Re: [Sadhu SarTga] The False Elephant and the False Ego

The False Elephant and the False Ego

by

Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. (Serving Director, Bhakti Vedanta Institute of Spiritual Culture and Science) This post originally published at: https://www.facebook.com/bviscs/photos/a.283565131663203.77513.278907435462306/1399432143409824/?type=3&theater

When we look at the world through a microscope we see only cells and their internal moieties - we never see people, clouds, trees or elephants. Even the macromolecular vision of such separated entities does not show us the purpose or whole of that-for-which-each-exists. Such is the nature of the analytic thinking of finite cognition that we call modern science.

The blind men who could only feel the different limbs of an elephant they were blind to (ignorant of) concluded the legs were tree stumps, the side was a wall, the tusks were spears, the trunk a serpent, the ears a fan, and the tail a rope. Not knowing the unity of the whole they could not know the relation of each part to it. Without that knowledge they could not have a proper understanding of the parts in isolation from the whole. Even simple understanding of the function of each part in isolation could not reveal the relation of the functions to each other what to speak of their relation to the unity of the whole of which they had no clue.

Aristotle said there are four factors that had to be comprehended in explaining things: material, efficient, formal, and final (end or purpose). These four represent what a thing is made of (material), what modifies it (efficient), what plan/design guides its progressive modification (formal), the goal - what end the plan of action or modification aims for in order to cease when it is in conformity with the finished product (final end or purpose).

In reality it is the final end that determines and guides all the other factors. When the unity of the whole is sentient or self-conscious even a systems approach will not be sufficient to explain its existence. Systems are not self-conscious.

Without knowing the purpose for an individual's own self-conscious existence one has only a false conception of self, or false ego. One's true identity is established only when it is comprehended in relation to a proper concept of the Complete Whole as the all accommodating, all pervading, all unifying/attracting self conscious, self-knowing Absolute Truth Who is known by many Names.

Celebration of most of the festivals of all the religions, be it Hinduism or Islama or Sikhsism, Deepawal, Dussehra, Eid, GuruPurab have become orgy of consumer frenzy without any context. Christmas being no exception.

Vinod Sehgal

Respected Vinod, my point was that this analytic (reductionist) mentality is being cultivated and validated by what is currently accepted as scientific thinking. This is an epistemological and ontological problem that needs to be addressed by scientists and educators in all fields as its widespread effects are shaping the personal, social, economic, and theological attitudes and conceptions of modern civilization.

There are two problems. First, making scientists who are blind to this problem aware that there is such a problem. Second, understanding how to correct it.

Sincerely,
Bhakti Madhava Puri, Ph.D.
BHAKTI VEDANTA INSTITUTE — of Spiritual Culture & Science

For anyone interested
Happy holidays
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/Can-We-Evolve-Beyond-Evolution-We-Have-To-10818947.php

At the very moment when our planet is well into an ecological crisis, human beings need to evolve with the conscious purpose of setting aside our selfish impulses and start acting for the survival of all living things. The standard Darwinian position, which is universally taught in biology classes, is entirely mechanical and without purpose. [...] it is extremely difficult to form a set of beliefs that is evolutionary and purposeful at the same time. In a recent piece in the New York Times titled Can Evolution Have a 'Higher Purpose'? the author, Robert Wright, attempts to square the circle with the following statement: Evolution can have a purpose even if it is a wholly mechanical, material process — that is, even if its sole engine is natural selection. The real problem is that human purposes are at odds with each other, as witness the self-serving arguments of climate change deniers who are ushering in a post-fact, post-reality view of the world. [...] it constitutes the mainstream of human thought until

In a recent article by Deepak Chopra, MD, "Can We Evolve Beyond Evolution? We Have To" [1J it was mentioned that

"-- The reality we accept is a human construct."

"— We should see ourselves as conscious creators who imbue reality with our own purposes."

While many people think this way there are also those who believe reality is fixed in stone beyond whatever they may think of it. To some extent both are right. We do have the freedom to interpret what we experience, and mind does play a role in determining what the senses observe. At the same time reality doesn't just disappear when we do not perceive it. Our house is still there when we go to work for several hours. For instance, it could bum down when we are not there. So it is not all a human construct, and as for purposes they also are not solely created by us.

A more satisfactory conception would be one that includes and harmonizes both the idealism of a mind or consciousness based creation of reality, and the realism of the inherent purposefulness of an already existing reality of which we are part and parcel.

The reality people experience is a human construct insofar as it is limited to sensuous perception of the phenomenal world of appearance, as well as the circumscribed judgments of finite understanding. However, this does not reach to the noumenal Reality in and for itself beyond or behind its apparent or phenomenal surface. In India the mayavad philosophy of Brahman Satyam, Jagat Mithya claims that Reality is purely a product of human misconception and only Brahman as mere impersonal consciousness (an oxymoron since consciousness is the essence of personality) is the absolute reality or truth. This philosophy, also called kevaladvaita, however, does not provide an alternative to material reductionism but merely an alternative reductionism. Instead of reducing everything to matter it proposes to reduce everything to impersonal consciousness. In fact, what is needed is an alternative way of thinking that is not based solely on the judgments of a finite ego that is found, for instance, in the abstract thinking of Kantian philosophy in the West as well as in the kevaladvaita interpretations of Shankaracharya in the East.

To continue reading the entire article
Click here to Download

Hi Puri ji, Chopra ji, and list.

"The reality we accept is a human construct." (Deepak Chopra)

"The reality we conceptualize stems from living- the experience of which cannot be a construct." (Bhakti Madhava Pun)

These two statements seem mutually contradictory and antagonistic if the word "reality" is interpreted in the Saussurean (1857-19130) dyadic manner (i.e., based on the signifier-signified, or sign-object dyad) but not if interpreted in a irreducibly triadic manner of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) (i.e., based on the object-sign-interpretant triad).

According to Peirce, all words are irreducibly triadic, including the word "reality", which idea can be represented diagrammatically as shown below:

f

g

How about the following :

Perceived Reality is the differentiation of Knower Knowing and Known in awareness ( consciousness being )

It is born and labeled and dies in every moment of experience.

Objects are space time events in consciousness.

Facts are modes of knowing

Perceived Reality is different in different states of consciousness.

Fundamental Reality is timeless is never born and not subject to death .

Pun ji correctly states that atoms and particles are born in the minds of theoretical physicists. Their given names are human constructs for modes of experience

They are useful models of reality but not reality itself .

Deepak Chopra

New Book: Radicalbeauty.com