PANGON-200908

Reply to Eljay
Posted by: "Thomas Schenk" schen016@umn.edu thomasschenk55116
Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:37 pm (PDT)

Hey Eljay, long time no see (whatever that means in listserv terms!):
You say: "Subjectively speaking, the universe began when you were born,
and ends when you die."

Subjectively speaking, perhaps. While in a solipsist sense I only know
the Universe as it exists for me, reason forces me to assume that it
exists for other beings like myself in largely the same way as it exists
for me. And it is only in imagining it as experienced by some kind of
being, that I can imagine the Universe as existing at all. (The fact
that I can imagine the Universe as experienced by another being might be
an illusion, but I think it is actually the portal that allows the
possibility of truth.)

But perhaps, Eljay, what you are pointing at is the question of the
"objective" reality of the Universe. We imagine through what we have
seen, but what we see is largely a creation of the brain/mind. Color,
hue, lightness, darkness, etc. are not taken in from the world, but are
the brain/mind's way of coding the "information" taken in through the
eye. And that which is taken in through the eye is only information
because of the eye. (And there is a similar story to be told for each
of our other senses.) I have no question that there is something out
there beyond mind, but once I subtract everything that my brain/mind
adds to that world, I certainly know no longer what it looks like.

There is a similar problem for the physicist -- without a mind to care
which state it is in, the subatomic particles which supposedly comprises
the world are wave and particle simultaneously -- a picture that really
taxes the imagination.

Thoma


////////////Chapter II: Sankhya Yoga

(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)
II.72. This is the Brahmic seat (eternal state), O son of Pritha.
Attaining to this, none is deluded. Being established therein,
even at the end of life, one attains to oneness with Brahman.
COMMENTARY: The state described in the previous verse--to renounce
everything and to live in Brahman--is the Brahmic state or the
state of Brahman. If one attains to this state one is never
deluded. He attains 'Moksha' (liberation) if he stays in that
state even at the hour of his death. It is needless to say that
he who gets established in Brahman throughout his life attains to
the state of Brahman or Brahma-Nirvana.
Maharshi Vidyaranya says in his Panchadasi that 'Antakala' here
means the "moment at which 'Avidya' or mutual superimposition of
the Self and the not-Self ends."

Thus in the Upanishads of the glorious Bhagavad Gita, the
science of the Eternal, the scripture of Yoga, the dialogue
between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, ends the second discourse entitled:
'The Sankhya Yoga'



/////////////////