The "Non-Existence of Non-Existence"

Had been checking out some verses in “Aparoksanubhuti” of Sri Sankaracarya, and that gave cause, again, to marvel at the title and the use of the lovely double-negative “Aparoksa” by the great Acarya.

Well, this post is a bit on double-negatives as used in spiritual texts, and is prompted by my coincidently reading a marvellous book brought out by Sri Ramanasramam last year called, “Upadesa Saram: The Complete Version in Four Languages Composed by Sri Bhagavan”. As the name implies, the book contains the original Tamil Upadesa Undiyar along with the versions in Sanskrit, Telugu and Malayalam, thus providing a unique perspective on the great work. Most importantly, it is apparent that in this publication the English translations are redone with considerable care, and that brings out some subtle but great nuances that Bhagavan had injected into this important text; like the use of the double-negative in verse 21.

But let me revert to Aparoksanubhuti for a bit. Aparoksanubhuti is usually translated as “direct cognition of the Self” or thereabouts. The word “cognition” is brought in because “anubhuti” is technically defined as legitimate perception; i.e. knowledge gained by means of the Pramanas (from epistemology), the legitimate means of acquiring knowledge, which are 6 in number in Advaita Vedanta. However such usage ignores the root meanings of “anu” & “bhuti”. “Anu” is a prefix which means “with”, a sort of “continuance of the characteristic following”; “bhu” means “to be”, and “bhuti” is thus very simply, “being” or “being-ness”, “anubhuti” thus becomes – “continuing or unbroken being-ness”.

“Paroksa” is usually translated as “indirect”, “unknown”, “invisible”, “absent”. Thus “aparoksa” will be translated by most as “not-indirect”. But we may give heed to the great commentators of yore who used to say that it is impossible to really understand Sri Sankara’s texts until the Astadhyayi is mastered first. And indeed the great Acarya Panini had something to say about “paroksa”. Astadhyayi (III, 2, 115) is, “parokse liT …”, and though is concerned with the affix “liT”, it also, happily, gives a meaning for “paroksa” as “unperceived” – in the sense of the absence of the perceiving agent itself! The vritti to the text clarifies this further as, “… but if by reason of some distracted, unconscious or absent state of mind, it is possible for the agent to speak of the action as one of which he was not a conscious witness [thus defining "parokse"], the perfect ["liT"] may even be used in the first person. Thus, M. Monier-Williams too gives a meaning for “paroksa” as, “ones self not being present”.

Now, if we consider this sense in which Acarya Panini used “paroksa”, “aparoksa” then means “not non-existent”; that - “I am” continues when “I” (the limited self) is absent. And "aparoksa anubhuti" would mean, “not non-existent, unbroken being-ness”.

Cut to Sri Bhagavan’s Upadesa Undiyar, verse 21, as given in the new book brought out by Sri Ramanasramam: 

Verse 21: That [one infinite whole that shines thus as ‘I am I’] is at all times [in the past, present and future, and in all eternity] the [true] import of the word named ‘I’, because of the absence of our non-existence even in sleep, which is devoid of [our finite] ‘I’ [our mind or ego].

The explanatory note accompanying says: “… Though we experience this mind in waking and dream, it disappears in deep sleep. However, though this mind or individual ‘I’ is absent in deep sleep, we do not feel that we cease to exist. Therefore in the second half of this verse Sri Ramana says, “… because of the removal [separation or absence] of our non-existence even in sleep, which is devoid of ‘I’”.

I must confess to having a thrill run through me when I read this translation of verse 21, because this is the first time Bhagavan’s usage of the double-negative in relation to the Self is brought out. As per my remembrance, all previous translations of Upadesa Undiyar conveniently mention just the single-positive instead, missing out on a subtle but important nuance.

The Malayalam version is even more brilliant: 

Verse 21:   This [infinite self, which thus appears spontaneously as ‘I am I’] is always the [true] meaning of the word ‘I’, because in sleep, when the ‘I’ [the mind or ego] has disappeared, one’s experience is not that ‘I am not’ but [rather always] ‘I am’.

And remarkably, what Bhagavan says in verse 21 is exactly the sense that the great Acarya of yore conveys with “Aparoksanubhuti” !  

Thought to write a bit more on the use of the double-negative in spiritual texts. On this, in the explanatory text to the Tamil verse, the Upadesa Saram book goes on to say:

“Here the words ‘because of the removal [separation or absence] of our non-existence’ are a poetic way of saying ‘because we are not non-existent’. This implied double negative is an emphatic way of saying we do exist in sleep.”

Hmmm. The double-negative as being a “poetic” or more “emphatic” way of saying the single-positive is more an understanding out of modern western linguistics rather than anything else. When it comes to Indian spiritual texts, the use of double-negatives has not-undeliberate and not-unintended (!) connotations of deeper meaning.

Primarily, the double-negative comes into play when the underlying concept, or entity, is beyond the power of structured language to convey. The great Acarya constructed the word “Aparoksanubhuti”, or Bhagavan employed “non-existence of our non-existence”, for the sense of continued and unbroken consciousness, awareness, being-ness, deliberately and with a specific purpose; to convey that mere ‘positive’ words, which immediately pin down the meaning in an exact sense, words such as continued-unbroken-consciousness-awareness-beingness, fall short of conveying what is sought to be conveyed. The double-negative however leaves the field open, so to speak, for an additional depth of meaning that is beyond the power of words to convey. Like what I mentioned in my comment on the earlier post “The Vivekachudamani Question”, for Avidya, that it is technically defined as “neither sat nor asat”, to show that It cannot be pinned down as either sat or asat, but is both, and more.

Lastly, coming back to Aparoksanubhuti and the verses that I went back to read, it may be worthwhile to reproduce them here; as much like the title, they could have been written by Bhagavan Himself! : 

11.   Knowledge is not brought about by any other means than Vichara, just as an object is nowhere perceived without the help of light.

12.    Who am I? How is this world created? Who is its creator? Of what material is this world made? This is the way of that Vichara.

13.   I am neither the body, a combination of the (five) elements (of matter), nor am I an aggregate of the senses; I am something different from these. This is the way of that Vichara.

14.   Everything is produced by Ajnana, and dissolves in the wake of Jnana. The various Sankalpas must be the creator. Such is this Vichara.

15.   The material (cause) of these two (Ajana and Sankalpa) is the One, subtle (not apprehended by the senses) and unchanging Sat (Existence), just as the earth is the material (cause) of the pot and the like. This is the way of that Vichara.

16.   As I am also the One, the Subtle, the knower, the Witness, the Ever-Existent, and the Unchanging, so there is no doubt that I am ‘That’. Such is this Vichara.

 

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References:

1.   Upadesa Saram: The Complete Version in Four Languages Composed by Sri Bhagavan; Sri Ramanasramam, 2011.

2.   Aparoksanubhuti or Self-realization of Sri Sankaracarya; Translated by Sw. Vimuktananda; Advaita Ashrama, 1973.

3.   The Astadhyayi of Panini in 8 Volumes; Translated by Srisa Chandra Vasu; Indian Press, Allahabad, 1891.

4.   Sanskrit-English Dictionary by M. Monier Williams; Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1994.

Of Happiness, Love & Fear

Rambling away …

We all know that “Who am I?” was originally a compilation by Sri Sivaprakasam Pillai (SPP) of his questions put to Sri Bhagavan and the answers he got thereof. Later on Bhagavan Himself changed around the order of questions and the material at hand from amongst all the various versions of the text that SPP had produced to make an essay version. This essay version had one entirely original, and thus significant, paragraph written by Bhagavan Himself, the first one:  

“As all living beings desire to be happy always, without misery, as in the case of everyone there is observed supreme love for one’s self, and as happiness alone is the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness which is one’s nature and which is experienced in the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one should know one’s self. For that, the path of knowledge, the inquiry of the form “Who am I?”, is the principal means.”

Typically, most of us read through this para as a sort of introduction to the work and don’t spend too much time over it’s content. It however contains an extraordinary statement from Bhagavan which I confess that I only vaguely understood till now. He states, “happiness alone is the cause of love”. If we reflect for a moment, our first response immediately would be – doesn’t it work the other way around in this world? That love is the cause of happiness?

A superficial analysis may even hold that Bhagavan is giving a sort of round-about proof in this para for the Self being of the nature of happiness, Ananda,  by saying in effect – we love that which brings us happiness; we all love our selves the most; therefore our self (Self) must be of the nature of happiness. Not so. Because the fact of the Self being happiness, Ananda, is otherwise and authoritatively established anyway. And we know with what precision and care Bhagavan chose the words for even His casual remarks, leave alone what He put down in writing for posterity.

I thought to put down here extracts from the Introduction to a book I am presently reading, which are somewhat in context; the whole is a bit long-winded, but is beautifully written and a joy to read. The book is “Ista-Siddhi of Vimuktatman”, translated by Prof. P. K. Sundaram, Sawadharma Swaarajya Sangha, Madras 1980:  

“In Advaita, the tradition is that the terms Satyam, Jnanam & Anantam, which also stands for Anandam, mean respectively, absence of non-existence, absence of ignorance, absence of finitude and absence of pain. But this is only a device to get over the charge of repetition if the terms are synonymous. If non-synonymous, then it is assumed that the terms become diverse attributes. Vimuktatman argues that the non-synonymous terms can have an impartite sense.

The expression “ananda” stands for the positive nature of Brahman with the indication of inherent completeness and joy. “Absence of pain”, on the contrary, is a dark emptiness devoid of the felicity of perfection. It suggests a blankness and bankruptcy of being. The profound depth of existence is not conveyed by denial but by affirmation, not by ‘is not’, but by ‘is’. When Yajnavalkya eliminated the alternative characteristics of Reality saying ‘not this’ ‘not this’, the illimitability of of Reality by empirical determination was meant by him. The fullness and splendour of Being has no analogy in the empirical trifles; our thought can perceive of no parallel to the bewildering richness of Reality. Nothing partial or piecemeal can demonstrate the entirety and integrity of the Real. A Reality which is satyasya satyam, real of all reals, purnam, full, could not be an essenceless vacuum.

Vimuktatman proceeds to show that Joy is identical with Truth and Existence. Brahman is the only Truth. It alone is, all else is not. This self-existence cannot be passive unconsciousness. Brahman’s infinity indicates secondlessness. Such a state of completion and self-existence cannot but be a condition of supreme joy. Thus satyam, jnanam and anantam are expressions of the same Reality. They are not the expressions of the different aspects which are distinguishable in Brahman, nor are they attributes defining the threefold character of Reality, Infinity and Intelligence. They are Brahman. Cit is Brahman; Sat is Brahman; Anantam is Brahman; Anandam is Brahman; and there is only one Brahman. Joy is cit and sat which are Brahman. Language speaks in terms of distinction and conjures up fragments and dissected aspects. While empirical vision sees plurality and variety, truth is simple and one. Grammatical rules of language will treat the expression satyam, jnanam, etc, as non-synonymous. But the grammar of spirit understands them to mean the same supreme.”

 

Prof. Sundaram carries on in his introduction giving the great Acarya’s views [in a paraphrased and summarized form]:  

“Life is a struggle towards purity and perfection. The satisfaction and glory of the ceaseless endeavour to achieve moral excellence, spiritual power and expansion of consciousness is symbolic of the veritable sea of joy within. It is in immaculate purity that joy shines. A clean heart reflects the radiant joy. With the increasing degrees of moral excellence, of the fineness of thought and purity of feeling, the inner core of joy gets increasingly manifested. Purity is pleasure.”

 

Great lines! A life’s mission could be built around this. He goes on to say:  

“However there could be no increase or decrease in the joy that is the Real which forever integrally is. Impurities and ignorance by which it is conditioned in the empirical existence cast their shadows on this one clear eternal radiance and make it appear in different degrees of light and shade. What is eternally there, is imagined to be attained and experienced piecemeal. Atman is the dearest. It is love. It is dearer than one’s dearest. Things of the world possess value, not in their own right, but because they are dear to the Self. Even the ardours and ecstasies of physical love have their ultimate reference in the Self. No joy belongs to the empirical ‘me’. It is to delude oneself to think that pleasure is derived from an external source by an external means and is experienced by the mind. The self is all-knowledge and all-bliss and their externality is an illusion. There are no two orders of joy, the transcendental and the empirical.”

Note how closely the great Acarya’s words echo Bhagavan’s in the first para to ‘Who am I?”.

The search for happiness, Ananda, is the basic driving urge in humanity. Anything and everything we do, has “happiness” (and its sub-sets viz. pleasure, peace of mind etc.) as its base. Even the negative characters, the murderers for instance, do their nefarious deeds in the search of the twisted idea of happiness they have.

And as a direct corollary, each & every fear that a human being has can be directly reduced to a fear of losing happiness, or not finding happiness, or having to undergo an extended period of unhappiness. Are you afraid of the dark? Then you are afraid that something will hurt you in the dark, maybe cause physical pain or mental torture, essentially causing an extended period of unhappiness. Or, are you afraid of death? Then you are afraid of the unknown essentially, afraid of unfathomed suffering perhaps in some strange environment, of losing your wealth and family and thus of prolonged unhappiness, and so on. In fact, most people will say that they are actually not afraid of death, but of possibly an extended period of debilitating sickness and old age preceding it – again, essentially a fear of an indefinitely long period of unhappiness.

But is this the final, ultimate fear? If we can remove the fear of being unhappy, are we then rid of fear completely? Actually, the fundamental problem is that the fear of being unhappy, or not being able to find adequate happiness in the future, is impossible to eliminate until we understand where exactly “happiness” comes from; i.e. from within us.

For most of us, tragically, the search for happiness takes the form of an external search, i.e. a search in and within the world and the marvellous objects therein. Whereas happiness, bliss, “Ananda”, is the Self Itself, and can be found only within. If happiness were indeed to be found in the objects of the world, it should follow that the richest persons are also the happiest persons. But this is not so. Often, the richest person is the unhappiest; and the poor beggar is the happiest of all. Also we all can recall the experience of deep sleep when all objects were absent. The world itself was absent, as was even the entity Arvind (say). Still, Arvind on waking recalls the experience as being one of deep contentment and happiness. So literally, when all the things of waking and dreaming that we take for granted as essential ingredients of happiness are absent, contrary to all expectations, we find that we are the happiest of all.

So the first step is to understand and be convinced of the fact that happiness is not found in the objects of the world, but within one’s own self; that we are, in fact, “happiness” personified, that our intrinsic nature is itself Ananda. Otherwise, how could happiness manifest itself suddenly in the state in which not only the world but even the base-ego, Arvind itself, is absent?

Thus the search for happiness, or its corollary – the search for fearlessness, has necessarily to be the search for the Self or God. And when we undertake that search, a truly marvellous thing happens. For, success in this search may or may not happen – that is an entirely different issue; but even the rudimentary effort in that direction drops the veil just a teeny-weeny fraction from the Self, enabling Ananda to shine forth, sometimes more, sometimes less.

And this teeny-weeny dropping of the veil over the Self, brings me back to Bhagavan’s, “happiness alone is the cause of love”. It can be understood now that only from our intrinsic “Ananda” within, Love Itself, does outward love flow. So true love towards empirical entities, always, be it towards family, friends, miscellaneous objects and so on, necessarily comes from a tiny unveiling of the Ananda within. And only a person who essentially is intrinsically spiritual, intrinsically happy from within, whether doing any overt acts seen to be towards the same by the world or not, can really show true love, and true fearlessness.

Some may mention that it is a fact of experience of all - that in the world happiness is observed to come to us from those entities and things we love. If we love our child dearly, we will be happy when playing around and being near him or her. And so, happiness has come to us from the child.

No so. Again, happiness comes to us when we have dropped the veil from the Self a teeny-weeny bit letting the Ananda of the Self shine forth a little; that happens when we become relatively thought-free, when we have stilled the mind; previously our mind was full of thoughts about the child and the desire to hold him or her; when we hold the child then that desire gets fulfilled and thoughts in that direction fall away; to be thought-free, even for a moment, is to find Ananda; and thus the flood of happiness within us …

:-)