"Inspite of this it is on the part of man a natural procedure - which has its cause in wrong knowledge - not to distinguish the two entities (object and subject) and their respective attributes, although they are absolutely distinct, but to superimpose upon each the characteristic nature and the attributes of the other, thus coupling the Real and the Unreal, to make use of expressions such as 'That am I,' 'That is mine. In a characteristic expression of the apophatic method countering the mutual superimposition of the subject and the object and their consequent confusion, Sankara elaborates upon the definition of superimposition. This misapprehension is attributed to Avidya or Nescience or wrong knowledge (Ref).An absolute distinction reigns between the two realms of Real and Unreal. It is only when the individual soul awakens to a knowledge of the Absolute Self and of its identity and oneness with it Vidya (Ref.) or spiritual enlightenment. The soul then realizes the absolute identity of the self and the other,, the subject and the object, and the real and the Unreal. This distinguishing and distinction of the two is primarily realized through the apophatic method. The seeker after this highest truth, after a flash of enlightenment or the instantaneous dawning of Vidya divests the Real of the the Unreal that has superimposed itself upon the former. Such a woman is rid of the illusions such as, 'That am I,' 'That is mine.' All such superimpositions then cease to occur. The subject-object relationship is misconceived and misconstrued at its originary moment (understood as an emanation from Nescience). It is at the very heart of the process of the constitution of the world and the individual soul. The world and the individual or personal soul is phenomenologically given or presented. Through this process the attributes are, as elucidated earlier, from the object to the subject and vice versa. However, one of the most comprehensive and faithful definitions of the process of superimposition interprets it primarily as a misperception and misconstrual on which the faculty of apprehension founders and absolutely fails to differentiate or discriminate (Vivek) (Ref) the subject from the object; the Real from the unreal; the one superimposing from the one superimposed upon. There is here an inherent non-discrimination or non-apprehension of the difference mentioned before. This gives rise to a false cataphaticism/kataphaticism. The positive attributes of the individual soul and the universe it inhabits are falsely applied to the transcental object (which is not in reality an object) through Nescience (Avidya) (Ref). This process is known as superimposition. For Brahman, the absolute, is everywhere and beyond, within and without the perciever and her world. However the subject, under the power of Maya (illusion) (Ref) does not apprehend the truth and reality of Brahman (the Absolute) as it is shrouded or enveloped in Nescience (Avidya) which causes reality to be hidden from the natural perception and understanding of the of the human subject. It is only through soteriological enlightenment that the individual/personal soul awakens to a true nature of this reality. Until this 'moment' of Moksha (liberation, enlightenment) the soul is trapped in a cycle of birth and death through Nescience. It founders in misapprehension and untruth, wherein the false, the misperceived and the mischaracterized (misattributed) by the woman's natural faculty of understanding. The identification and realization of the Self or Brahman eludes the latter.
Another definition of superimposition can be stated thus: "Others again define it as the fictitious assumption of attributes contrary to the nature of rthat thing on which something else is superimposed. The author calls it as fictitious attributes which are a product of mAYA WHICH IN ITS TURN ITSELF IS FICTITIOUS OR WRONG KNOWLEDGE OR nESWCIENCE OR aVIDYA. and causes the apperception of these false attributes to arise. Thus fiction, in this context, is superimposed upon realkity. However, thee thing-in-itseklf does not take on or assume thesae attributes. but, rather, the perceiving agent superimposes it from outside. The truth oir reality or Brahman or the Real remains, in itself, untouched and unaffected by it. It retains its pure and immaculate nature. and has no relationship with the corr5upting/misrepresenting misperception of the human agent. The apiophatic method counters this superimposition by dint of dinte of a negative (apophatic) theology, i.e., through logical negations that transcend logic itself. The essence of apophasis in all of Indian philosophy is summarized by the (apophatic) statement 'Neti, Neti' (Not this, not this) (Ref). The attributes, done away with through negation, prep[are the ground for the sublation of this subject into the object and, finally, of all into pure and absolute nothingness/emptiness. One must remember, ofcourse, that this assumption of attributes is fictitious. The various definitions of this falsely cataphatic/kataphatic superimposition converge on the notion that there is a confusion orf realms or domains in the former. The cataphatic approach seeks to approach or move toward the Absolute through negations which the contours of 'God' paradoxically by unsaying that which has been said. The apophatic method seeks to 'unsay' what has been said babout 'God' in the form of a characteristic from our world thus given or posited or presented to us - this world that we inhabit - and man's own finite consciousness. Brahman is, in reality, free of and unshackled by any articulations - nouns or adjectives. It is unsayable, incomprehensible and ineffable All theological ideas, even that of merc y and grace, are human conceptions of the divine and therefore, in the final analysis, even they must be apophatically stripped away. There is a vast gap between the appearance and reality, between the pure and bare nothingness ande its metramorphosis through supertimposition into a thing with this-worldly or mundane attributes which falsify one's conbception of the true, the Real (the Absolute) Even commonsense makes a special case for this relationship between reality and appearance. mmanifesting itself in such analogical statements as 'Mother-of-pearl' app[ears like silver and 'The moon although one only appears as if she were double.'
In such a context one must fully realize the distinction between the Real and the Unreal whwrein the latter is totally divested of any trace of the former. The nmoot question, however, is this: How does that (The self) which is absolutely other than and distinct from anything pertaining to this universe and our mundane world comes to be superimposed by upon by mundane objects and thei attributes; thus creatinfg a false appearance of reality. Two things can associate and exist in a relationship with respect to one another only if they bear some sort of likeness to each other. But two things as categorically different as the finite and the infinite, in a manner of speaking, , do not share the same universe and do not bear any comparisons or logical relations. The former inhabits a realm that transcends all language and discursivity. The afore-cited analogical statem,ents are inapplicable to the transcendent which is beyonf them and (Brahman) inhabits a realm that is beyond this logical discursivity. There is no analogy or likeness of Brahman the simultaneously transcendent and immanent absolute. The Self is radicallky transcendent yet immanent. The Self is in truth nothingness partaking of and access to which until one's identity with the Self is realized through enlightenment. Irt is not an object among others but is radically duifferent from a;ll and unapproachble through all worldly means - the senses and manas (intellect). - fundamentally inaccessible and ineffable. So what is the way of access through which the limited approaches the limitless and discovers its identity with it. But ubntil this realization the limited superimposes its idea and attributes on the limitless. To understand this one must firsty come to grips with the idea or concept of the object Something is an object when it exists in a relationship with another object/s or subject effectuated by (conceptual) proximity. por contact through the senses with the outside world. The world and its objects are phenomenologically given tghrough the senses and presented to the human subject.. All the conditions have to be adequate to the criteria for contact between the sense organs and the objects and tyhe consequent superimposition to fructify. Contact assumes an eventual likeness of the entities. Even unlikeness is in such ba case is ultimately a species of 'likeness.' Likeness is of the natura of substantiality. It is substance which is at the heart of and constituent of the wholwe creation and allows, or rather, creates relationship s in the form of likeness and unlikeness between them. This substantiality of objects enables a relation of comparison between objecty because, primarily, they share a fundamebntatal likeness of the contitutive essenceessence, that is, substantiality. One of the attributes of the interior Self is that it is the universal actor and separated by an absolute gulf frpm the Non-Self or the world of objects. It is the absolute whose gaze creates the universe with all its simplicity and complicity and itself 'exists' withiun and 'outside' creation. It is contactless and yet the Lord of creation and the will or desire at the heart of everything Since the interios Self is readically separated from the 'thou' of the subject, it partakes nothing of nothing of the latter which is Non-Ego, which is all of Creation but the Self, that is, the wold of objects. herefore, itself not being an object, the Self originates or posits the world of objects which through the nescience of thew created order and woman and itselfthe Self does not constitutes, in reality, any part of Creation. This is a highly apophatic conception of the Self For only when the individual soul is voided of all the content of the Non-Ego or the 'thou' (with respect to Brahman) (Buber) that has superimposed itself on the unblemished and immaulate Brahman that the Self is truly realized and the oneness with it established. This suerimposition of each over the other creates a confusion of the Self and the Non-Self through a superimposition of the attributes of the latter upon the former. Even though the Self is never simply an object, its non-objecthood also has a relative status and is not a non-object absoilutely. It is an object of an abstract concept of the Ego. The question then it is that if it is not an object, mental or physical, how do we then conceive of it. The role of uintuition in the Indian philosophical mtradition. The Indian philosophical mind leaps to the highets summits of thought and explores the profoundest depths of philosophical knowledge in an intuitive manner Itr is this faculty of intuition that grasps the highest truth of the Self and presents it to consciousness in the form of a notion. This immediate and intuitive laying hold determines the certainty of the latter to the former.
The Self, that is, this non-object is self-luminous.Unlike the object which can exist only in the subject's gaze, the absolute vsubject is the luminous ground of all that brings everything or object into existence, akin to a creator God. But even this Self-lumios ground of all becomes anb object in a slightly different sense. Even though it is a non-object in reality, it takes on the contours of objecthood in the artificial light of 'manas' which cannot without names and nouns and to enable the emergence iof the Ego or the individual soul.It enablews a system of ontological nomenclature that out of which, in turn, the ontological freamework of this world and the transcendent reality. Even though the Self transcends all such transcends all such ontological categories. But the mind cannot function without this notio n thus named. The name (nama-rupa) is indispesable to the working of the reason. but the interior Self 'operates' in a region beyond discursivity. That bis to say, that it transcends and is beyond the comprehending power and ken of the discursive reason. It is the original and the final, beginning less and endless. The intelligent Self is deemed to be the only realkity When the Ego or the Self attains to or reduced to the delineations or delimitations of objecthood. and becomes, or rather, appears to be limited by adjucts, which in their turn, are engendered or caused by the subject's nescience. Superimpositions and attributions are a thorny subject in both ontology and epistemology. They are preliminary to any real understanding of the Self and its absolute otherfness from or separation from the Non-Self. It is well within the realm of ontological mpossibility the the Non=-Self iss given to superimposition not only upon objects that are ion contsact with the senses, but also upon intellectual notions. A seeker's endeavours towards realizing the true nature of the Self involves an apophatically methodiucal cleansing of the latter of all false attributions.
The opposite of Nescience or Avidya is knowledge or Vidya In a terse but profoundly apophatic statement Sankara says, " This superimposition thus defined, learned men consider to be 'Nescience' (Avidya), and the4 ascertainment of true nature of that which is which is (the Self) by means of the discrimination of that (which is superinmposed on the Self), they call knowledge (Vidya)." For Sankara, the commonsensical differentiaation of Atman and Brahman is the product of that Nescience. As the very definition of the apophatic method recommends a discrimination (Vivek) (Ref) of that (the attributes) which is superimposed on the Self. The apopghatic method thus works through this method of discrimination and then negation of false attributes carried over from the non-Self to the Self. The finite mind thus is not easily amenable to apophatic thinking. Ther c ataphartical metghoid suits itself better to the commonsensical way of thinking. The human mind is used to operate in cataphatic terms. €The apophatic method operates by appending a 'not' to all cataphatic descriptors. because nothing of this world, that is, no finite entity, in and of this world can resemble the transcendent reality, the Absolute). It is therefore, futile to ascribe worldly properties to the absolute. All such assertions or statements regarding the latter in terms that originate from this world and its entities are negated. The quinteessential apophatic assertion in Indian philosohy is 'Neti Neti' (Ref) from the Mundaka Upanisad. It translkates into 'Not this, not this.' In truth this is all that can be said about the interior Self. Once such knowledge arises in oneself, the realization or recognition of the Self that is pure of any trace of the Non-Self dawns upon the seeker. The2 knowkledge (Vidya) unambiguously implies that the Self and the Non-Self are absolutely distinct from and mutually unaffected by each other. With the abspolute independence, distinctness and spotlessness of the Brahman untouched by the Samsara band its attributes which is not merely powerless to affect but whose nature is of illusion ort Maya. When thwe deluded individual soul rapt in the universe and its attributes, realizes its essential oneness with Brahman, it attains enlightenment and is liberated from untruth. It realizes its true nature as Atman which is non-distinct from Brahman. There is a monism at work jhere. Also, nescience is noithing but the mutual superi8mposition of the Self anb Non-Self on each other. However, when the seeker realizes this ultimate truth which the understanding grasps asd the Absolute distinctness of the Self from the Non-Self, the former then becomes spotless for the seeker, that is, it bears no trace of the non-self and are unaffected either by their blemishes or their good qualities. It is pure and un-superimposed.Such an enlightenment and salvation or liberation ensues from spiritual Gnana (Ref) and its conseqiuent realization.. In thgesiwstic system it is a work of grsace
No comments:
Post a Comment