneous
factors are minimised. The one and the many selves, whether seen as between two
individuals or within the plus and minus sides of the same individual can thus
be seen to attain equality, sameness, homogeneity or continuity as here
mentioned. Unitive understanding, which is the proper subject-matter of
non-dual (advaitic) wisdom, is what is here implied.
Eddington further clarifies this same problem as follows:
'.....to gain an
understanding of the Absolute it is
necessary to approach it
through the relative. The
Absolute may be defined as a
relative which is always
the same no matter what it
is relative to.' (16)
The various subtler discussions about the interrelations
between what is called Vyashti (particular) and Samashti, generic, universal),
which we find in such works as the Vedanta Sara of Sadananda, bear testimony to
the same kind of epistemological problem, which has troubled the minds of
Indian thinkers also. The genus and species relationship presents the same
problem in the context of European scholasticism.
(14). p. 175 Ibid.
(15). PP. 225-226, 'The Nature of the Physical World',
(Everyman's London. 1947.)
(16) p. 82, 'Space, Time and Gravity'. (Harpers.)
Part III
Michael sent links to two excellent essays on psychosis. The
Watts one is quite long, but typical of his amusing open-mindedness. Both are
worthwhile and relevant reads if you have the time:
Alan Watts:
http://deoxy.org/w_value.htm
Al Galves
http://renew-ireland.com/information/health_of_psychosis
*
* *
Deb sent a lovely poem by the photographer Minor White, very
much in the Vedantic spirit:
Equivalence
Minor White
Not equal to
equivalent to
Not metaphor equivalence
Not standing for but being also
Not sign
but direct connection
to invisible Resonance
*
* *
Jake has been working his way through That Alone for the nth
time, this time compiling his own comments. Oddly enough, he feels that this is
exactly the book for many of us in our generation of Baby Boomers. He has
agreed to share his writings-in-progress, and I will pass along the parts that
strike me as of universal interest. He has asked for feedback and described how
he works:
I'm of the mind that the more input the better. Any and all
suggestions will be appreciated—whatever their content. And thank you for any
time you can spend with this.
(I do my reflection on That Alone early in the morning when
I sit with whatever it is I call my practice—and when my mind is the most keen.
As a result, I write with a pen and then later input and revise with the
computer. I'm 25 verses behind in inputting—and that does not include the total
revision that is required. --Well--)
His thoughts on Verse 11:
For most of us, our practical
method of accommodating our condition is to deal with manifestation on the one
hand as something to be handled by our inner selves and on the other by not
accounting for the context in which the procedure takes place, thereby
reinforcing our continuous anxiety in facing an external world with which we
are at odds and always surprised by.
In this verse, writes Nitya, the guru offers a practical method for
reversing that sequence as a way of our beginning to take control of what we
assume is in control by first isolating our ego, our I, as it experiences a world of interest. As we go about our day, we are in experiences, one at a time,
continuously—enjoying breakfast, conversation, whatever. And in each case,
the ego-consciousness
is having that experience in which it is “a different kind of mind” (p.85)
concentrated on that activity and the various forces at work at the time. This
I consciousness of the wakeful moment, the ego consciousness,
creates the memory of the experience and places it in sequence with others,
thereby forming our personal memory or history. In each case, points out Nitya, the I “is a consciousness or knowledge of a knowledge of the present
moment in the nature of that knowledge” (p. 85). The knowing of this dynamic is, adds Nitya, an expression of
that knowledge. In this complex,
then, is the intersection of our lived ego in-time experiences and the ever-present
transcendent knowledge out of which manifestation advances and recedes. We experience
the transactional world
by way of the ego-centered I-consciousness
that morphs into an experience of the experience as they present
themselves. One cannot know the
transcendent without the ego I
creating time, space, and memory all along the way. In each case the quality of the experience is unique to that
experience in an isolated state that is then arranged in sequence with all
others.
At this point, the materialist
stops any inquiry and circles back to pick through the wreckage in different
ways. What went wrong, what went
right, what stories can be fashioned to communicate the experience to
others—popular entertainment and mass marketing live right here by demarcating
a thick boundary indicating where one is supposed to circle back. The transcendent
dimension can be
assigned to the mysterious occult, becoming an auxiliary department to be
classified by the ego-centered I. Science
fiction and horror are commercial
growth industries in their own right.
The contradiction at the heart of
this circus is hidden in plain sight—that all these I-experiences of knowledge
are not really separate, discrete moments in time and space: “I just have a
clarity, an absolute certainty from within that I am the same” (p. 86). Despite
memory and experience, there
remains an intuitive core of Self that observes all and remains unchanged. The
child you were and the adult you
are don’t affect the fact that you are you. That core is the transcendent one not controlled or driven
by the ego-self and is beyond its influence. By knowing that this unbroken unity, this “homogonous
principle,” is always the same and is in everything, we can become the
contemplative sitting before the tree with twin creepers, aware of our
condition and able to function in a transactional world intent on keeping us
spinning in circles for which the transcendent I has been replaced by an It,
where something or someone else becomes the ultimate authority for our
lives. Big Brother (or Hollywood) could ask for no more.
Part IV
A
most special last minute addition to the Verse 11 bouquet, from Peggy:
Re: We talked a lot
about loss of the sense of self, which is
extremely painful and
disabling, but it now appears that it is yet another construct of the brain.
Our sense of self is closely tied to our persona, which we have built up all
through our life and identify with in ways we barely suspect. Our true self is
deeper, and can't be lost. But the persona is our means of interface, and to
get along in the world it is an invaluable asset.
As my mother's Alzheimer's disease slowly melded her brain
and melted her ability to orient via identity,
I suffered after each visit, sitting in my car weeping.
She suffered deeply also, grasping at flickers of fond
memories,
panicking when she'd look in a mirror,
drawing maps of relationships, losing them.
We grasped and flailed together,
until one day I came for a visit and she said,
"I have no idea who you are but you're just
lovely."
And I said, "Shall we walk in the garden?"
From that day forth, our suffering ceased,
no longer orienting via identity
but rather connecting via our deeper selves
in the present moment.
Of course, she could no longer safely or freely
interface in the broader world,
so I'm not recommending Alzheimer's disease
as a path to "Be Here Now."
But that remarkable shift we shared
remains my sacred foundational axis...
in life, in love, in art, in the grocery check out line...
in standing side by side
quietly peering at the garden's beauty
where only that delicate purple iris exists.
