mysticism and ayurveda

[Guest guest]

In the West there have been some fundamental influences in the manner

of our thinking that has shaped the evolution of our culture and

society. Of course there are influences upon influences and so it is

quite wrong to say that there are only a few or even one influence.

But if we probe deep into the human psyche, slipping underneath

external influences such as epidemics, climate change and war, past

the human passions that cause all manner of harm through anger and

fear, we arrive at the place of logic, or rationality.

 

Logic as we consider it in the West began in ancient Greece with a

line of philosophers starting with Parmenides, and was modified by a

line of successors that included Socrates and Plato, and ended with

Aristotle. It is generally accepted that Aristotle successfully

integrated the ideas of his predecessors into a unified system

consisting of three basic logical propositions:

 

1. The Law of Identity

2. The Law of Non-contradiction

3. The Law of the Excluded Middle

 

The first of these would appear to be really simple to understand.

The Law of Identity states that when something is beheld to be, it is

known to be, and thus we may give it a name. Logicians, being

fiercely efficient in their expression, usually express this as 'X is

X'. But for our purposes, all they mean is that a bird is a bird, a

nail is a nail, and a sneeze is a sneeze. Not so complicated.

 

The Law of Contradiction however is a little more subtle. It states

that when something is, another thing cannot simultaneously be that

same thing. Thus I am me and you are you, and there is mother and

baby, apples and oranges, mountains and valleys, and cats and dogs.

But sometimes the law of non-contradiction is very subtle. For

example, a hermaphrodite would seem to be a contradiction, since it

is both female and male. However, the term 'hermaphrodite' implies

that it is neither entirely male nor entirely female: it is a

hermaphrodite, a unique gender in and of itself and thus there is no

contradiction. Ultimately, the law of non-contradiction is an

analytical tool to help us analyze and discriminate between various

things, to arrive at a relative truth that can be assumed and if

desired, applied for some constructive purpose. It is an effective

problem solving tool, as Ayn Rand famously stated, “whenever you

think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will

find that one of them is wrong.” Mathematically, we can describe the

law of non-contradiction as 'not (X and not-X)'.

 

Lastly, we have the Law of the Excluded Middle, which in essence is

simply an extension of the law of non-contradiction. It is logical

statement that says that because there are no contradictions, a thing

is either one thing or another. Logically, we can define the law of

the excluded middle as X or not-X.

 

From these three logical propositions an entire structure of logic

has been developed in the West, and integrated into scientific

thinking, as the very basic of the scientific method and

mathematics. Copernicus, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, and Hegel have

all expounded complex logical propositions from Aristotle's basic

conception of logic. And this has meant enormous changes for human

society, as these logical systems have found their way into

technological applications, from steam engines to microprocessors to

nuclear weapons. Aristotle is not only the father of logic, he can

be viewed as the architect of Western civilization, and few people

have had the audacity to contradict Aristotle, and certainly not

without suffering the censure of their colleagues. As the famous

Persian physician Ibn Sina stated, anyone who denies the law of non-

contradiction “…should be beaten and burned until he admits that to

be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is

not the same as not to be burned”.

 

The pattern of the evolution of logic in ancient Greece is very much

an archetype of Western scientific advancement. Here we have the

model of an innovator, who proposes a solution to a problem, and then

those who come after to dissect this work, changing or modifying it

until the problem is solved to everyone's satisfaction. This is the

way science works. As I mentioned earlier the basic premise of logic

in the West began with a fellow named Parmenides and ended with

Aristotle. And with Aristotle the laws of logic were set down in

stone as the basis of all knowledge, and despite the fact that much

everything else he stated about biology, physics or astronomy have

been disproved, his method of logic has remained intact ever since,

like the immutable laws of physics.

 

Although we might think that the evolution of logic from Parmenides

through Aristotle was a logical, natural progression, in fact it

wasn't. There are some vast and fundamental differences between each

philosopher, although they all used a dialectical method of argument,

which is a method of exchanging propositions (theses) and counter-

propositions (antitheses) to arrive at a correct answer. One common

feature of Parmenides through Aristotle however was an unquestioned

belief in God. Although different conceptions of this were held, God

was a necessary component of logic, representing a frame of

reference, an “umoved mover” from which these logical principles

emanated. Aristotle's conception of God and his approach to logic

was later embraced by both Judaism, Christianity and to some extent

by Islam, used as basis by which each understands and explains the

logic of their spiritual traditions, which in turn, has had enormous

influences on the evolution of Western culture.

 

While Aristotle gets lots of attention, some of his ideas were very

different from his teachers. As I mentioned, our bias is to assume

that Aristotle corrected the misconceptions of his predecessors.

Parmenides, for example, stated that there was only one unchanging

and static reality, something that is evidently quite wrong because

clearly the world is constantly changing: seasons change, people grow

older, and women have babies - how is this evidence of an unchanging

static reality? Parmenides goes on to explain however that things do

indeed appear to change, but that the only method by which we can

account for this change is our perception of it, which itself, is

subject to change. As a result, perception cannot not be trusted,

and thus external appearances are essentially empty. Parmenides

stated that this teaching is the Way of Truth, distinguishing it from

the Way of Opinion, in which there is only relative truth based on

the relativity of our perceptions. Parmenides' most notable student

was Zeno of Elea, who in his youth formulated several paradoxical

statements to explain Parmenides teachings. While many of these

paradoxes have been solved mathematically they only do so when we

make the assumption that our perception provides us with complete

knowledge, something that Parmenides states is untrue. In his

paradox entitled The Dichotomy, Zeno describes a runner in a race who

must travel a given distance (d) in a given amount of time. Zeno

suggests in this paradox that before the runner can finish the race,

he must travel half the distance (d/2). And in order to travel half

the distance, the runner must travel one-quarter the distance (d/4),

and so on, over an infinite number of points ordered in the sequence

d/2, d/4, d/8, etc. Since this sequence goes on forever, it appears

that the runner will never finish the race. Zeno's theory however is

in direct contrast to the experience of the wildly cheering crowds

who perceive the runner finishing the race. So who is right?

 

Measurement is an act of division, of separating the whole into a

system of units. As Zeno illustrated in his paradox, there are an

infinite number of points, both in time and space that need to be

crossed during the race. Although the crowd sees the runner finish

the race, they do not perceive the infinite nature of time and space

that has been crossed. Thus the observation of the runner finishing

the race is not the complete experience, but a mental construct based

upon incomplete data. This illustrates how our experience, or that

which we interpret as being reality, is in fact only a small part of

what is actually happening. While modern science have interpreted

Zeno's paradoxes as a mathematical challenge, when we consider the

philosophy of his teacher, it should be fairly obvious that these

paradoxes, created in Zeno's youth and allegedly stolen and published

without his permission, are only meant to illustrate the problem of

perception in simple, logical terms.

 

The most important difference between Parmenides and Aristotle is the

law of identity. Both philosophers postulated this principle, but on

a radically different basis. For Parmenides, the proposition of 'X'

had nothing to do with perception. 'X' exists, and so it is, and

what exists in whatever form is itself the same as 'X'. There is no

difference. For Aristotle however, 'X' is only that by which

perception acknowledges it to exist. Thus the form of a dog, with

all its traits and characteristics is taken to be a dog. Parmenides

would not deny the appearance of the dog however, but state that the

perception of the dog is not the same as a complete knowledge of it.

Thus the perception of the dog is not absolute truth but at best a

relative truth that will change according to differing perceptions,

for example, between a veterinarian, a child and a person that

regularly eats dogs. Parmenides is asking you to logically examine

the nature of your own consciousness. You behold a form, but what

beholds this form? Your perception of it. And what is it that

perceives this form? The mind. And what is mind?

 

Unfortunately only fragments of Parmenides teachings have survived,

and as a result the West has been left with the unsolved problem of

the nature of mind, for how can we understand the nature of being if

we don't understand the function that perceives it? Sure, we can

manipulate mind easily enough, whether using religion, marketing,

electromagnetic fields, drugs and phytochemicals, but each of these

components doesn't tell us on an individual basis what is mind, the

intrinsic nature of that which each of us experiences as consciousness.

 

For Aristotle, mind is X. Mind is the “unmoved mover”, the origin of

the law of identity that formulates the law of non-contradiction as

“I am this, but not that.” As I write this, I have a very clear

notion that I am me and that you are the reader, familiar to me or

not, with an entirely different identity. When we examine this

closely we will see that the law of identity is nothing other the

logical proposition of one self, not as some abstract concept but as

a very real sense or function of 'self-ness'. And yet if we probe

deeper, begged on by the law of identity, we arrive at a problem.

How can the self know itself? How does one observe and behold in its

entirety the mind when the mind itself participates in this

function? How can mind be both observer and the observed, both

subject and object? The failure to address this conundrum, not

through a dialectical method (which should require first that we

address the issue of identity), but through direct experience is the

heart of our human condition. If we assume identity we may be no

better than Aristotle's most notable of students, Alexander the

Great, who surged forward in the name of empire laying waste and ruin

to all that stood before him, understanding nothing.

 

In ancient India inquiry into the nature of mind is the first logical

problem, and in the process of this inquiry Her peoples have evolved

an amazingly diverse and heterogenous array of methods to resolve the

problem of Aristotle's law of identity. The process of the

realization of this inquiry is thought to reside within the Vedas,

and in particular, is addressed in its primary system of ontology

called the Sankhya (the Enumerated). The inclusion of the Sankhya is

interesting in the Vedas, because even though it is considered to be

astika, meaning that it toes the party line in the Vedas that God is

the ultimate principle, the Sankhya is decidedly atheistic. The only

other traditions in India that are similarly atheistic are the

heterodox nastika spiritual traditions such as Jainism and Buddhism.

I should mention however that there are two basic schools of Sankhya:

the much older atheistic Sankhya expounded by an ancient sage named

Kapila, and the much more recent theistic revision by Ishvara Krishna

that interpolated Sankhya into the Vedic school of Yoga, the path

that teaches union ('yuj') with God.

 

The Sankhya is remarkably similar to Parmenides' Way of Truth and Way

of Opinion in that it posits two simultaneously realities, but only

one of which that is fundamentally real and true. The Sankhya

teaches that underlying every aspect of existence, whether seen or

unseen, material or immaterial, manifest or unmanifest, arises from

an eternal unchanging reality called Purusha, also known by other

names such as Brahman ('the vast expanse') and Atman ('the great

soul'). Existing within the infinite field of Purusha is Prakriti,

the aspect that relates to the perception of an eternal yet

constantly changing reality, representing the manifold creation of

the universe and beyond, the matrix from which all things arise and

return. In the Vedas Prakriti is given various epithets, such as

Leela, the divine play of life, and Maya, the fundamental illusion of

our perception. In religious terms Prakriti is the Originator of

life, the Provider, the Sustainer, and the Compassionate, and yet it

is also the opposite of these qualities, as the Causer of Death, The

Withholder, The Destroyer, and The Reckoner. In Buddhist terms

Prakriti is nothing other than samsara, the eternal wheel of birth,

life and death, promulgated by an unceasing dynamic of cause and

effect. In Taoist terms, Prakriti contains the fundamental dichotomy

of yin and yang and the ceaseless doctrine of change. Due to the

impaired faculty of perception we are easily confused by Prakriti,

fruitlessly looking for an eternal truth in its manifold names,

concepts and forms. But still no eternal truth is found, beyond that

of belief and faith, which is often nothing more than a product of

social conditioning and circular secondary logic rather than true

inquiry and personal experience.

 

Emanating from Prakriti is a second principle called Mahat, the Great

One, also known as Buddhi, or Pure Consciousness. According to

Sankhya, Mahat is the principle of consciousness in its entirety. In

psychological terms we might call it the superconsciousness or

transcendent consciousness that pervades all aspects of reality as an

awareness of being that 'it' exists, that it is 'being'. From this

awareness of All Being, Mahat perceives the totality of Prakriti,

beyond its changing forms and functions, and in turn understands that

Prakriti is simply Purusha: an unchanging static reality in which

differences are seen to be nothing more than bubbles of foam on a

vast ocean of being: inconsequential, unimportant and empty.

 

Arising from Mahat as the principle of consciousness is the principle

of self-identification, self-elaboration and self-becoming called

Ahamkara. Ahamkara represents the awareness of Mahat (the

transcendent consciousness) conditioned by the function of Prakriti,

establishing itself as a conscious, singular entity, separate from

everything else. Ahamkara is the process that establishes a sense of

personal self, whether this self be a planetary system (Gaia), an

ecological community (such as forest or desert), a community of

people (such as a family or social group) or an individual person

(such as yourself). Ahamkara is the continual process of 'I-ness”,

the sense of being and becoming that relates to specific

circumstances. For you who read these words, Ahamkara is that which

recognizes itself within itself as 'self'.

 

According to the Sankhya, there are three qualities that reside in

this process of self-identification, called sattva, rajas and tamas.

These three qualities explain the modal operation of Ahamkara within

the manifest reality of Prakriti. Sattva refers to the subjective

experience, the mind and senses, whereas tamas refers to the object

of awareness, as the phenomenological reality of sensation, function

and structure. Rajas is the capacity within Ahamkara to bind Sattva

to Tamas. Thus subject becomes enmeshed with object and our sense of

self becomes unified with the reality of having a body and

maintaining a field of physical awareness.

 

In Aristotelian terms, Ahamkara is the law of identity, the very

process of self-being, whether we attribute this to ourselves or

project this awareness onto something else. The primary difference

between Sankhya and Aristotle however is that for Aristotle there is

no essential differentiation between sense and sense object. In this

way, Aristotle and the school of scientific materialism that arose

from his school of thought have only one inquiry: the nature of

phenomena. This essentially denies a distinction between subject and

object, suggesting that the mind itself is nothing more than a

complex interaction of neuronal circuits. But if we return back to

Parmenides, Aristotle's venerable Elder, we are told to recognize

that true knowledge does not exist within an inquiry of object. A

perception of object can never yield the entire truth of that object

because perception itself is an object. How can perception perceive

itself? The Sankhya states that only by understanding the quality of

sattva, the subjective reality, can we understand the nature of

perception. That only by directing our consciousness internally, by

harnessing the power of tapas, the spiritual fire that burns away the

bond between subject and object, can we perceive the true nature of

being. And it is in this realization that we find that Ahamkara as

the proposition of an individual self, as the sense of “I-ness”, is

empty and impermanent. In Buddhist terms Ahamkara is anatta, 'not-

self', not true being. By perceiving the awareness of an individual

self as empty we realize Mahat, the superconsciousness, or buddhi.

We understand the unity of all consciousness and see beyond the

ceaseless cycle of impermanence and change that is Prakriti. We

become buddha, one able to see beyond the appearance of all things,

to realize that it is an unchanging eternal static reality in which

we attain nirvana, which literally means to “cease moving”.

 

While all this may seem abstract and very much removed from any

practical endeavor, I submit that the logic and ontology of

Parmenides and the Sankhya, and in particular their conclusion that

all phenomena emanates from an unchanging eternal reality, is sorely

missing in Western culture. But how do we integrate such thinking in

practical pursuits, when we necessarily posit this separate,

individual sense of self as a primary principle. How can we apply

the teaching when we do not perceive the absolute totality of it?

 

In the every day world in which we use the logic of Aristotle, even

though we do not perceive the totality of anything, we can still

perceive a function of unity within it. We engage this perception in

our day to day lives when we observe correspondences and

relationships between apparently disparate things and functions. Of

course it can be difficult to explain this unity because it is only a

perception, and like any perception has no independent existence,

being subject to variance and change. From the Sankhya perspective,

the difference is that this perception arises as a function of

sattva, as an inherently subjective (although possibly shared)

experience that resonates within a deeper eternal truth, that

although hidden from plain sight, there nevertheless exists a

transcendent nature to all phenomena. It is through developing a

relationship with this perception that we begin to postulate and

comprehend the profound inter-relationship and interdependence of all

things. It is actively knowing that we cannot 'know' the entirety of

anything, but that we have the humility to look for synergy and

interrelationship, study it, and actively engage it. It is a

uniquely different method of operation, of data collection, analysis

and conclusion as compared to the science driven by Aristotle's

logic, which fundamentally seeks to establish a difference between

things.

 

It is amazing to me that Aristotle's logic has remained unquestioned

for so long in Western culture, despite the myriad other ways of

thinking, both indigenous and foreign to the Western mind, that

essentially contradict it. From Parmenides to Sankhya, as well as

the “primitive” beliefs of our pre-agrarian ancestors, there is an

underlying principle in almost every philosophy besides that which

owes its orientation to Aristotle, of a unity that binds all things

together, not just in thought, but also in action. For too long have

we in the West separated ourselves from the equation, and remained

unconscious of the universality of our actions. The West as a global

influence of Ahamkara has actively taught and continues to teach the

world to ignore the complex and indeterminate result of its actions,

to remained focused on the object of awareness without consideration

for anything else, without seeing the implication of action that is

not cautious and humble and fundamentally admits that it cannot know

itself. As a result, empowered by Aristotle's logic and the

dialectics of technological evolution, we now have widespread

ecological degradation caused by short term thinking, science that

manipulates DNA without knowing the results of its impact, and an

increasingly large number of communities where technology actively

isolates and separates entire aspects of our being from nature and

each other. Without fundamentally changing the logical basis of our

thought and actions, humanity will continue to be compelled by this

logical function, and that by any logic, it will be our eventual demise.

 

It is time for a new philosophy.

 

Caldecott, Dip. Cl.H, RH(AHG)

Ayurvedic practitioner, Medical Herbalist

web: http//:www.toddcaldecott.com