Part V - Whatever you perceive
is Brahman!
Advaita accepts six means of knowledge or pramANa-s.
They are 1) direct perception (pratyakSha), 2) Inference
(anumAna), 3) comparison (upamAna), 4) verbal testimony
(this generally refers to the word of someone who is
trustworthy – shabda - but DA uses Agama meaning
specifically the scriptures, since our interest is in
spiritual knowledge), 5) presumption (arthApatti) 6)
non-apprehension (anupalabdhi).
Concerning direct perceptual knowledge, DA says: 'pratyakSha
pramAyAH karaNam pratyakSha pramANam' - the instrument
for knowing objects directly is direct perception. Next,
DA makes a revealing statement that baffles the intellect:
'pratyakSha pramA ca atra caitanyam eva' meaning that,
in direct perceptual knowledge, what is really revealed
as knowledge is pure consciousness itself. (He uses
the word 'eva', meaning consciousness alone. We may
need to meditate on the statement to understand the
significance, but what the statement says is that direct
and immediate perceptual knowledge is Brahman – there
is no need to meditate, since meditation is mediate
and not immediate. This is a daring statement since
Brahman cannot be perceived, yet he says that what is
perceived is Brahman.
He provides a reference to Br. Up. III-4-1, which states
that Brahman is directly and immediately revealed. Let
us look at this carefully. The Upanishad mantras contain
the conversation between UShasta and Yaj~navalkya. Their
conversation ends as follows:
UShasta: You are providing me with indirect descriptions
of Brahman, as in ‘cow is such and such’,
or ‘horse is such and such’, etc. Explain
to me the Brahman that is immediate and direct, not
through indirect descriptions. Explain Brahman to me,
the self that is within all.
Ya~jnavalkya: You cannot witness that which is the
witnessing self; you cannot hear that which is the hearer
of hearing; you cannot think that which is the thinker
in thinking; you cannot know that which is the knower
of knowledge. That is yourself that is within all and
everything else except this is perishable.
With that answer, UShasta had no further questions.
The Upanishad says that ‘that which is directly
and immediately known without any medium’ is Brahman.
That is your Self, which is the pure consciousness because
of which we are conscious of everything else. We cannot
be conscious of consciousness since that will lead to
infinite regress (because we would need to bring in
a series of consciousness(es) to be conscious of each
preceding one). Other than the consciousness which is
the knower of all knowledge, the Upanishad says that
everything else is ultimately perishable, meaning negatable. ‘Real’ is
that which is not negatable and the Upanishad declares
that 1) consciousness is never negatable; 2) you are
that consciousness; 3) you are that Brahman and 4) That
alone is real. This is the pure advaitic truth. How
is this related to perceptual knowledge?
Knowledge can be thought of as two types - (a) direct
and immediate – called in Sanskrit 'aparokSha
j~nAnam' (Shankara wrote a book "aparokShAnubhUti")
and (b) mediate knowledge (parokSha j~nAnam) which is
not immediate. pratyakSha pramANa comes under direct
and immediate knowledge because, as soon as I open my
eyes, I cannot help but see the object that is right
in front of me. The knowledge of the object is not ‘puruSha
tantra’ – i.e. whether I see or not does
not depend on my will. It is ‘vastu tantra’ – i.e.
it depends upon the nature of the object. (It is assumed
that my sense of sight is functioning properly and that
all other secondary causes such as light etc are operating
properly.)
Hence, all perceptual knowledge is direct and immediate
(immediate in the sense that I do not have to do any
analysis, thinking, meditation etc in order for me to
grasp the knowledge of the object right in front of
me). In contrast, the knowledge gained by other pramANa-s
such as anumAna etc is not direct. Such knowledge is
called ‘mediate knowledge’, since one has
to sort out the knowledge through vyApti or cause-effect
reasoning. Shabda pramANa is based on words. Words normally
give only indirect knowledge, similar to learning what
Indra loka or Niagara Falls looks like by reading books.
However, when it comes to Vedanta, the words CAN give
immediate and direct knowledge if what is pointed out
is right here, directly and immediately. A graphic
example is the story of the missing 10th man. You are
that –tat
tvam asi. Yaj~navalkya in his answer says that the direct
and immediate knowledge is yourself since that is the
most direct and immediate.
In Yaj~navalkya's answer, when he says that you cannot
witness that which is the witness of everything or hear
that which is the hearer of hearing, he is implying
that no pratyakSha pramANa can reveal Brahman. In fact,
none of the pramANa-s can give knowledge of Brahman
or knowledge about myself. Hence brahman is called
aprameyam, unknowable. Similar statements are made in
the kenopaniShad. Yet Yaj~navalkya says that brahman
is yourself as ‘the
self in all’ and knowledge of that is direct
and immediate. The statement that brahman is 'yourself
that is the self in all' is shAstra pramANa – we
cannot know this without the help of shAstra. Also the
statement of both Yaj~navalkya and UShasta is knowledge
of that which is direct and immediate, similar to perceptual
knowledge. To understand this, let us go back to our
dark room.
In the example of the pitch dark room, not only can
I perceive the darkness in the room, I can also perceive
myself as an existent and conscious entity. I do not
need any ‘means’ in order to know that I
am there and that I am conscious. In fact, I have
to be there even to validate any pramANa. Hence, Yaj~navalkya
says that ‘what one knows directly and immediately
(without any pramANa) at any time is oneself’.
By equating that self that I am (which is, as we discussed
before, the pure knowledge that I am, which I am constantly
aware of as myself as a self-conscious entity) to Brahman,
the scripture says that brahman is also known immediately
and directly as pure knowledge that is present all the
time.
brahman, being infinite, cannot be known by any pramANa.
It can be known by itself, as it has to be a self-revealing
or self-conscious entity. Hence, Yaj~avalkya's declaration
that it is your own self which has to be direct and
immediate. Hence the knowledge of myself is same as
the knowledge of brahman, which is direct and immediate.
That it is immediate and direct implies that I do not
have to think or meditate for hours in order to realize
that I am an existent and conscious entity. I am there
before I can even think (or sometimes without even thinking).
According to Vedanta, brahman is also defined as ‘pure
consciousness’ – praj~nAnaM brahma – and
hence is known directly and immediately. Yaj~navalkya's
statement is still a pramANa since he is equating the
two as a mahAvAkya. 'I am' is equated with brahman,
since both are directly and immediately known. To realize
the scriptural identity, (the declaration that ‘I
am = brahman’) requires Vedantic inquiry into
what is eternal and what is ephemeral: nitya anitya
vastu vichAra. This requires bhAga tyAga lakShaNa, as
discussed in advaita Vedanta texts.
However, DP is making another equation with his statement,
by giving the Br. Up reference that does not fully justify
his statement. He is equating the perceptual knowledge
gained by pratyakSha pramANa (which is direct and immediate)
with the pure knowledge that ‘I am’ (which
is also direct and immediate). Thus, the total equation
combining the Br. Up. statement is:
Perceptual knowledge (of objects) = pure Knowledge
that ‘I am’ (consciousness that ‘I
am’) = brahman, which is pure consciousness.
The Br. Up quote only provides the justification for
the second equation but not for the first. The justification
for the first part of the equation is the common factor
of the direct and immediate perceptibility of
both the objects through perception and of the conscious
self that I am. The pure consciousness that I am – the
self in all and hence brahman – is known directly
and immediately. Similarly, perceptual knowledge is
direct and immediate.
Prof. T.P. Mahadevan, a great advaitic scholar, makes
the following statement in his introduction to Methods
of Knowledge:
"The knowledge of the self that is said to liberate
the soul from bondage is direct knowledge which is like
unto perceptual knowledge. Only, even perceptual knowledge
is not so immediate as self-knowledge. In sense-perception
there is the intervention of a sense-organ between subject
and object".
In stating that the knowledge that occurs in perception
is direct and immediate and that the ‘brahman
knowledge’ based on the Br. Up statement is also
direct and immediate, and by equating both on the basis
of direct and immediate perceptibility of the two, DP
makes the statement that perceptual knowledge is nothing
but pure consciousness. How that equation is possible
has to be resolved by proper inquiry. But if it is true,
there is no need to seek brahman, since whatever we
see, hear, touch, taste, etc is 'pure consciousness'
only. The implication of the statement is very profound.
We may have to meditate and unravel the statement in
order to recognize that there is no reason to meditate
or unravel to see brahman, since brahman is directly
and immediately visible!
Personally, when I read that statement I was baffled
and lost in the beauty of that statement, since it actually
glorifies the scriptural statements - sarvaM khalvidam
brahma and neha naAnAsti kinchana – ‘all
this (‘this’ corresponds to objects) is
nothing but Brahman’ and ‘there is nothing
else other than brahman’, as well as the Gita's
statement - brahmArpaNam brahma haviH – everything
is brahman. Further justification of the DP statement
will occur in the subsequent chapters. But for me that
was a million dollar statement - what you perceive is
nothing but brahman - the more I see the truth of this
statement the more I see the beauty or vibhUti of Brahman
spread all over in whatever I perceive!
Proceed to the next
essay. |
