METAPHYSICS I
As with earlier Hindu texts, ultimate reality for Shankara is Brahman, but Shankara offers a two-level theory of Brahman: (1) Brahman as the Absolute (nirgunam – without “guna” or material characteristics) and (2) Brahman experienced in non-Absolute manifestations (sagunam) of our everyday experience , such as the personal God (Ishvara) or Creator of the world.4 Absolute Brahman is the highest transcendental truth, the state of being without subject-object distinction, devoid of qualities, timeless, unconditioned, and undifferentiated. Nothing can be affirmed about Brahman; the best we can do is say what it is not.5 Nonetheless he asserts that Brahman (as Absolute) is empirically grasped as existence, consciousness, and bliss.6
And what of the everyday world? Shankara tells us that while our experience of it is genuine, the world is nevertheless an illusion (maya), without beginning and ultimately inexplicable.7 The best we can say is that the phenomenal world floats between existence and non-existence and that it is neither created by nor an aspect of Brahman, although it arises from Brahman.8 Shankara’s justification of this seemingly contradictory thesis can be restated in the following logical argument form:
- Brahman is absolute (the one and only being) and beyond illusion.
- Explanations originate only in non-absolutes and illusion.
- Therefore the means by which the empirical cosmos arises from Brahman is not subject to explanation.
Alternatively Shankara argues that Brahman as Absolute is not subject to the laws of cause and effect, thus cannot be the “cause” of the universe. While there is no world without Brahman; our discernment of the world is a kind of “mis-experience” rather than a true experience9 (Shankara uses the analogy of a rope mistaken for a snake). However, we cannot make complete sense of this paradox without understanding Shankara’s epistemology.
(further continued next post)
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4Magill, Frank N. and McGreal, Ian P. (editors), Masterpieces of World Philosophy. HarperCollinsPublishers, 1990. ISBN 0-06-270051-0, page 281.
5 This technique is called the via negativa in the West.
6 McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 0-06-270085-5, page 215.
7Westerners may be reminded of Kant’s ‘thing-in-itself.’ That which we perceive is not the actual thing only what our senses transmit to us as an experience.
8Magill, Frank N. and McGreal, Ian P. (editors), Masterpieces of World Philosophy. HarperCollinsPublishers, 1990. ISBN 0-06-270051-0, page 281.
9 McGreal, Ian P. (editor) Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, 1995. ISBN 0-06-270085-5, page 215.
