The Critique of Erroneous Doctrines
Sankhya is a very famous
philosophy. Most people accept it. The presence of Purusha and Prakriti,
consciousness and matter, is accepted and these words are used in such great
texts like Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, Manu Smriti etc. So this will make us
feel there is some truth in it. Why does the Bhagavad Gita go on using the word
Prakriti and Purusha, when Sankhya is rejected by the Brahma
Sutras?
The main objection against
Sankhya is the assertion of duality; One thing is different from another thing.
But the Samkhya forgets it is not possible to know that one thing is different
from another thing unless there is a third thing which knows the difference.
The one thing which is different from the other thing cannot know that the
other thing exists at all. So there is a flaw in the argument. The third thing
is necessary, which the Sankhya does not accept. It is caught up by a vicious argument
of the self-sufficiency of Purusha and Prakriti. And even its
concept of liberation is inadequate, because the Sankhya believes that
separation of Purusha and Prakriti from contact of each other is
liberation. But there is a defect here. Purusha is liberated from
contact with Prakriti, and Purusha is accepted to be omniscient,
all-pervading consciousness. But Sankhya contradicting this statement says Prakriti
also exists. In liberation, Prakriti is not destroyed; where does it
exist? It exists outside Purusha. Then where is the infinity of the
consciousness of Purusha?
Is Purusha omniscient,
all-knowing? Yes, it is. If it is all-knowing, it must be knowing the existence
of Prakriti also. The moment it knows the existence of Prakriti,
it gets caught in bondage. And bondage will be permanently there. The idea of
liberation in the Sankhya is not acceptable for obvious reasons.
There are other schools which
deny the existence of the Atman itself, like nihilism or sunyavada, a
trend in Buddhistic philosophy. 'Nothing is'. Buddha did not say that nothing
exists, but something followed from his standpoint. He said that everything is
moving and nothing is existing at any particular point, even for a moment, like
the flow of the waters of a river. Not for a single moment does the water stand
at one place. The river is not a stable object; it is movement. That we are
unable to perceive the continuous movement of the waters in a river is the
reason why we mistake that the river is a solid water reservoir.
In the same way, the mind does
not exist. The mind is only an imagined centralization of a point as is the
point imagined in the flow of a river. Not for a moment does anything exist to
continue to see. But Buddha accepted rebirth and samsara, from which he
advocated freedom. Now what is this he is saying? Who will take rebirth? That
person who is to take rebirth does not exist even for a moment, according to
the accepted doctrine.
Karma is the cause of rebirth.
Karma is the repercussion produced by the action of someone. This someone does
not exist, because existence is momentary. Momentariness is almost equivalent
to saying that it is non-existent. So who will take rebirth? How will suffering
be explained? - which Buddha emphasized very much – there is suffering, we have
to overcome suffering.
This peculiar difficulty in
understanding the real point behind what Buddha said created a discussion by
another set of Buddhists leading to nihilism. If everything is momentary,
neither does samsara exist nor does karma exist. Non-existence is the final
word of nihilistic philosophy. But the nihilists made the same mistake as the
Sankhya doctrine became self-contradictory.
Sankhya looked very logical,
very acceptable, very beautiful from outside, but inside it was vacuous due to
the defects already pointed out. So is this so-called boast and adumbration of
nihilism, sunyavada. Who is saying that nothing exists? Who is talking?
Is the non-existence itself saying that non-existence is there? Does the
philosopher of nihilism exist? If the philosopher of nihilism does not exist
because nihilism abolishes the existence of everyone, then who is making a
declaration that nothing exists?
The Vedanta comes in and says
this argument cannot be accepted. Brahma Sutra refutes it. There must be
someone to know that nothing exists. That someone must be existing. The Western
philosopher Rene Descartes concluded as a wise one that the consciousness that
everything is doubtful cannot itself be doubted. "Therefore "I
am"."
In a similar way, the Vedanta
accepts that there should be an awareness of, there being nothing. If sunyavada
accepts that there is an awareness which alone can say 'nothing exists', then
the doctrine of nothingness is defeated and then Something is.
There are various schools of
Buddhist philosophy. There is the Ethical Idealism of Buddha, which emphasized
the momentariness of things though he was a very highly ethical person. But the
others went to extremes and there are four extreme types, offshoots of Buddhist
psychology and philosophy. One of them is called yogachara or vijnanavada.
This is totally refuted by the Brahma Sutras in the second chapter.
All that you see outside is
the creation of the mind. This is the basic principle of vijnana-vada.
Vijnana is the consciousness in the mind or consciousness itself as the
mind, which projects itself as an outside world of perception. The world
actually does not exist. The Vedanta refutes this position. The Commentary of
Acharya Sankara is long on this particular Sutra. "The non-existence of
the world cannot be accepted."
Oh! What is Sankaracharya
saying? What is Sutra telling? Is the world really existing? Are you
contradicting your own Vedanta doctrine that the world ultimately does not
exist? Why are you fighting with this Buddhist psychology?
The Vedanta is a very difficult
subject. 'In what sense is the world existing and in what sense is it not
existing?' – must be first clear to the mind.
That there is nothing at all
outside, and it is only the mind moving outside as is proclaimed by the vijnanvada
theory of Buddhism, is refuted. Why is it refuted? Acharya Sankara's commentary
is elaborate, worth reading again and again. Beautiful! If there is nothing
outside, if the consciousness appears to be outside according to your doctrine,
this doctrine cannot be accepted because "how did the idea of
'outsideness' arise in the mind?" If the mind is wholly inside and is not
outside, and it only projects itself as if it is outside, how did the idea of
outsideness arise at all? A non-existent idea, an impossible idea cannot arise
in the mind. Even if you agree that
there is some appearance outside, and really things do not exist, the
appearance has to be outside. This outsideness must be accepted first. How did
things appear 'outside' even though they may be only mental? The mind is
inside; you will see the whole world dancing inside your head. Why does it not
happen? Why is there the idea of 'an outside'?
There is an outright
condemnation and criticism of vijnavada that you cannot go on saying
that there is an appearance of something being outside unless there is really
something outside. A rope appears as a snake but even for that appearance, the
rope must be existing. If rope also does not exist, then the snake will not be
there.
Now, the other side comes in.
Does Vedanta accept that there is a world, when it says that vijnanavada
is wrong? There are two degrees of reality. One degree is called vyavaharika
satta; another degree is called paramarthika satta.
The object and the subject are
on par with each other. Anything that is above your mental operation cannot be
known by you. Anything that is below your mental operation also cannot be
known. You cannot know heavens because they are above the operations of your
mind. You cannot know hell because it is below the operation of your mind. You
can see only empirical existence because the mind is an empirical phenomenon.
Now, the question whether the world exists or not should not arise at all,
because the existence of a thing is nothing but the acceptance by the mind that
something outside is existing. When consciousness accepts that there is
something, it exists. You cannot deny its existence, because who will deny it?
Consciousness accepts it. The world is seen; now, which consciousness is accepting
it? The empirical consciousness which is subjectively engaged in this physical
body is accepting that there is something outside, because anything that is
inside should also accept that there is something outside. You cannot say 'my
mind is inside'. Who told you that the mind is inside? Because you have
differentiated your mind from something outside. If the outside thing does not
exist, the inside also cannot exist. There is a clash between the inside and
the outside in ordinary perception. The subject and object contradict each
other. Therefore the mind cannot know the nature of the world correctly, nor
can the world enter into the mind.
Excerpts from:
The Critique of Erroneous Doctrines: Chapter 2 An Analysis of the Brahma Sutra by Swami KrishnanandaArchives - Blog
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