One thought on “Apparent Stages On The Path Toward True Awakening”
Tom, around 21:00- you point out that a problem of the “one consciousness” version of Vishishta Advaita is that it can’t explain apparently separate individual viewpoints. This seems true enough, and is a problem for all idealistic monisms. The most developed (or perhaps just best known?) contemporary answer is from Bernardo Kastrup, ie. the vortex/whirlpool notion that individual consciousness is a temporary dynamic form within the One Mind. That has never made much sense to me – why would this form be something from which perception happens rather than just another formation temporarily seen from the point of view of the whole?
I’m more familiar (albeit still shallowly) with Nisargadatta on the topic, but he’s so unsystematic I’m not sure I have a grip on his answer. I think it’s something like: apparent consciousness emerges from apparently deterministic phenomenal (not necessarily physical?) processes occurring within apparently separate living forms. It is inherently (if unreally) happens to/within an individual body. The One that is aware of this individual consciousness is the totally unknowable (Prior to Consciousness) Absolute. So he solves the problem by splitting consciousness (which is individual) from that which knows consciousness (which is one only). Because the Absolute is unknowable (being the universal subject and never an object of knowledge), there the enquiry must end.
Is that anywhere close to your understanding? Is Ramana’s view similar? Where does he outline it if so?
Tom Das 
Tom, around 21:00- you point out that a problem of the “one consciousness” version of Vishishta Advaita is that it can’t explain apparently separate individual viewpoints. This seems true enough, and is a problem for all idealistic monisms. The most developed (or perhaps just best known?) contemporary answer is from Bernardo Kastrup, ie. the vortex/whirlpool notion that individual consciousness is a temporary dynamic form within the One Mind. That has never made much sense to me – why would this form be something from which perception happens rather than just another formation temporarily seen from the point of view of the whole?
I’m more familiar (albeit still shallowly) with Nisargadatta on the topic, but he’s so unsystematic I’m not sure I have a grip on his answer. I think it’s something like: apparent consciousness emerges from apparently deterministic phenomenal (not necessarily physical?) processes occurring within apparently separate living forms. It is inherently (if unreally) happens to/within an individual body. The One that is aware of this individual consciousness is the totally unknowable (Prior to Consciousness) Absolute. So he solves the problem by splitting consciousness (which is individual) from that which knows consciousness (which is one only). Because the Absolute is unknowable (being the universal subject and never an object of knowledge), there the enquiry must end.
Is that anywhere close to your understanding? Is Ramana’s view similar? Where does he outline it if so?
Cheers, Cris.
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