Part XLIX
- Fundamental Human Problem Part 3
Looking at our struggles to solve the
three fundamental problems stated above, Vedanta
declares that we are trying to solve a problem
where there is no problem; and that has become
the fundamental human problem. All attempts to
solve this problem fail. The only way to solve
this problem is to recognize that I am not the
limited entity that I think I am. The limitations
are the result of my superimposing qualities that do not belong
to me - the qualities of the body, or the mind or the intellect
or all of the three.
Hence Vedanta says: YOU ARE THAT (tat tvam
asi). I am referring to the unqualified existence-consciousness
that I am and Brahman is absolutely infinite
existence-conscious which cannot be away from
me – in fact it is me. This teaching is
direct and immediate like seeing an apple in
my own hand, which is by direct and immediate
perception. I do not have to think; I do not
have to run to the Himalayas to sit and meditate
or contemplate in order for me to see the apple
in my hand. As soon as I open my eyes, I cannot
but see. Similarly I do not have think or contemplate
or meditate or analyze to find out whether or
not I exist. I do not have to prove to myself
that ‘I am’. I am a self-conscious
and self-existent entity. I might even say that
I am the only one that is self-conscious and
self-existent. As far as I am concerned, I have
to be there in order to establish any other's
existence.
That I am a conscious-existent entity is direct
and immediate and so is Brahman, since it is
absolutely infinite. Whether I can accept this
equation or teaching immediately or not depends
on my faith in the teaching as well how seriously
I am interested in discovering my true nature.
It is logical, yet the truth is beyond logic.
That I am an existent-conscious entity is not
logic - it is a fact. That Brahman is infinite
existent-consciousness is what Vedanta declares.
The identity of the two is pointed out by Vedanta
and that is logical too, since it is illogical
to divide existence; it will be like dividing
space. Just as space cannot be cut, made wet
or dry or be burnt by fire, Krishna teaches in
the Bhagavat Gita that the existence-consciousness
that you are cannot be cut, made wet or dry,
or be burnt by fire. That you are indestructible
and immortality is your very nature. It is amazing
that we readily accept that we are the inert
body, mind or intellect but are not ready to
accept we are limitless existence-consciousness,
says Shankara, the one who formulated this advaita
philosophy on firm grounds using Vedanta as the
means of knowledge.
The question that remains then is: why is that
I do not know who I am, since I am taking myself
to be what I am not? Essentially, when did this
ignorance of myself begin? The related questions
are: what is this world, if Brahman is everything?
Why did Brahman become this world since, unlike
Brahman, the world appears to be an unconscious
entity?
In addressing these issues, we are going beyond
the boundaries of logic. Hence , Vedanta alone
becomes a means of knowledge for these things,
even though the answers that Vedanta provides
are not illogical. The reasons why logic fails
is that the answer is not in the domain of the
intellect, with its cause-effect relationships.
Causes and effects are in the realm of time.
We are asking questions that transcend the concepts
of time and hence the intellect cannot find the
answer by itself. This is the same reason why
science also will fail to address these issues,
since science is logical and objective while
the truth is beyond logic and deals with subject ‘I’.
When did I become ignorant of myself? Vedanta
says that ignorance has no beginning. Suppose
that, not knowing anything about Anthropology,
I ask myself: when did my ignorance of Anthropology
start? I must say that from the beginning I did
not know Anthropology. However, even though my
ignorance of Anthropology is beginningless, that
ignorance can end once I learn that science.
Similarly, self-ignorance has no beginning but
can end once I learn that my true nature is limitless
existence-consciousness. This beginningless self-ignorance,
which is the root cause of all human suffering,
is called primordial sin by some religions.
Ignorance or lack of knowledge is only one
aspect. The related aspect is projecting myself
as something other than myself. The classical
metaphor is that of the rope and snake. I do
not know that the long thin soft object that
is lying on the semi dark road is a rope and
I project it to be a snake. Because of that projection,
I sweat; my blood pressure goes up and I may
even faint. The innocent rope does not have anything
to do with all these secondary reactions that
arise from my misunderstanding. Vedanta says
the problem is exactly the same when I do not
know myself. I project myself to be something
other than myself and suffer the consequences
of that false projection. The ego that we discussed
earlier is the starting point of that misrepresentation
of myself.
Next we ask: when did the ego start? When did
I start seeing the snake in place of the rope?
The moment I saw that there is something on the
road and did not realize that it was a rope,
I saw it instead as a snake. It was not the case
that I first saw the rope and then the snake.
Similarly, the moment I know I am here but do
not know my true nature, that very moment I take
myself to be 'this', which is different from ‘I’.
Taking myself to be ‘this’ will start
a set of chain reactions involving the three
fundamental pursuits in life - to be immortal,
to be full and to be knowledgeable, as discussed
above.
It is common knowledge that what I do now will
affect what I will have or what I want to be
in future. That is, what I am now must be the
result of my past actions. Within the transactional
reality, the laws of cause and effect are perfectly
valid. If I am an engineer today, it is only
because in the past I went and studied engineering.
Similarly, all the effects that I am experiencing
now are the product of my past actions, whether
I remember them or not. Likewise, the future
that I experience will be the result of my past
actions modified by my present action. Having
become an engineer, if I now study medicine,
I may one day become a physician but with an
engineering background. Thus I am the prisoner
of my past, and also master of my future. If
this is perfectly logical, then Vedanta says
that where I am born, to whom I am born and the
type of body with which I am born - all these
results - cannot be due to random choice but
must be effects caused by my previous actions.
I do not accept that I become a engineer or a
doctor randomly; I believe that I am what I am
today as a result of my deliberate or willful
action in the present or in the past. (As a scientific
aside, randomness does not operate at an individual
level. All the statistics that we use relate
to group behavior and do not predict the behavior
of an individual entity. We cannot use statistics
to predict the behavior of an individual. At
an individual level statistics can only tell
us about the probability of my becoming this
or that. In technical language, the deterministic
behavior of an individual cannot be predicted
by the statistical randomness of a group.)
This means that my birth in this life is dictated
by the actions that I must have done in the past
and the birth in the previous life must have
been dictated by the actions that were done in
the life before that, etc. Then how is my first
birth determined? Since ignorance is beginningless,
my misunderstanding that ‘I am this’ is
also beginningless, in the sense that it is also
beyond the concept of time. As stated above,
intellect itself is the product of the birth,
which is due to ignorance. One cannot provide
an intellectual answer to the question of the
very first birth. Vedanta says birth-sustenance-death
is a cycle with no beginning. It can have an
end once we have knowledge of who I am, since
there are then no more struggles related to taking
myself to be who I am not. Knowledge of who I
am can end the ignorance of myself.
Then who is that takes rebirth life after life?
We discussed before that we have a gross physical
body consisting of gross matter - called the
food-sheath; that which is born of food, sustained
by food and returns to food. We have a subtle
body consisting of a total mind that has four
components: 1) an emotional center, mind; 2)
ra ational intellect; 3) a memory and 4) an ego,
together with five physiological functions, five
senses and five faculties of organs of action – altogether
making 19 entities. In addition to these two
bodies that we discussed before, there is a still
subtler one called the causal body (kAraNa sharIra).
It is called ‘causal body’ since
it is the cause for the other two bodies. Since
we just mentioned that it is the primordial ignorance
that is the cause for our birth, that ignorance
constitutes the essence of the causal body. We
need to discuss now the contents of this causal
body since it is the cause of the divergence
into different types of birth and accounts for
why I am born with such and such body, in a particular
place, to particular parents and the environment
into which I am born.
Proceed to the next
essay.
|
