Advaita as Nondual Idealism

 

by Benjamin X

 

 www.sunyaprajna.com

 

Presented at the

Fifth International WAVES Conference

Shady Grove, MD

11 July 2004

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

 

An ontology of nondual idealism, based partly on ideas from Berkeley and Hume, will be shown to be both irrefutable and consistent with science and everyday reality.  This ontology denies the existence of a material world 'external' to consciousness, so that all of reality is initially reduced to multiple 'streams of consciousness'.  The issue of solipsism will be addressed, as well as other objections to this 'subjective idealism'.  It will then be shown how 'nonduality', or the denial of differences, primarily between subject and object, is a natural development of this ontology.  These views will then be used to clarify some key principles and texts from the spiritual tradition of Advaita Vedanta.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Advaita Vedanta (or simply Advaita) is one of several spiritual traditions spanning the world which are based on the principle of nonduality as the key to liberation or enlightenment.  These traditions include various schools of Mahayana Buddhism, as well as of Taoism, Sufism, and also individual mystics from Christianity such as Meister Eckhart.[1]  Nonduality has different shades of meaning, but its salient characteristic is that enlightenment is to be found in the dissolution of the false distinction between subject and object or seer and seen.  (As we will see, this is closely related to realizing one's identity with the divine.)  Such a view of reality seems highly counterintuitive to most people, and indeed nondual traditions tend to stress that realization of the ultimate truth transcends the conceptual mind.  Nevertheless, I will argue that nonduality can be rather clearly understood in terms of ideas from a Western philosophical tradition known as idealism, which, despite its many forms, basically asserts that reality is to be reduced to mind or consciousness in some sense.  In particular, the so-called subjective idealism of the 18th century philosopher Berkeley is most illuminating, though I do not agree with all that he said.  Another 18th century philosopher, Hume, though properly called a skeptic rather than an idealist, provides some useful insights regarding the self.[2]  One key point I would like to emphasize is that idealism, or at least my version of it, is entirely compatible with science and everyday reality, contrary to a common misconception.  Indeed, I consider nondual mysticism itself to be a kind of empirical exploration of higher realms of consciousness, based on direct realization, which makes it, in my opinion, a far more rational approach to spirituality than any religion based on dogma or revelation.

 

 

ADVAITA VEDANTA

 

Let us first summarize Advaita Vedanta, before launching into philosophy.  Vedanta as a whole is the influential spiritual tradition within Hinduism which is based on the ancient visionary scriptures called the Upanishads.[3]  The Upanishads, the most authentic of which predate Buddhism and are hence more than 2500 years old, are the intuitive utterances of the rishis or seers regarding ultimate reality and spiritual liberation.  Being of an evocative nature, they are not organized into a coherent philosophy, and hence they have given rise to a variety of conflicting interpretations. 

 

Advaita is the school within Vedanta which interprets the Upanishads as proclaiming the strict identity between Brahman, or the cosmic principle and basis of reality, and the Atman, our innermost self or essence.  Although ultimately inexpressible, Brahman is characterized as sat-chit-ananda or being, consciousness and bliss.  It is not to be thought of as a personal God but rather as the infinite and incomprehensible essence of reality.  The Atman is the 'seer' or principle of consciousness within what we take to be the jiva or individual person.  Although similar in some respects to the Christian concept of 'soul', it actually transcends this by virtue of its identity with Brahman. 

 

According to Advaita, moksha or liberation from the suffering and limitation of ordinary life is to be found in the realization of our identity with Brahman.  This realization is, of course, more than mere conceptual understanding; it is obtained through sustained inquiry and meditation, which purges all delusion from the roots of our phenomenal consciousness, thus revealing our shining, inner divine nature.  The ignorance or avidya which binds us is essentially any identification we make with any supposed entity other than Brahman, particularly personal ego and all the baggage associated with it, such as mind, body, family, social status, profession, property, ethnicity, religion or nation.  Note that I say 'supposed entity', since insofar as these are falsely conceived as other than Brahman, they must be illusory.

 

Indeed, the identification of Brahman as the sole reality, which is the essence of Advaita, is incompatible with the view that any aspect of the objective world has an independent, self-sustaining reality of its own, as it appears to common sense. Brahman is repeatedly described as 'Consciousness' and 'One without a second' (which is the meaning of Advaita).  Hence, reality cannot consists of 'things' or 'parts', much less the unconscious and inanimate parts which make up the materialistic view of the world found in much of modern science as well as in ancient philosophical traditions such as the dualistic Sankhya.  By definition, the object is other than consciousness; it is the seen, whereas consciousness is the seer.  Hence, if Brahman is the sole reality, then any apparent objects, whether they be material bodies or even the fluctuations of the mind,[4] must be unreal, insofar as they are perceived as objects.  The apparent objects are mere illusions like dreams. 

 

It is because we identify with various illusory objects and take them as real that we are bound in ignorance and fail to realize our nature as pure infinite consciousness.  We cannot identify with them until we first suppose that they are real, and to ascribe any reality to the apparent objects is to falsely limit consciousness.  This error is more than a mere deficiency of information; our false thoughts actually hide our intrinsic pure consciousness like clouds covering the sun, and this is why we do not seem to be enlightened.  Ascribing reality to objects is called duality, since consciousness and objects are then given an equal ontological status.  The denial of the reality of objects is called nonduality; subject and object effectively collapse into a single homogeneous reality, which we may simply call Self or Pure Consciousness. 

 

It is essential to understand that when Advaita denies that we are this or that object, such as body or mind, it is not thereby implying that those objects have any kind of reality, which we are not.  Rather, it is denying the very reality of those objects, when falsely interpreted as other than consciousness.  Even the 'I-thought', our most fundamental thought, and the first one that we experience upon awakening, is an illusory projection which is to be distinguished from the true Self which falsely perceives the I-thought.[5]  Some students of Advaita fail to understand that the first stage of denying our identity with various objects ('neti, neti') must then be paradoxically followed by the realization that those apparent objects were simply illusions in consciousness and hence not other than the Self.  It is only when the illusion is taken as real that it presents any danger.[6]

 

An oral tradition of Advaita extends back to the Upanishads, but the scholarly tradition begins with Gaudapada, who lived in the 6th or 7th century and wrote a famous commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad.[7]  Gaudapada was the teacher of the teacher of Shankara, who lived in the 8th or 9th century and is the most eminent of the classical Advaitins.[8]  Modern Advaitins include Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta and Atmananda (Krishna Menon), who lived in the 20th centuries and left behind inspiring and readable books and lectures.[9]  They impressed almost everyone who met them with the authenticity of their realization and the persuasive and unpretentious lucidity of their expression.  Finally, the ancient scripture called the Yoga Vasistha, a classic of Advaita, is remarkable for its clarity, depth and imagination.[10]  Another ancient classic of Advaita is the Ashtavakra Gita.[11]

 

Although it is traditional to emphasize the ineffability of Brahman, which can only be revealed in true mystical experience transcending all conceptual thought, I will nevertheless argue that certain ideas from subjective idealism provide glimpses into the meaning of Advaita (and related nondual traditions).  Furthermore, these glimpses are simple intuitions, which are accessible to anyone, provided that he can learn to contemplate his consciousness without being fooled by the trickery of language or the ingrained preconceptions of the conceptual mind.  To this philosophy we now turn.

 

 

SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM

 

Let us start with our everyday perception of the world.  This world appears to consist of discrete material objects which are distinct from the conscious, witnessing self.  The perceptions are clearly 'in consciousness' in some sense, and the objects are presumably inanimate blobs of matter 'outside' of consciousness.  Hence, there would seem to be a sharp distinction between the perceptions and the objects, with the perceptions being mere pictures or representations within consciousness of the external objects.  This is the standard dualism of Descartes, Locke or common sense, in which consciousness and matter are distinct and have an equal ontological status.[12]

 

Yet a little introspection reveals that we never see the material objects themselves but only our perception of them.  So how do we know that the objects even exist?  And is the idea of a material object even meaningful, that is, can we form a clear idea of its nature independently of our perception of it?  It was the brilliant philosopher Berkeley (1685-1753) who first drew our attention to these questions, at least in the West, and his answer was that the material objects do not exist, that reality consists of minds and their ideas, the latter of which, according to his terminology, include perceptions, feelings and thoughts, i.e. any aspect of our immediate awareness.[13]

 

This startling view of the 'nonexistence' of the material world can easily be understood in terms of the dream, an analogy often used in Advaita and Mahayana Buddhism.  When we dream, the dream objects seem vivid and real, yet upon awakening we realize that they were only illusions in consciousness.  Who is to say that the waking world is not similar to a dream?  How could this be disproved?

 

Of course, there are important qualitative differences between the dream and waking states.  The perceptions of the waking state are perhaps more vivid than those of most dreams.  More importantly, the waking perceptions are highly organized, regular and predictable; they always (or almost always) follow the laws of physics.  Furthermore, there is a communal aspect to the waking state, such that we feel quite sure that our perception of the body of another person is in fact associated with a consciousness much like our own, seeing a world much like what we see.[14]

 

So a bit of reflection indicates that the only good reason we have for believing in the mysterious and utterly unobservable 'matter' is as a common cause for the regular and organized perceptions in the consciousness of different 'people' when they are awake.  It seems as though there must be some common source external to individual consciousness to account for this regularity.  But in fact there is no logical reason why the perceptions themselves might not simply be coordinated or choreographed in such a way that the illusion of a common external world arises.  Why would this be any more remarkable or inexplicable than the existence of an actual material world?  Indeed, according to Ockham's Razor, the famous philosophical principle which says that the simplest hypothesis which accounts for the facts should be taken as the truth, it follows that the abolition of the external world takes nothing away from our everyday experience, nor from the discoveries of science, yet it has the satisfactory advantage of not requiring us to postulate something inherently unobservable and undetectable, namely, the existence of the external material world.

 

One often hears the objection that even an idealist is afraid to jump off a bridge.  In Berkeley's time, the famous English literary figure Samuel Johnson said, 'I refute him thus', by kicking a stone.  Actually, this common sense argument only makes the idealist's case, since all that happens in a vivid experience such as falling off a bridge or kicking a stone is the experience itself, which is nothing but a sequence of perceptions.  The very vividness of the perceptions proves that they are in consciousness, or we would not know that they are vivid and react in fear.

 

However, there is a subtlety regarding the illusion of objectivity which must be clarified.  On the one hand, the word 'object' may refer to the hypothetical material entity distinct from consciousness to which our perceptions supposedly refer.  We may call this the gross object.  But on the other hand, it is common experience that the perceptions themselves may appear as objects.  If one contemplates one's perceptions, they too may seem distinct and 'out there', much like a hologram.  We may call this the subtle object.[15]  This distinction neutralizes a common objection to the subjective idealistic interpretation of Shankara.  Authors such as Eliot Deutsch[16] quote the notorious passage II.2.28 from Shankara's Brahma Sutra Bashya refuting the Buddhist Vijnanavadins (idealists), where Shankara says, 'There could be no non-existence (of external entities) because external entities are actually perceived...'  Leaving aside that Shankara misunderstands the alleged 'nihilism' of the Buddhists (both Madhyamika and Vijnanavada), his argument in this case is invalid.  By referring directly to perception, he only confirms the truth of subjective idealism as described here, but he does make the correct point that the perceptions appear as though objective when we are in the ordinary dualistic frame of mind (which he calls vyavaharika).[17]

 

Now we must address the contentious issue of solipsism, which is perhaps the main criticism which has kept subjective idealism from being more widely appreciated.  It is alleged that since we cannot know the existence of material objects, we also cannot know the existence of other minds, since these too are not something we can directly perceive.  For all I know, the other people I see may also be figments of my imagination, and my consciousness may be the only one.  First of all, it should be pointed out that my perceptions of other people are figments of imagination, in that they are mere perceptions in themselves, which are only associated with other minds like my own.  So how do I know the other minds exist?  Because, it would be so improbable and arbitrary as to be virtually inconceivable that I should be the only one.  I would then have all the attributes of Brahman, with none of the limitations of illusion or personal finitude, which is surely not the case.  I have no doubt that you exist in the same way as I do, as mere consciousness.  I know of your existence by reference and analogy to my own undeniable consciousness.[18]  The issue of matter, which nobody has seen, is something entirely different.[19]

 

Another contentious issue is whether an object such as a tree disappears when nobody is looking at it.  To this, the good Bishop Berkeley was happy to invoke God as the sustainer of the perception of the tree when nobody is in the forest to see it.  I consider this to be inconsistent with his basic argument for idealism.  Instead, I maintain that one must be brave and concede that the tree does not exist when not a perception in somebody's consciousness.  There is no single entity called the 'tree'. Rather there are parallel and similar images of a tree in different minds.  The tree is no more than this, so that when that particular image is not imagined by anyone, then the so-called 'tree' disappears entirely.[20]

 

Finally, one might object that although we cannot prove the existence of matter, we cannot disprove it either.  It may in fact be the unobservable cause of our perceptions.  To answer this requires a sophisticated analysis of the very meaning of material objects, as well as of space and time, much like that provided by Berkeley.  I maintain that one cannot even conceive of the material object without either imagining it or referring to such an imagination of it in one's thoughts or language.  When one thinks dualistically of some object in space, one first imagines the actual experience, and then the mind arbitrarily and subconsciously stamps the label 'other than consciousness' on it.  This is in fact how we do imagine objects in space, even if we do not realize it, because the whole mental process is subliminal.  Seen in this light, the label 'other' is gratuitous and arbitrary and hence devoid of meaning.[21]  It is much like the word 'substance', which Berkeley and Hume both attack with devastating arguments.[22]

 

At any rate, even if one cannot accept the subtle argument of the last paragraph, one must acknowledge that (i) the existence of matter cannot possibly be proven, and (ii) matter is at best reduced to an inconsequential epiphenomenon or 'ghost' of consciousness, which may have practical utility but which is ultimately useless from a philosophical point of view (and spiritually harmful as we will see).  This is ironical considering that many materialists and dualists consider consciousness to be a mere epiphenomenon of the material body!

 

 

RELEVANCE TO ADVAITA

 

It must first be emphasized that dry 'armchair' philosophical analysis will not have a spiritual benefit.  It is only when the truth realized by inquiry is internalized in the depths of our psyche that any transformation of consciousness can take place.  The holistic and nondual vision of reality provided by the idealism just discussed, in which the usual distinction between subject and object is obliterated, must be deeply contemplated and absorbed into the 'roots of consciousness' (the vasanas) for a spiritual effect to occur.

 

Next, we must realize that Berkeley's annihilation of the material world is only the first step towards nonduality.  He still clung to the notion of a mind perceiving ideas, which implies a more subtle kind of duality (the same as the subtle object mentioned above).  It was his successor Hume, who though properly called a skeptic rather than an idealist, famously stated in his Treatise[23]

 

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.

 

In other words, introspection reveals no distinction between seer and seen, with respect to perception.[24]  There is only what might be called the 'immediate awareness'.  The labels 'seer' and 'seen' both refer to this same awareness, and any supposed difference is a superimposition of the conceptual mind, just like the famous Advaitin snake being superposed on the rope.  I maintain that this is intuitively self-evident upon calm, silent, non-verbal introspection, and I am willing to rest my case upon this intuition.  This nondual 'immediate awareness' may be called a 'stream of consciousness', the famous expression first coined by William James.[25]

 

Yet even Hume fails to appreciate a crucial subtlety regarding this stream of consciousness.  He is quite convinced that it reduces to a mere cluster of elementary perceptions, which he calls impressions, in effect a radical psychological atomism.  What he doesn't realize is that this stream of consciousness is equally a radical unity.  To see this, we need only ask, 'Why doesn't this stream dissolve into a myriad of pixels of consciousness?'  What binds the pixels together into one stream?  If the stream truly reduced to atoms of consciousness, then there would be innumerable atomic streams, each unaware of the other.  Instead, introspection and intuition clearly reveal a unity to the stream.  One could say that there is one seer seeing the stream, provided that one then insists that the seer is not different from the stream (or that the seer is not different from the seen)!

 

In other words, this intuitive insight into immediate experience is paradoxical when expressed in words.  Whereas many would claim that this apparent paradox renders my view inconsistent and thereby false, I would say that my self-evident intuition based on immediate experience trumps any claims or structures of language.  Language is nothing but a sequence of symbols that attempts to refer to the reality which is consciousness - consciousness in the sense of immediate awareness that has not been contaminated with verbal or conceptual interpretation.  If language or conceptual thought fails in some sense to capture this reality, then so much the worse for language or conceptual thought.

 

So the words 'one seer' refer to an undeniable reality, as do the words 'many perceptions' (i.e. the 'seen').  I cannot deny either of these aspects of experience.  Furthermore, the words 'seer' and 'seen' are merely labels referring to the same experience, awareness, consciousness or whatever you wish to call it.  The one (seer) and the many (seen) are the same, however repugnant this may be to logic.[26]

 

Yet of the two, I would give priority to the one seer, since it encompasses the whole reality in one stroke, whereas the words 'many perceptions' almost irresistibly tempt the mind into believing that these many perceptions are utterly and truly distinct in a way that precludes the one seer.  By dwelling in the one seer - or the 'witness' as Ramana would call it - one arrives at that nondual state of consciousness where seer and seen are united in one reality.  And fear not, there is no possibility that the various shapes and colors of life will simply disappear; even the sage sees them, yet he remains centered in the seer, which is Consciousness or Brahman.  Ultimately, though, the distinction between seer and seen simply evaporates through the direct realization of their identity.

 

Just as there is one seer at a given instant of time, and all of space is 'swallowed up' in that one seer as a mere phenomenal aspect of perceptual consciousness, so does the one seer maintain its strict identity and nonduality over time.  Even from the point of view of everyday experience, I am quite convinced that I am the same seer as I was during childhood.  To be sure, the phenomenal aspect of my identity fluctuates over time, namely, the perceptions which are called 'body' and 'mind'.  Yet there is an unshakable sense in which I am convinced that the seer has remained the same.[27]  And once again, I must stress the paradox that this seer and the fluctuating seen were never truly distinct, only they seemed to be through the magic (maya) of the conceptual mind.

 

From this one concludes that space and time are in consciousness; consciousness is not in space and time.  There is only the stream of consciousness, consisting of perceptions (and thoughts and feelings).  Space and time are merely an aspect of this stream of perceptions; they are intrinsically bound up with it.  Space, time and object all collapse to perception, which in turn collapses to nondual consciousness.  It is in this sense that space and time are unreal, that is, in the sense that they are not external realities (i.e. external to consciousness).  They are realities, as are the objects, insofar as they are perceived (but not if they are perceived dualistically with the added conceptual superposition of objectivity).

 

When Shankara, for example, speaks of unreality, one must distinguish between the strict unreality that could never be perceived, such as a barren woman's child, and the so-called mithya of everyday dualistic experience, which is neither fully real nor fully unreal.  This everyday experience is not fully real, in that we falsely believe that the object is a real, self-sustaining entity distinct from consciousness.  Yet it is not fully unreal, in that the experience or stream of consciousness itself is manifest and undeniable.  The error consists in superposing the idea of an object upon the reality of consciousness.  This originates entirely in the mind and corresponds to the illusory snake on the rope.  It is this illusion of a distinction between subject and object which Shankara criticizes in passages such as the following one from the Introduction to his Brahma Sutra Bashya,[28]

 

'It is a clear fact that the object and the subject, whose respective areas are the concepts of Thou and I, and whose natures are opposed to each other as much as light and darkness, are irreconcilable. So also their respective qualifications...' 

 

This does not mean that the subject and object are equally real, and that we must distinguish ourself from this 'false' but nevertheless real object.  That would be the philosophy of Sankhya, which Shankara vigorously refutes in his Bashya.  Anyway, the nonduality of Brahman simply allows no other interpretation than that the object is illusory like a dream, strictly and not metaphorically, as some would claim.

 

One final criticism of a 'subjective idealistic' interpretation of Advaita is that 'everything is reduced to personal mind', which fluctuates and changes and hence cannot be real according to the fundamental principles of Advaita.  This criticism is false, since it fails to consider the crucial step we took which affirms the nondual identity of the one seer with the perceptions.[29]

 

Let us now quote some passages from the Advaitin literature to confirm our interpretation in terms of nondual consciousness. One of the most famous passages is from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (II.4.9-14), where sage Yajnavalkya is speaking to his wife Maitreyi,

 

'For when there is duality, as it were, then one smells another, one sees another, one hears another, one speaks to another, one thinks of another, one knows another. But when everything has become the Self, then what should one smell and through what, what should one see and through what, what should one hear and through what, what should one speak and through what, what should one think and through what, what should one know and through what? Through what should One know That owing to which all this is known - through what, my dear, should one know the Knower?'

 

Equally famous is this passage from the Chandogya Upanishad (VII.24.1)

 

'Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the infinite. But where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else, that is the small (the finite).'

 

That this nondual reality is consciousness is emphasized in the final verses of the Aitareya Upanishad,

 

He is Brahman, He is Indra, He is Prajapati; He is all these gods; ...  All this is guided by Consciousness, is supported by Consciousness. The basis is Consciousness. Consciousness is Brahman.

 

He, having realized oneness with Pure Consciousness, soared from this world and having obtained all desires in yonder heavenly world, became immortal - yea, became immortal.

 

The Vivekachudamani, the Yoga Vasistha, the Ashtavakra Gita, the talks of Ramana, Nisargadatta and Atmananda, are all full of similar passages (though one must never forget that these texts, like Shankara, sometimes speak from the dualistic standpoint for the benefit of the student).  For example, Nisargadatta says,[30]

 

You know only what is in your consciousness. What you claim exists outside conscious experience is inferred ... You may postulate a world beyond the mind, but it will remain a concept, unproved and unprovable ... The world appears to you so overwhelmingly real because you think of it all the time ... All happens in consciousness. The world is but a succession of experiences ... Your conviction that you are conscious of a world is the world ... What you do not know is that the entire universe is your body, and you need not be afraid of it ... The pure mind sees things as they are - bubbles in consciousness ... Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it ... The world can be said to appear, but not to be ... Even space and time are imagined. All existence is imaginary ... In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only ... The very idea of 'else' is a disaster and a calamity.

 

We have come a long way in a short time.  We first dissolved the illusion of an external material world into perceptions manifesting in consciousness; then we dissolved even the distinction between seer and perceptions into a single nondual stream of consciousness, in which seer and seen are intuitively realized to be one and the same.  Now at this point, it seems to me that 'reality' consists of different nondual streams of consciousness, namely, you and me and other sentient beings.  Each of these nondual streams is identical with Brahman or Consciousness.  But is it the same Brahman in each case, and how could this be?  This is a vast topic which we cannot discuss here.  On the one hand, I do believe that it is the same Brahman, the same unique Source of Reality, in each stream, yet I have trouble understanding how it could be that I do not perceive your experiences nor you mine.  To be sure, the realization that space and time are in consciousness, and not vice versa, helps; it is then clearly wrong to think of the different streams of consciousness as being discrete objects or entities in some kind of enveloping space.  Also, the fact that each stream is in some sense 'limited' by its immediate contents is no doubt a key aspect of the solution.  Nevertheless, this issue still remains a mystery to me.  An interesting discussion between Advaitin philosophers Greg Goode, Dennis Waite and myself can be found on the web.[31]

 

One important aspect of Advaita neglected here is the importance of deep dreamless sleep.  This could be described as a condition of pure nondual consciousness devoid of all contents (thoughts or perceptions).  It is said to be pure bliss, though there is also ignorance of that bliss.  In fact, the realized master is sometimes said to be 'awake while asleep and asleep while awake'.  On this topic, the writings of Swami Atmananda are particularly insightful.[32]  In this essay, I have concentrated on the waking state and the illusion of matter, since it is in the waking state that we are most influenced by the delusory mind, but it is also in the waking state that inquiry leads to liberation.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

So, in conclusion, my main thesis is that certain carefully selected and properly interpreted ideas from the subjective idealism of Berkeley and Hume can provide a glimpse of the nondual paramarthika intuition of Advaita.  They surely do not provide the full realization in all its glory, but they can reassure us that Advaita is a reasonable and meaningful view of reality - in fact the clearest and most direct view stripped of all misleading and extraneous conceptual interpretation.  It is, however, essential to go beyond the mere 'immaterialism' of Berkeley and reinterpret some statements of Hume regarding the self as denying even the distinction between mind and its perceptions.  Then one must realize, through direct intuition into immediate experience, that the 'one seer' and the 'many seen perceptions' are paradoxically identical, with the one seer having priority as the Ramanian 'witness' until both seer and seen are finally dissolved in pure nondual awareness.

 

Note that the elimination of matter was a crucial first step, as the thought of matter forces one to believe in multiplicity, hence blocking the realization of nondual consciousness.  A materialistic view is inseparable from pluralism.  Sometimes materialism is described as a kind of 'monism', since it is the 'same matter' in the different 'things', but the fact remains that the different things are utterly distinct under this view, each occupying its own portion of external space.  Since this denial of matter is so counterintuitive, we spent much time on it.  The identification of the one seer with the many perceptions is perhaps a bit easier to grasp, since the perceptions are already considered to be 'in consciousness' in some sense.

 

Finally, let us say just a bit more about the spiritual relevance of the nondual view of reality.  Why should a mere philosophical viewpoint have any bearing on liberation and the actual experience of divine peace, bliss and infinity? 

 

The realization of infinity is the easier aspect to explain.  The mere existence of the object or 'other' would limit consciousness by definition, by its very nature.  Once the identity between consciousness and space (and time) is realized, what limit is there to one's being?  One could argue that any given stream of consciousness is limited by its particular contents.  I think that the proper response is that the particular contents do not matter; the experience of 'infinity' is simply an exhilarating sense that one's consciousness contains unlimited potential to manifest any possible universe.  Psychologically, one can speak of 'cosmic consciousness' or an 'expansion of consciousness'.  These words may seem vague but will surely have a poetic potency for those who have had the experience.  (To me, the words 'expansion of consciousness' suggest a euphoric, floating, 'spaced out' feeling.) 

 

The feeling of peace can be explained by the calming effects of unity, or, rather, nonduality.  If all is seen as oneself, how can conflict arise, or the feeling of conflict and tension?  (Yes, the perfect Advaitin is unperturbed even when being devoured by a tiger.) 

 

Finally, the experience of bliss seems the most 'empirical' aspect of the Advaitin experience, the one that least follows from a mere logical analysis of nonduality.  Yet, even here, we can understand how ceasing to identify with the finite and painful can liberate one from suffering.  That liberation from suffering should then be followed by bliss is not immediately obvious to me, and for this I am pleased to accept the testimony of those who have had the experience.  At any rate, our entire discussion reveals the magical though illusory 'creating' power of the mind.  Illusion is real to those who believe it.  So if we believe we are finite, then we surely cannot realize our intrinsic divinity.  That we have an intrinsic divinity follows from the principle that consciousness and reality are identical.