Defenders of cross-cultural mystical experience are proper to notice that in lots of extensively various cultures, revered sages have referred to the expertise of an final nonduality: a notion that the whole lot, together with oneself, is in the end one. However one may also then rightly ask: which final nonduality?
Nondualism often is the world’s most widespread philosophy, however it may well imply various things – not merely various things in other places, however various things within the identical place. Members of the Indian Vedānta custom steadily proclaimed that the whole lot is “one, and not using a second”, within the phrases of the Upaniṣads they adopted. However they disagreed as to what that meant. Śaṅkara based the Advaita Vedānta custom – a-dvaita actually which means non-dual – which argued that solely the one, final fact (sat, braḥman) was actual, and all multiplicity and plurality was an phantasm. His opponent Rāmānuja agreed that the whole lot is “one, and not using a second” – however in his Viśiṣṭādvaita (certified nondual) faculty, that meant one thing fairly totally different. All the numerous issues and folks we see round us – what Chinese language metaphysicians known as the “ten thousand issues” – are components of that final one, and they’re actual, not illusory.
I used to be reminded of this level within the nice feedback on my previous post about cross-cultural mysticism. I had cited W.T. Stace as an influential advocate of the view that mysticism is cross-cultural, and famous how Robert Forman’s book defended Stace by pointing to contentless experiences of void, from the Yoga Sūtras to Hasidism, that “blot out” sense perception. Seth Segall made the important point that in Stace’s personal work not all mystical experiences are contentless on this manner. Leaving apart the “sizzling” or “visionary” experiences (like St. Teresa and the angel) which Stace doesn’t rely as mystical experiences – even amongst what Stace counts as real mystical experiences, he makes a key distinction between introvertive and extrovertive mystical experiences. This isn’t only a distinction between the interpretations utilized to the experiences, however between the experiences themselves. The contentless “Pure Consciousness Occasions” described in Forman’s e-book, the place distinctions fade into void, are introvertive; experiences of merging with a unified pure world, like Teresa saying “it was granted to me in a single instantaneous how all issues are seen and contained in God”, are extrovertive.
And right here’s the place I discover this all actually fascinating: that introvertive/extrovertive distinction, between various kinds of experiences, corresponds to the metaphysical distinction between Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja! Neither Śaṅkara nor Rāmānuja cites expertise, mystical or in any other case, because the supply of their philosophy. Each declare to be deriving it from the Upaniṣads (and different texts just like the Bhagavad Gītā), they usually every defend their view (of the scriptures and of actuality) with logical arguments. But even so, the excellence Stace noticed in descriptions of mystical experiences seems to correspond fairly intently to the excellence between their philosophies.
In Śaṅkara’s philosophy, as in an introvertive expertise, the numerous issues of the world, together with oneself, all fall away; what stays is the one actuality alone. In Rāmānuja’s philosophy, as in an extrovertive expertise, the issues of the world, together with oneself, stay, however they’re all unified collectively: they proceed to have an actual existence, however as linked members of a bigger unity.
All this can be a main caveat for perennialist-leaning concepts: even in case you had been to argue that mystical expertise pointed to a cross-culturally acknowledged nondualism, you’ll nonetheless must specify which nondualism. The smartass response is to say “all of the nondualisms are one”, however that’s not likely passable, not even to the nondualists themselves. Rāmānuja attacked Śaṅkara’s view, and whereas Śaṅkara lived centuries earlier than Rāmānuja, he attacked different thinkers who had views like Rāmānuja’s.
Some mystically inclined thinkers take a reasonable or intermediate place that compromises between an absolute nondual view and the view of frequent sense or acquired custom. Such was the method of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindī, the Indian Sufi who reconciled Sufi experiences of mystical oneness with Qur’anic orthodoxy by proclaiming “not ‘All is Him’ however ‘All is from Him’”. It’s tempting to view Rāmānuja’s method to Śaṅkara as comparable, tempering an absolute mysticism with a common sense view of the world as actual: Śaṅkara’s mystical excesses take him manner on the market and Rāmānuja pulls him again. However such an method doesn’t actually work. It’s flummoxed not solely by the truth that Śaṅkara claimed no mystical grounding for his philosophy, but additionally by the existence of extrovertive mysticism: the numerous who’ve felt an expertise of oneness with the grass and bushes wouldn’t have been drawn by that have to Śaṅkara’s view, however on to Rāmānuja’s. (I’ve beforehand urged that Rāmānuja is certainly moderating Śaṅkara’s total method – however with respect to Śaṅkara’s possible autism quite than to mysticism.)
None of that is meant as a refutation of mystical views of actuality, and even essentially of perennialism. It appears to me that each introvertive and extrovertive experiences are discovered throughout a variety of cultures, usually accompanied by a way of certainty, and are price taking severely for that cause. However we then must take each severely: if the world is one, then are our many differing perceptions illusory or actual? Right here, I believe, it helps that each illusionist and realist types of nondual philosophy – experientially primarily based or in any other case – additionally happen in a number of locations. The debates between them would possibly assist us kind out what actuality – if any – the experiences are pointing to.
Cross-posted at the Indian Philosophy Blog.
