The Monism
The Gita literature in Sanskrit has been in the nature of solid support to the monistic Vedanta philosophy. The Bhagavad-Gita is one of the three main support bases of the Vedanta Philosophies, the other two being Upanisads and the Brahma sutras. While the Vedanta philosophies are considered to be Advaita (Non-dualism), Visista-advaita (Non-dualism of the qualified Brahman), and Dwaita (Dualism), the commentators on the Bhagavad-Gita have turned and twisted its contents to suit their philosophical leanings and propensities in respect of each of the three Vedanta philosophies. It is for the reason that its text is not unamenable to the exercise of exegetic ingenuity. But the other Gita literature such as the Avadhuta Gita, the Astavakra Gita (Samhita), and the Vasista Gita (Yoga-Vasistamu) is an accredited exposition of monistic Vedanta, an emphatic assertion of Non-dualism. They do not admit of any misconception or misinterpretation of the fundamental standpoint or attitude of Monism. The Gita literature gives a candid presentation of the cardinal points of Vedanta Monism.
The thrust of the Gita literature is an unfolding of the ultimate Truth which is the final objective of all philosophy, but which forever eludes its grasp. Philosophy can ordinarily produce an intellectual conviction, not direct realization, of the Truth. The Vedanta Philosophies – Non-dualism, Non-dualism of the Qualified Brahman, and Dualism are no exception. For the realization of the Truth, the seeker – the spiritual aspirant is to practice sadhana under the guidance of a guru divinely ordained, who has himself realized the Truth.
Vedanta philosophy, in general, admits a threefold criterion of Truth, namely authority (sruti), logic (yukti), and self-realization (atmanubhuti). Authority is equated with self-realization and is valid because it embodies the experience of realization of Truth by the seers, recorded in the srutis. Its acceptance is based on faith in what the seers have recorded as either their own experience or the experience of others similarly situated like them. The Vedanta is rational in the sense that it is not in conflict with the demands of reason. It, however, recognizes the limitations of reason, as by its very nature, it is to transcend reason to intuit directly the Truth. The mode of so intuiting the Truth is by attaining a supra-rational state of supreme consciousness beyond the realm of human consciousness.
Reason helps us in discrimination to a certain extent. In effect, it is a negative instrument and its findings are bound to be negative in character. It helps us to negate and discard what is not true. But it does not help for the realization of positive Truth. For this purpose, it is inadequate and incompetent. Philosophy, on the other hand, relies upon reason as the only medium for its findings. As reason is operative within limits, it has not proved to be a dependable medium for positive findings that command universal acceptance. The limitation of the reason for the Vedanta philosophy is all the more, as the ultimate Truth is realizable only in a state of supreme consciousness, beyond the realm of reason.
However, the Vedanta philosophy fully utilizes the resources of reason, while correcting and supplementing the results attained through reason by a supra-rational medium to arrive at positive revelations. The revelations of this supra-rational intuition satisfy the demands of reason as well. The acceptance of Vedanta as the perennial philosophy is due to the reconciliation of reason with supra-rational intuition. Undisciplined reason has a corrective in the supra-rational power of intuition in man. Where reason comes to a standstill, it transcends by the light afforded by the supra-rational medium. The falsity of everything – neti that presents itself as an ‘other’ to supreme consciousness is the conclusion deduced by the application of this principle. The philosophical literature of Vedanta is endowed with this presentation.
Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta satisfies the criteria of philosophy as it is based on reason and logic to the extent reason and logic hold sway. At the stage reason is to be transcended, it depends upon the supra-rational medium and the authority of the seers as propounded in the srutis for the realization of the supreme Truth. On the other hand, Monistic Vedanta has uniformly discarded the world of sense and intellect and all that revolves around the concept of dualism as an unmitigated illusion. There may be no logical justification from the temporal standpoint for such a view. All attempts at rationalization of the world's appearance together with the ego are, for it, a confession of failure. The failure of logic is not due to the limitations of the human intellect, but an intrinsic defect that vitiates the very nature of objectivity.
This is the burden of the Upanisads and the works of Gaupada and Sankaracharya that is occupied with the task of proving the unreality of the objective world by appealing to logic and authority alike. According to them, there are four levels of covering the world of action. They are the insignificant being, the apparent being, the pragmatic being, and the Supreme or the Ultimate Being. The difference among the four levels of being is not merely epistemological, but ontological.
The significance of this classification into four levels of being is that each higher level transcends the lower. This transcending is not by abstraction but by assimilation and absorption. The Brahman or the Supreme Being is described as the swallower and devourer (atta) of the world. As the Brahman creates and maintains it, He destroys it, too. Where does it go when it is destroyed? It is absorbed and assimilated into the Brahman, as waves get absorbed and assimilated in the ocean. As such the Brahman alone is real and the objective world apart from the Brahman is unreal, as the ocean alone is real and the waves apart from the ocean are unreal.
The Advaita as well as Monism considers the Brahman as One and Indivisible. The Brahman is a pure ontological being or Existence (Satta). Being and Existence are one and the same. Being cannot be many. If IT is more than one, IT becomes a class and the world becomes the name of the class. The question of whether IT is one or more does not arise for ontological beings. We can reasonably say that ‘to be one’ is to be one among many. But ontologically, ‘to be’ is the act of being or existing. There is no duality both within and without the Being. The Being is One – Only One Existence – Ekam Sat.
Though Advaita and Monism refer to the Supreme Self-being as One and Indivisible, there is a difference in the degree of emphasis. Advaita is negative (Non-dualism is a negative word), logical, passive, and philosophical while Monism is positive, emphatic, active, and a state of spiritual experience.
The Gita literature related to Monistic Vedanta has only one aim. The aim is the realization of the Truth, the Self, the Brahman, and the Atman in whatever way IT is called. According to it, the Self alone is real and all not-self is appearance. The false identification of the Self with the not-self is the cause of bondage. Bondage is thus due to ignorance of the real nature of the Self. Freedom is attained on the dawn of self-realization when ignorance disappears in knowledge. The disappearance of ignorance automatically entails the disappearance of the not-self that is its product. The perception of the existence of an ‘other’ is the cause of all our anxiety and unhappiness. This perception is because of the consciousness of the body and the mind. When this consciousness is transcended and absorbed in the supreme consciousness, is Self-realized. When the Self is realized as the only Reality, difference, and distinction vanish like mist before the sun, and freedom is attained.
As a matter of course, freedom is the very essence of the Self. Freedom is not attained. It is only discovered and realized. Loss of freedom arises only when freedom is veiled. We feel miserable because we do not realize the freedom that is ours. On the other hand, we feel that we are in bondage through ignorance. The impediment to self-realization and freedom is in our being in the domain of the body and the mind. It is our preoccupation with the world of objects that inevitably leads to a conflict of interests and consequently to social evils and moral depravity. To get over the resulting barriers of separation between man and man, it is necessary to cultivate an attitude of detachment and nourish moral virtues of charity, forgiveness, sincerity, simplicity, love of truth and the like that will have an impact on taming the consciousness of the body and the mind, ultimately dissolving into the supreme consciousness of the Self.
This moral discipline liberates the mind from the sense of objects and diverts it inwards. The inward diversion of the mind will enable the aspirant to realize his independence and detach from the network of relations that constitute the phenomenal world. So long as the mind sees another self, there is bondage. Freedom consists in seeing nothing but the Self as and in everything. The Self is the Brahman, the undivided and undifferentiated Consciousness-Existence-Bliss. This is different from and beyond the ego, as the ego is consciousness limited to and distorted by the mind. As soon as a person is beyond the domain of his mind, he secures liberation from the ego and becomes Supreme Bliss.
“He who considers himself free is free indeed, and he who considers himself bound remains bound” is the formula that sets a person free from bondage to the phenomenal world. If a person realizes with conviction and faith that it is his own self that sustains and illumines the universe, the whole universe belongs to him as something like a floating appendage to his being. The unity of the Self with all that exists is realized. The multiplicity of selves is an equally unmitigated appearance. There is neither a plurality of objects nor a plurality of subjects. There is only one subject or rather no subject at all as the Self is Supreme Consciousness.
The self-existent Infinite Consciousness assumes, in the perception of ordinary human consciousness, the role of an unlimited number of subjects through Its false identification with the ‘mind-organs (body) setup,’ which are the creation of Maya or Prakrti. Maya or Prakrti is not Absolute Evil but is the embodiment of both science and nescience and reason and unreason. Science kills nescience, and reason kills unreason. In the process, by dispassion the evil course is arrested and the practice of discrimination sets free the good course. This is the raison d’etre of moral discipline emphasized in the Sastras.
Every action has merit or demerit resulting from the good or evil it produces. Ethical action includes disciplines for realization. The first is discrimination between the eternal and the non-eternal. The seeker is to discriminate at every level of action focusing on whether the action leads to the grasp of the eternal being. If the objects of action are related to the transient or temporal beings, he is to withdraw from activities related to them. This is ultimately to enable him to grasp the eternal being. The second discipline is detachment from all selfish pursuits, worldly and otherworldly. The third is the cultivation of the six virtues, namely tranquility, restraint, renunciation, endurance, meditation, and faith. The fourth is a desire for liberation. These four disciplines of realization are known as sadhana-chatustayam.
Monism emphasizes the necessity of detachment. It declares that craving for the objects of the senses lasts as long as there is ignorance of the beauty of the Self. But the bubble of the worldly order is pricked as soon as the surpassing beauty of the Self is realized. In non-attachment to the objects of the senses is ecstatic bliss realized.
Monism attaches primacy to renunciation among all virtues. It is considered the most important and of three types – sacrifice, charity, and penance. All three are actions. They purify the soul – the self. They are obligatory actions to be performed without any attachment to the results thereof.
True renunciation is to be intense and like the sharp edge of a razor. It cuts the bondage of Maya easily and at once. It is not possible to renounce the world bit by bit. Such renunciation is to come about at once. When the seeker, while having everything in the world and lacking nothing, feels all to be unreal, he is said to have attained true renunciation.
Monism speaks of the Self as being the lord of the universe, who is absolutely free from fear. This fearlessness is repeatedly emphasized in the Upanisads. Fear is the emotion of the mind. One does not realize the Self unless one transcends the mind and its associates such as the senses and the ego. With the mind transcended, fear dissolves into love which is the attribute of the Self. The realized seeker is beyond the impact of life and of death, as he is one with the Self. As is life of no concern to him, so is death. Of all the systems of philosophy, it is the Vedanta that makes us free from fear, be it of death or of tyranny.
Monism emphasizes the unreality of the outer world, both sentient and insentient. The realization of the unreality of the objective world is only a preparation for a similar realization in respect of the inner, psychological world. The psychological world is as much an illusionary appearance as the objective world. The mind and the ego are mainly responsible for bondage. They obstruct the vision of the infinitude of the Self. The intellectual and ethical worlds are also considered unreal. Even virtue is an obstacle to higher realization. The values of life only help harmonious social living so long as consciousness is relative. Even the intellectual, aesthetic, and moral disciplines become a hindrance to the seeker for liberation as he advances in the course of his sadhana. Even the striving for liberation ceases before self-realization is attained.
Monism exhorts: “It is verily through your ignorance that the universe exists. In reality you alone are. There is no jiva or Isvara other than you”. The absolute identity of the oneness of the Self and the negation of a second Principle, either spiritual or temporal, are the cardinal principles of monistic Vedanta. The values of life and the ethical disciplines are valid only provisionally in the lower plane of reality where the influence of avidya is in force. When Avidya is destroyed along with its attributes, there is no cognition or experience of a second entity even on the phenomenal plane. In other words, the phenomenal world disappears with the cessation of avidya-the unmanifest.
The doctrines of Ekajiva-vada (only one subject theory) and Ajata-vada (no creation at all theory) also seek to emphasize the unreality of the phenomenal world and the reality of the Self alone as a Being. Monism is in total agreement with these theories. The difference if any is only in the emphasis on the non-subjectivity of the phenomenal world, as in the case of the difference in emphasis between Non-dualism and Monism. Even when the apparent reality of the phenomenal world is admitted, it has only a relative validity to the lower level of intellect, arising from cognition. It is always recognized that the apparent (pratibhasika) and the conventional (vyavaharika) orders of reality are rather phases of unreality, as absolute reality is denied to them. They are unreal in the sense that they are not permanent and eternal as the Self is. It is not that the phenomenal world is asat (non-existent), but only unreal. All things other than the Self are only in appearance, no matter how persistent and consistent some of them appear to be. The phenomenal world does appear to exist.
The admission of provisional or apparent reality is not in conflict with the central doctrine of Vedanta that the Self Alone exists. The reality accorded to the phenomenal world is only apparent and vicarious as it is considered to be cognizable in the borrowed light of the Self. It has no existence whatsoever apart from what appears on the substratum of the Self as waves and bubbles appear on the ocean. As waves and bubbles are to the ocean, the phenomenal world is to the Self, appearing on the substratum, dissolving into the Self, reappearing on the substratum, etc in a cycle without end.
Shankara says, “If you do not have a consciousness, then everything is dark and nothing in the universe exists”. This corresponds to the view of modern quantum mechanics that unless you can observe a thing, it just does not exist. This is the reason there must be an interaction between the observer and the observed to complete a measurement. It is consciousness that fills the bill in the material world in the sense that it determines its existence. When the seeker is beyond the consciousness of the physical universe, it does not exist for him. It remains an illusion for him.
The Gitas propounding Monism is simple, straight, and forceful. Their diction is eloquent ringing the sincerity, and the conviction of faith and truth of the authors. There is no recourse to logic or pedagogy, no trace of wavering allegiance, no intellectual elaboration, and no weakness in its deliverance. It is the spontaneous outpouring of the direct experience of the Self by the seers. The Gita literature is, as a whole, superb poetry in Sanskrit, as it stirs and elevates the soul. Philosophically, the Gita literature provides a satisfactory explanation of the Supreme Being from the ontological and transcendental points of view.
Previous Page: Preface of Ashtavakra Gita
Next page: Introduction to Astavakra-Gita (Samhita)