Domingos Sande Vieira
CHAPTER I
FROM ILLUMINISM TO ILLUMINATION
P - For a long time now, many people have been talking about a global crisis of values. Now this crisis becomes clearer, its configuration more and more tangible. I know that you have been investigating deeply this question. Presently, how do you see it?
R - If somebody had presented this question in India, to Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, he probably would have asked back: "Who perceives the crisis?" The reply would have to be "I". Then, he would recommend the person to examine, in first place, what is this notion "I" and whence it comes. We will come to that in our conversation, but, for the time being, let's follow another line of inquiry, less direct.
The crisis has really become extraordinary. Some people do not want to use any more this word; they prefer to talk about degradation, degeneration. There is enormous superficiality, corruption, violence, environmental degradation. What is the cause of all that? I suggest that we make an historical analysis, not in great details, nor in an academic or a very rigorous way, and proceed from there. We could start with the Carvakas, who are previous to Buddha. Perhaps they have been the first ones to systemize the materialistic thought. Theirs is a complete philosophical system. The Carvakas, in a contrary way to the predominant thought in India, have said that there isn't any kind of transcendence and have affirmed that only space and atoms exist, from which derive the four elements - water, land, fire and air - consciousness being a product of the material structure.
P - Could the root of the crisis be there?
R - The root of the crisis is there. But it's necessary to understand that the Carvakas have just developed and systemized a thought that already accompanied human consciousness. We can retrocede and consider that since man became sedentary, and started to deal with the production of grains and its excesses, probably, while the majority used to render homage to natural phenomena and adored them, some people were so busy with the administration and security of the communities that these activities dominated their thoughts and concerns and molded their minds. Therefore, it is possible that since the beginning of territorial setting the two lines of thought and feeling, and the gradations between them, have started to be delineated.
P - Their attention would be predominantly turned to the urgent practical questions of survival, in such a way that from this condition a certain type of mentality would arise, while in the others, that felt themselves somehow protected, there would be more inward space for the arising of other feelings, as the fear and perplexity with relation to their existence and of everything else.
R - It is a possibility. Anyway, we come, in a pre-Buddhist period, to the Carvakas. The adepts of this philosophy affirmed that since there is no life after death, none "beyond", any god or deity, no transcendence, one has to extract maximum benefit from life. Even if the existence of something called "spirit" was accepted, as it was by one of the branches of the Carvakas, such "spirit" would be just a product of material factors and would end with the death of the body.
P - This is really what materialism is.
R -The Carvakas also said that once we decide to enjoy life to its utmost, we must avoid all exaggeration, because they cause damages. To ponder over things and to have moderation, therefore, are essential requirements for the enjoyment of life and its pleasures. The thought of the Carvakas was vigorously combated in India, mainly by Buddha, and found better repercussion in Greece, with Democritus, Epicuro, and their followers, also under much resistance. Here we point out that, evidently, the story that philosophy was born in Greece is a fallacy. It is history narrated from the point of view of the Europeans. Greek is just the word "philosophy"; love of wisdom is a much older affair.
P - Some few historians refer to this, but their thought, for obvious reasons, does not have much repercussion.
R - Correct. Recent discoveries, as those carried through in the coast of Japan and India, have shown, also, that great civilizations were already established thousands of years before the time we generally think they were. Now we can go to what was called "Early Middle Age" and from there to the time of the Renaissance Humanism, to Illuminism, to Positivism and to Marxism. Commercial, urban, and "cultural" renaissance. There is God, but in the universe man is the center - the theist vision, which reflects the transition between feudalism and capitalism. The "new secular order", temporal, mundane, which many people today call "new world order", without understanding well what it means and thinking it to be some recent happening, from one or two decades ago. Society organized and guided by science and reason, with the promise of human emancipation and happiness through this way.
P - The illuminists' ideas.
R - Exactly. Which means that from there on human beings will search their happiness solely in the material field, in the field of the phenomena. Why this? Well, here is one of the central issues of the question we are discussing. Commerce, bourgeoisie, accumulation of capital, promise of happiness in the field of the material and techno-scientific progress, in opposition to the discourse of the catholic church emphasizing the search for happiness in the religious values, against usury, in favor of the "just price" of the merchandises, and so on. The values of the ruling classes, the noblemen and the church, are then attacked, all of them representing darkness, obsoletism and obstacle to happiness, to the new world where this happiness will be possible, to the merchants' profits.
Positivism, then, follows; the positive, scientific mentality, culminating an evolutive process: mimetic, undifferentiated mentality, in the beginning; later, the mythical mentality, the religious mentality, in the form of beliefs, polytheist and, later, monotheist; in a more advanced stage, not an operating God anymore, but operating forces - metaphysics; finally, the apex, the positive mentality, which deals solely with the observed phenomena and their relations. All the previous process was a preparation for this stage. The domain of the "thing in itself" is forever beyond knowledge, beyond reason, inaccessible to human spirit. Therefore, let us occupy ourselves only with the known and let us search our happiness there. Later, Marxism, strengthening the secular thought yet more: the relations of production constitute the most important factor of the life in community; there is only phenomenon, nature.
P - Back to the Carvakas.
R - Yes; who, as we said, had been vigorously faced in India by Hinduism representatives and Buddha. For some people, Buddhism is a form of "Hinduism for exportation". Buddha adopts and uses many of the arguments of the Carvakas and takes these arguments to the extreme, making the spiritual perspective presents itself through a rigorous examination of the mental processes and a vigorous negation of beliefs, dogmas and of so called religious authorities. Modernly, Krishnamurti carried out a work like this. For me, the essence of the teaching of Buddha is found in the speech in which he chains the causes of suffering and demonstrates how one can put an end to suffering.
P - Going back a little, we said that we have arrived at a point of our history, at least of occidental history, in which we managed to establish a social order on the basis of secular values, directed and guided by science and reason.
R - Here it's necessary to warn that, besides passionate interest for the subject, it is necessary to take time and have patience to perform this inquiry, requirements which do not deny the feeling of urgency in understanding. We'll approach the subject in many ways, until we have a clear, comprehensive picture. Therefore, it is necessary to have patience.
Well, the new secular order. Dostoievski, in "The Devils", says that for the first time in human history man was trying to establish a social order on the basis of science and reason. Now, there is a crucial point here: Emmanuel Kant demonstrated that reason can not get to unveil the thing-in-itself. The thing-in-itself is forever beyond knowledge. We can have a representation, construct a representation, a model, an image, but the representation is not the represented thing. Kant expressed the desire that man, perhaps through some other so far unknown faculty, that really does not exist - we'll approach this later - could put an end to the unknowability of the thing-in-itself.
Here, a crucial question also arises: why intellect, knowledge, science and reason, being limited, had been chosen as the determinative, organizing and orienting factors of the new order? Why this question was never asked before? Does not reason constitute an insufficient faculty to understand and, consequently, to deal properly with reality? Why there was not a vibrant action rejecting that society was determined by a limited faculty as reason? Why this imposition was accepted?
P: The obvious reply that some people would give, apart from economic interests, would be perhaps that we do not have another instrument to apprehend and to understand what reality is.
R: Very well. But it would have also to be obvious the perception that to try to organize life on the basis of something that, in last instance, does not know with what it is dealing, and, still more, will never know, would have to inevitably take to chaos, confusion, disorder and destruction. Once human being gives up the investigation of transcendence, of the "thing in itself", of Truth, or transforms it into a postponable, distant, secondary and innocuous objective, then the world of objects has to reign, the merchandises, and the world of concepts, representations, images at the service of that one, a fact which is completely in accordance with the interests of the society created by merchants and dominated by them and their succedaneums. The world is transformed into a great market. Almost everything is salable, if not everything. Culture, art, feelings and emotions, mediated by images, turn themselves to the world of merchandises and to the world of images themselves. Images and objects, indissolubly associated and succeeding themselves each time in new appearances, in a vertiginous rhythm, become the absolute, always to be pursued and always unreachable, an absolute formed of fragments, which become the focus of attention of the mind, which is, itself, a bundle of images, ideas, thoughts - image glorifying image. It is the affirmation - and probably the climax - of the kingdom of appearance and triviality, in which interiority is transferred to this kingdom that, apparently, substitutes it.
P - It is what was called cultural industry, society of the spectacle.
R - Exactly. Berdiaev, Adorno, Debord, and others, each one in his own way, had perceived and described this type of society that we are investigating. It is necessary to see clearly, however, that the basic principles of the questions we are dealing with are very simple, and it's not necessary to be a scholar to understand them. In general, intellectualism - not intellect in itself, obviously - becomes a factor that hinders the understanding of these questions.
P - Well, now I am to ask you a little patience, so that I can follow it, since I had never approached, or had seen someone approaching, the subject in this way. All instruments, all faculties of which we make use of are not enough to apprehend the thing-in-itself. Knowledge is always incomplete, and, because of this fact, it is, therefore, limitless, in the sense that there is no end to adding something to that which is already known. Something to which one is always adding something is always incomplete. And this knowledge, science and reason, that cannot apprehend what a thing really is, that are insufficient for this task, are used to guide, to direct and to organize life, until we arrive at this point, at such a way of living. It reminds me of "the blind guiding the blind", from the Upanishads. It is almost a shock to perceive this. I detect in me a resistance in admitting this perception, but it is very clear and I cannot deny it. But, then, what can we do? It seems to me that we arrived at a dead-end.
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CHAPTER II
ON INVESTIGATION
R - Let us continue from the point in which we have arrived in the first discussion. To act with basis on knowledge, we said, is to continue to act based on semi-darkness, on ignorance. Because the instruments of knowledge are limited, one does not know what the human being, in his totality, is, and one does not know what the universe is, what life is. That is, based on ignorance we try to organize life. Even if vast and deep, knowledge continues to be incomplete and, therefore, ignorance persists. The light of reason needs darkness in order to shine. To have knowledge, the existence of ignorance is necessary. Once knowledge can never be complete, there will never be the end of darkness, of ignorance, through knowledge.
P - The inevitable question that comes to the mind on account of this fact is: "what to do?" Or, is there nothing to be done?
R - There is. We are investigating. To use reason, not cold but passionate reason, which involves emotions, feelings, the daily life with all its joys and anguishes, with all its complexity, to use reason to its limit and leave it, as we do with a boat that helped us to arrive at the other shore, making use of it again when necessary, as an instrument. Let's go step by step. Let's see the criticism from illuminism with relation to religion and religious organizations. It's necessary now to make an inquiry on what is religion. Let us take, for our examination, the Hindu thought. Basically, for Hinduism, Buddhism and other religious manifestations of India, religion is a process to bring us to the discovery of the truth concerning ourselves, the world and what one can call "God", "Nirvana", Brahmam. Only with this discovery we can have a full life, live the totality of ourselves. And only this kind of living can confer us happiness. This discovery being accomplished, there is no more necessity of religion. This "living the totality of ourselves" is, in itself, happiness. Therefore, religion, for the Hindu thought, is basically search, inquiry. The word "search" needs to be understood here not as projection of something to be reached, and its consequent pursuing, but as inquiry, examination, scrutiny of the mind. The word "mind", in this context, must be taken as the totality of feelings and thoughts.
Let's consider Vedanta, for example; the Advaita-Vedanta school, non dualistic Vedanta. "Vedanta" literally means "the end of the knowledge", "the end of the Vedas". The Sanskrit word "Vedas" means "knowledge" and derives from "Vid", "to know". The basic thing here, in this school of investigation, is to discover our true nature, and inquiry is the way to do that. The most direct inquiry is that proposed by Sri Ramana Maharshi, about whom we have talked in the beginning of our dialogue. Ramana Maharshi, the Sage of Arunachala, lived in physical body up to 1950, in Tiruvanamalai, south of India. To live and to act with lucidity, it is necessary to understand who is acting, who I am, what is this "I", whence it appears, says Sri Ramana. We must keep in mind that we are examining to see what "religion" means.
P - And we are seeing that for the Hindu thought it means, basically, inquiry. Would then beliefs, ceremonies and rituals be an inferior form of religion?
R- They would constitute an appropriate form for those who do not feel themselves apt for inquiry. Even among those who feel inclined to investigate, some do not feel themselves apt for direct inquiry. For those, indirect inquiry is recommended. What does it consist of? It consists of observing the functioning of mind, following all its reactions in daily life, to be conscious of all the mental content, the fears, the joys, the pleasures, pains, hopes, desperation, and to allow the contents of the various layers of consciousness to come to surface. To examine the mind very closely in order to discover if the observer is different from the mental content he is observing. To understand the process of formation of images, the confusion that happens by taking the representation for the represented thing, and to understand the process of becoming which follows that confusion; to understand the limitation of thought and to ask if there is something beyond thought, action which already leads to the field of direct inquiry. We are, for the time being, looking at the process in general lines.
For others, still, who feel the inclination to investigate but find it difficult to start with the observation of the mind, another form to initiate the inquiry is recommended.
It is necessary that we say here that all this work requires, of course, great discontent. It's not all people who want to do it, and this is a fact of life. The different degrees of discontent take people to different searches with the objective to find happiness.
P - Some may be satisfied, at least temporarily - and this "temporarily" may have the duration of a life - only with beliefs and rituals and the corresponding emotions and feelings. Others may want to know absolutely nothing about religion, and may search their happiness solely in the world of objects, ideas and the sensations.
R - Right.
P - You have mentioned a third form of inquiry.
R - Actually, it's only one inquiry, in three aspects, which are not excludent among themselves. This other way consists of starting with the observation of what happens in the world. If the conditions in which the world finds itself are disturbing, painful for me, I desire to operate a transformation in the world and try to understand what kind of attitude, which ways of life lead to these conditions. I begin to understand that for the existence of disorder in human relations, it is necessary that it be created by disordered minds. Clear minds do not create a world of mess. Then I try to identify whether the factors of that disorder are present in me. Of course, I discover that the content of human mind is common to all of us, with different arrangements, and that the fact that there are different arrangements is also common to all of us. I am also responsible for the mess. Then I begin to investigate my mind, which brings me to the second form of inquiry.
P - Right.
R - For some people, a little of indirect inquiry soon carries them to direct inquiry. For others, this requires more time. It depends on each one. And for those who came to understand themselves, there is no more necessity of religion. We can see then that beliefs, ceremonies and rituals are appropriate for some people. In India, some persons have great devotion without necessarily belonging to some religious community. Others make use of psychological techniques in order to withhold the flow of thought and, thus, to be able to observe themselves and the world without the veils of concepts. There is the way of action, which consists of performing rightly one?s work, at the service of God and the neighbour. There is the way which consists of passion for beauty. There is the way of love. What matters is this movement in the direction of fullness. In "Crime and Punishment", the spiritual regeneration of Raskolnikov occurs through the love between him and Sonia. In the west it was adopted, in general, the form of religion based on belief, but some of the other ways that we have mentioned here are not strange for us.
P - We know that in the beginning of Christianity there were different schools, different forms to practice the new religion. For example, in one of the apocrypha Gospels, that of Thomas, there is this phrase attributed to Jesus Christ: "He who does not know himself knows nothing; but he who knows himself simultaneously knows the depth of all things". This is in accordance with "the Kingdom of God is within you". Because of economic and political interests, in the 4th century, under Roman emperor Constantine, only one determined line of the Christianity was accepted as true; the adepts of the new religion that adopted other lines had been persecuted as heretical. I remember another phrase that I read, attributed to Jesus Christ, in the same Gospel of Thomas. In approximate words: "Do not build temples of wood or rock in my name. Lift a rock and you will find me; break a piece of wood and I will be there ". Religious belief and organizations, however, had prevailed.
R - This is the form which is vulnerable to hierarchyzation, to fanatism, to all kinds of manipulations and to the control on the part of the State. To rebel against these facts is a sane attitude. The Carvakas used to point out these aspects of religious beliefs and made strong criticism against organized religion. Buddha demonstrated the true signification of religion and adopted in his speech many of those criticisms; some people consider him to be an atheist. The fierce criticism against religion made by Illuminism is essentially the criticism against this manipulable form of religion that prevailed in the West, which was seen only as phenomenon and psychological, moral, economic, social and political symptoms. This very criticism, perhaps deliberately, contributed to fortify the idea that prevails in the West about what religion is. However, even in the interior of this system, other forms of religious practices had been possible. An evident case is that of Saint John of the Cross, who used an investigative religious method. Many in the Catholic Church do not accept his method, in the same way that many had not accepted it at the time, and consider him excessively "Buddhist".
CHAPTER III
SHADOWS OF THE THING-IN-ITSEL
P - With relation to what we were discussing, and for curiosity, I prepared, little time ago, and I have here with me, a list with some criticism to religion, searched and described in works in favor of religion, as of the writers Luiz Philip Pond�and Rubem Alves. Religion as "opium, alienation, dissimulated form of political hierarchy, resentment of the weak, projection of the paternal figure or of that which is `the best' inside human being - projection which would have as its development the loss of the capacity to act this `the best' by placing it outside and, finally, as a way of functioning marked by the lack of noetics; phantasmagorias to calm the terror of contingency, attitude naive of intellectual corrosion ", among other criticisms, as presented by Luiz Philip Pond�in one of his essays (1). Religion as "illusion, neurosis, ideology to base behaviors and to justify domination, speech destitute of meaning, symbol of privation, of ontological fissure, arrangement of the world aiming at the survival of the collective, dream of a new society, escape from reality, shout of protest of the oppressed", in the presentation of Rubem Alves, in his book "What is Religion" (2). We see, in the two expositions, opinions from Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Durkheim and Feuerbach, among others.
A - Nietzsche, however, was not limited by the secular thought. If I remember well, In "The Will to Power" he affirms that only in Vedanta he found correspondence to his thought, to his vision.
Almost all these criticisms, in fact, proceed, in a way, taking into account the contexts that had originated them and under certain conditions, as we have seen. Actually, all the conceptions on life, on societies, on human being, all the mental models, beliefs, ideologies, all the "ways to see" are limited, incomplete and, therefore, defective and subject to criticism. The instrument of which we make use for evaluation is limited, and the results that can be obtained and all the structures created from the evaluation are imperfect. Let's examine a little more about this. Let us consider science. It constructs models of reality, images, "deigmas". We know that some myths had been erected around science: the myth of the objectivity, the myth of the scientific neutrality and of the scientists, the myth of the method, the myth of the rigor, the myth of the falseability. Thomas Kuhn, in his book "The Structure of the Scientific Revolutions" (3) talks about normal science and creative science, in a very clear way.
A creative scientist is the one who, not satisfied with the existing models and "deigmas", leaves them in a state of suspension and, searching new answers to a problem, or set of problems, to a challenge, remains in a state of inquiry, which implies not to know - and in this state the reply appears, he has an insight that he presents to the scientific world. The new theory is, then, a paradigm, a vision that finds itself outside, or besides, the vision or visions accepted until then. From that time on, there will be a complex process, involving repudiation, acceptance, resistance, envy, economic interests, competition, efforts to demonstrate the validity of the new paradigm, fear of loss of position, of prestige, on the part of the normal scientists involved with the model or models that are being supplanted, and innumerable other reactions and adaptations to the new way of seeing. Obviously, there is no neutrality on the part of scientists.
Normal science is that one in which all the actions in relation to the predominant model occur, including those of hiding the failures. The predominant model and its lines of research are strongly subjugated by economic power, inevitably overwhelmed by the dominant ideology. There is no scientific neutrality. A paradigm loses this condition, of course, when it starts to be accepted. It becomes the predominant model, which inevitably will be supplanted by another one. Science, therefore, cannot be defined by its content. To arrive at the paradigm, at the new vision, the scientific method cannot be used. The "way", that etymologically is present in the word "method", is, in this case the "not way", it is the expectation of reply, of insight, of discovery. And there is no scientific rigor to be applied with regard to the insights of creative science.
P - What we have then, always, in the field of science, is not the knowledge of "what is", of the "thing-in-itself", but shadows, as in the allegory of the cave. The light of reason projects shadows of the thing-in-itself, so to say, in the screen of the state of ignorance in which we find ourselves.
R - Perfectly, very well said. That is what is involved in the Sanskrit word "Maya". Now, please ask yourself: what it is this ignorance? Pay attention to the fact that any mental model you create with respect to it will be incomplete.
P - At this moment the mind finds itself in a state of acute attention with respect to this.
R - What is the source of the light of reason?
P - Why ask now which is the source of the light of reason? How do we know that it has a source?
R - You yourself cited the allegory of the cave. The light beam which penetrates in the cave comes from a source that is not found in the interior of the cave.
P - Any reply that I elaborate will consist only of new shadows.
R - There it is. It's necessary to give a very great attention to this fact. It is in silence, as the Hindus say, that great discoveries occur. Now we can begin to understand the reason of the emphasis, in some of India systems, regarding silence, the meaning of this silence, of the mental quietness. It's an alive, vibrant silence, with the mind awaken to itself, operating fully, in its limits.
P - The mind that arrives at this point is not the same one that started the inquiry.
R - Perfectly.
(1)Religiao�como Critica: A Hipotese de Deus - Luiz Felipe Ponde��Revista Cult nr. 64, Editora 17, Edicao Especial/dezembro 2002. - Brasil
(2) O Que e�Religiao - Rubem Alves - Abril Cultural/Editora Brasiliense. - Brasil
(3) A Estrutura das Revolucoes Cientificas - Thomas Kuhn - Editora Perspectiva - Brasil
CHAPTER V
RELIGION AND MODERNITY
P - Continuing with our inquiry, I would like that we talk now about the situation of the world. In which direction will go the secular order?
R - We could start with what Dostoievski says, through Ivan Karamazov: "If God does not exist, then everything is permitted". The Carvakas, as we said, had demonstrated that once there is only the material life, and that the objective is to enjoy life to its utmost, one has to live a life of reflection and moderation, to prevent pains that can happen because of excesses, of exaggeration. This is possible, to some extent. But as Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest sages of all times, says, the true nature of human being is infinite bliss, and only conscious immortality can finally satisfy him. Discontent has never an end. If it had, we would be the condemned, at some point, to stagnation. As soon as we reach what we long for, the horizons of discontent go widening. Discontent is a flame, and many try to suffocate it searching to live in narrow limits. Although they seem satisfied in these limits, discontent continues to operate in deep layers of the mind, and the result of this movement soon finds, in some way, its expression. There is, of course, a gradual awakening to this dissatisfaction - until we perceive that it is really infinite - followed by corresponding searches according to its manifestation and intensity.
What does the capitalist secular order offer to us? The possibility of partial immediate satisfaction in a universe which we know to a certain extent, but which is certainly knowable in the sense of its processes being gradually unveiled, and a horizon of physical and psychological conquests to be gotten in accordance with the ambitions, the luck, the capacities, the chances, the necessities and the efforts of each one, under the control, obviously, of the powerful ones, of the ruling classes. To keep the search in this field, it?s necessary to always invent new forms of satisfaction, psychological and physical goals to be reached, new objects to be consumed, new necessities to be satisfied, and to modify and to renew in bigger speeds the existing social conditions. In the beginning, for that order to develop and come to prevail, it was necessary to depreciate the religious world, to reject it, to deny it.
P - To depreciate and to discredit one of its forms, considered, through ignorance, as if it comprised all that which religion means; while this form, as we saw, consists just in an intermediate phase to the worshiping of natural phenomena and to the inquiry of oneself.
R - Step by step, with the expansion of commerce and the accumulation of capitals, and its developments, it was forged a new economic, social, cultural and political order, which has as its basis material prosperity, individualism, acquisitive spirit and competition, with its "suite" of troubles, bringing to this terrible current crisis. If there is not any intrinsic value, any depth, any fundamental unit beyond the field of objects and ideas, to be investigated and discovered, then everything is permitted. In "The Idiot", through one of his personages, Dostoievski suggests that such a social system is the "Beast" which is described in the book of Apocalypse.
P - This "suite" of troubles has unchained strong contrary reactions, as Marxism, and other forms of approaching, as psychoanalysis.
R - Right. Both of them accepting the basic premise of the secular way of life, denying any possibility of transcendence, fullness and true freedom. Marx made vigorous criticism to capitalism, recognized the force of that system of production and advocated for the extension of its benefits and its possibilities of individual growth and development to all humanity. Before him, in the period of the French Revolution, Graco Babeuf has vigorously criticized private property - in the same way that Rousseau had already done - and proposed the "Dictatorship of the Humble". In psychoanalysis, because we are overwhelmed by nature and civilization, the maximum which we can arrive at is in a state of reasonable interior and exterior adaptation to common misfortune, common unhappiness.
P - And this common unhappiness, though mitigated by several forms of entertainment,
is intensifying itself and becoming unbearable.
R - Probably, it is this way that a route change happens.
In general lines, we can say that in the ways of production previous to the capitalism, wealth and power were destined to the ruling classes. In capitalism, this perspective is opened, at least in theory, to each one, individually. In socialism, there isn?t the exit to the "beyond", of religious people, nor the individualistic exit of the capitalists to the "known" - expansion of the ego, ownerships, accumulation, power, prestige - unless for the ruling classes. As it was said, as a joke: "In capitalism, there is exploitation of man by man. In socialism, it's the opposite". Tremendous creative forces had been set free when human beings conceived that their happiness could be reached here and now, either as isolated individuals, or as a community, and not more, or not more only, in an hypothetical spiritual world, in the "beyond", in life after death.
You ask what to do. One of the actions is to see where our present way of life took us to: isolation, incited competition, excessive individualism, increasing violence, frightening corruption, environmental destruction, wars, insecurity, depression, panic, frightful triviality, all these troubles; but the promise was that of emancipation, happiness. In this situation, religion, that became innocuous as a threat to such a way of living, started to be accepted as a coadjuvant in social control, as opium and as merchandise.
P - In a way, there is already the perception, to varied degrees, of the exhaustion of this way of life.
R - Now, with the promise to solve all these problems, they talk about the need of inclusion of bigger parcels of the world population in this model of the secular order. It is evident, however, that the more inclusion we have, the more these problems, and others, will increase.
P - The promise of happiness, which is not real happiness, cannot be fulfilled; the attempt leads, in a short time, to our destruction and to the destruction of the planet.
R - As it is inevitable, the tremendous creative forces directed to the search of happiness in the field of the known, in different countries or block of countries, find their own ways to have success in this field. Since material resources are limited, there is the need of expansion; the growth of countries and groups of countries which seek expansion creates located wars and unacceptable threats to the dominant powers, to those which had taken the vanguard of the process or to those which have already supplanted them. From there we have the great wars. Was not such way of life created by the limited entity, searching to assure, through multiple and complex occupations and demands, his own continuity? What will happen if there is the collapse of the whole system? To whom to appeal, or, what to appeal to? Tremendous creative forces will be awakened when the individual perceive that his present way of life is established in false bases and is responsible for the tremendous crisis, for the terrible problems that he wants to avoid.
CHAPTER V
"MAYA". THE "I" THOUGHT. THE SOURCE
P - I would like to discuss about the meaning of the word "maya", which many times we find in the eastern texts and in the writings on the east, and which, in general, is interpreted as implying "illusion"; and also to discuss about the direct method to freeing ourselves from illusion.
R - "Maya" is a Sanskrit word which means, literally, "to measure", "to evaluate". The Hindus have made long time ago this discovery: we human beings need to understand life and the meaning of our life, the way we live, understand ourselves, the neighbour and nature. Such necessity is intrinsically connected with the questions of practical order as well as to the discontent, of which we have talked before, and which, as we have seen, presents itself at varied degrees. In order to know, we have to evaluate. The evaluation is always incomplete. To evaluate and to take the result of the evaluation, the image, the concept, for the thing which is evaluated is to live in illusion - and this is "maya".
The whole movement of separation and becoming exist in this field of illusion. For example, an ideal, the pursuing of the ideal and the pursuer of the ideal are nothing more than results of evaluation. From this illusion we have to awake. It is not without reason that India, one of the oldest civilizations, which have accomplished the deepest discoveries in the field of self-knowledge and of the understanding of the universe, was excluded, in general, from our field of studies in the West. There cannot be what we call Western civilization and modernity without this illusory and continuous state of pursuing in the physical, mental and emotional fields, and there cannot be what we call eastern civilization without the inquiry about the "I", the discovery and the understanding of "maya" and its implications. In fact, this division between east and west is also illusory, and we are using it solely for communication purposes.
We have seen, in general lines, how we arrived at the society created and kept by minds directed toward the merchandises and images. The ego is an appearance of the true Being, or Self. We can say that the ego is a "creation" of the Self. This "Being" is our true nature. Once the Self is creative, the ego, that is this Being in the field of the appearance, contains in itself the creative impulse. To create, to be creative, is a natural, intrinsic movement of the ego. The climax for the ego is to create a world in its own image and after its likeness. Image creating a world of images, a virtual world - in the religious allegories, the devil wanting to be as powerful as God. And this, also, is Maya.
P: The understanding of this question requires an intense passion, associated to an accurate examination, to an accurate use of the faculty of reason. In general, and as a consequence of the present way of life, we are not accustomed to use the reason to investigate with such intensity. We feel some difficulty to understand many things about which we are discussing.
R: Some illustrations can contribute to this examination. Shankara, Hindu philosopher and scholar, affirmed that Brahman, or the Self, which is what we are, is real; that the universe is unreal; and that the universe is the Self. This postulate was wrongly understood, even in India. We are, here, using the word "real" in the sense of "truth", and not in the literal meaning of "res", "thing". What the sage wanted to say? Let us consider that there is an ocean that, in itself, is infinite life and consciousness. Let us consider, also, that there is only this ocean. It is, therefore, besides consciousness and life, fullness, totality and perfect bliss.
Let us consider that to create is intrinsic to its nature. If there is only this ocean, can it create some thing different from itself? Being infinite, limitless, complete, timeless, and not existing a second substance, how can it create something that is limited, incomplete, which has beginning and end? It cannot. Let us consider that, even so, it creates, because to create is intrinsic to its nature. What can be created? Nothing but an appearance. With an appearance, the two conditions are met: there is creation, and what is created is not different from the substance of the source. We have then an ocean, inside of which there are appearances that, because being formed of consciousness, become conscious of the other appearances. The magic, or Maya, however, is so great, that there appear forms which are not conscious of the other forms - all in the kingdom of appearance.
Let us suppose that the most developed form has the capacity of being conscious of its own existence, to ponder over the totality of what appears before itself and to search to know which is the truth regarding the totality of that which exists, and mainly regarding itself. Being such entity, in the world of appearances, of incomplete nature, and having coming from completeness, the search for fullness, the search for the original state, will be inevitable. Two ways are opened to this entity: to create things and ideas, from the manipulation of the properties that it discovers in the phenomenon, the knowledge of which derives from its inquiry regarding the reality, and pursue its own creations, and be occupied with them, thus waiting to reach fullness; or to investigate itself to discover which is the origin, the source of the incomplete "I". Through the investigation and discovery that knowledge is always incomplete, a new horizon discloses itself. The postulate of Shankara becomes clear: The Ocean is real; the appearances are unreal, because they do not exist by themselves; the appearances are the ocean itself. Buddha expressed the same truth in other words: "The fundamental characteristic of all things is that they are devoid of substance of their own".
P - To discover the meaning and the implications of the evaluation, of "maya", is not to deny knowledge.
R - Absolutely. Knowledge is obviously essential in our daily life. The problem is not in knowing, in knowledge, but in confusing the evaluation with what is being evaluated. To see the limitation of knowledge is not to be against knowledge. To know is really to taste. What is reason in last instance? Vivekananda, disciple of Ramakrishna, and one of the first Hindus to present to occidental people, in the West, what is meant by the word "religion", from the inquiries and discoveries of India, make an extensive and comprehensive approach on the meaning of the word "maya", in his book about Jnana Yoga, the yoga of wisdom. In another of his books, "Raja Yoga", he also approaches the subject and compares the mental structures that we create from our evaluations, and the elaborations that we make with them, with pearls created by the oysters. Like the oysters, which being in contact with certain particles, react with a kind of enamel around these particles, forming pearls, we, being in contact with something that we do not know what is, that which we call "the universe", react to it creating what we could consider as our own secreted matter, our enamel, the mental evaluation. The universe of experimentation is our own creation. In the Indian Holy Scriptures it is said that the knowledge concerning the world is the knowledge concerning the knower of the world.
We have already examined, in general lines, the question of the limitation of knowledge. Here it is some thing which I call "tree". I study it, I make use of the knowledge that already exists about it, I make use of the existing instruments and can invent new instruments of research, that will be a projection of the knowledge that I have and, therefore, will also be limited; but I can extend the knowledge, that will continue incomplete. We have already seen how the Hindus had approached this fact, we saw a little of epistemology from the eastern point of view and the western point of view. Kant, we said, affirmed that the "thing-in-itself" cannot be apprehended by reason. The Hindus say that all evaluation of the universe, of things and beings is incomplete, because thought is limited. The very word "episteme" provides the clue; it is formed of "epi", which is a preposition that means "above", "over", "on top of", and "histanai", which means "to determine", "to place", "to put". "Episteme", therefore, means "to superimpose". One superimposes over the "thing-in-itself", over "what is", a concept, an idea, a model, a representation - which is never the represented thing.
Now, let us see. What is it that happens when I examine myself and want to discover what I am in last instance? Who am I? If I understood well the fact of the limitation of thought, of intellect, of reason, then I perceive that the instrument of which I make use to evaluate what I am cannot apprehend what I am, as well as it cannot apprehend what any thing or any being really is. All that I can do is to have a limited knowledge about me, an idea, a representation of that which I really am. But the map is not the territory, the model is not the thing in itself, the representation is not the represented thing. I see that the instrument of which I make use to know cannot apprehend the totality of myself. I am before the unknowable. However, I am already the totality of myself. I am not dealing with some other thing apart from me. I am unknowable from the point of view of the faculty of reason of which I make use trying to know myself, but this unknowable is my self. If I think that I am the images which I created about me, I am wrong - they do not comprehend, and will never comprehend, the totality of what I am. My intellect cannot reach what I really am, as it can't reach the true nature of anything. However, though the instrument of reason, of intellect, which I use, cannot apprehend what I am, I am already "the thing-in-itself" when the focus of the investigation is "me". In relation to "me" I am not unknowable and I am not two, one to know the other.
There it is delineated the meaning of the allegory "God and Devil". Just as there is the tree "in itself" and there is the representation of this thing which I call "tree", in the same way there is "I" and the representation created by intellect about that "I". I hope I'm explaining clearly.
R - Very clearly. It seems that I arrived at the unfathomable and, remembering what you have said, I will have to abandon reason which brought me to this immeasurable expanse.
P - It is the representation which I have engendered about me that, being incomplete, looks for completeness and pursues goals and ideals, either in the so-called material world, in the mental world or in some other of world, creating, this way, time, and remaining in the movement of becoming. I feel myself incomplete because I identify myself with incomplete things: the body and the representation that I construct of me, which are always incomplete. For the simple reason that my real nature is immeasurable, timeless, creative, having no beginning and no end, the representation that I have of me, the "I" in the field of representation and time - the "I"-thought - tries to reproduce these conditions in its own unstable field. Its objective is the creation of a society that is always in transformation and that demands of the "I"-thought to be in continuous transformation, in perpetual becoming, so that it can thus expand continuously, so that its creative power can be disclosed in myriad of forms and so that its continuity is guaranteed. In this type of world it pursues the mirage of happiness and does not want to end, for the very simple reason that it is the reflex of a source which does not have beginning or end and that is bliss itself.
R - Don Quixote comes to my mind.
R - Certainly, the empathy, during centuries, in relation to his adventures, is not devoid of reason. The meaning is deep. His hallucination in the search for freedom - in which we see ourselves reflected - is moving and makes us smile.
Now, within the tremendous and continuous turbulence in this way of life, and its tremendous complexity, the mind became reflective, undergone an awakening that allows it to turn back towards the abysmal depths of its source, mix with it, as the river with the sea, and live the daily life from the perspective of the infinite. The door is opened, as Ramana Maharshi and Krishnamurti say, and the inquiry, in its three aspects, is available. To examine, to investigate and really to discover this game that we have been analyzing must lead, gradually, to the weakening of the identification with what is incomplete, of the identification with the representation that I have of me, to the end of illusion and of all search, to a new way of life. The discovery is instantaneous and is it that operates on the mind. The mind acting on the mind in the effort to put an end to itself is the same, as Ramana Maharshi says, as a thief to disguise himself of a policeman affirming that he will go to arrest the thief - he himself. The inquiry, on the other hand, functions as a stick that is used to stoke the fire in a bonfire. When the stick is no more necessary, it is thrown into the bonfire. The ego, the limited entity is then, still according to Ramana Maharshi, as a burnt rope - it keeps the appearance of a rope, but is not ever useful to tie anything. I highly recommend his "teachings".
(Pause)
P - I wonder if everything we talked about constitutes to you a discovery or if it is an intellectual understanding.
R - It's a matter of discovery and intellectual understanding, and they constitute a movement, not some static thing. There is increasing clarity. And I find myself in difficulties with relation to the present society, which demonstrates the need to continue with investigation.
(Pause)
I ask myself: Is there separation between myself and the universe, between me and all the beings and all the things, or there is separation only in the field of representations?
P - I understand the reason of the question and will investigate.
R - In Sanskrit we have the word "Chit", which means consciousness, absolute consciousness, which for Hinduism is the same as life, bliss, fullness and totality. From "Chit", in "Chit" and being an appearance of "Chit", comes "Chitta", the mind, of which the basic principle is the "I" thought; from "Chitta" comes "Chitra", a picture, the appearance of diversity, the universe. In the preface of the book "Spiritual Teachings" (4), which contains dialogues with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Jung warns that this discovery and its affirmation - that the human being is God - shocks the West.
P - Before ending, I would like to say that I am beginning to perceive that this way of seeing completely modifies our perspective in relation to life. I understand that the fundamental thing is the individual inquiry and discovery, and I see indistinctly, in this dialogue we had, the possibility of a new spiritual order, an organic vision of the world, something really universal, a natural state of being that constitutes the oneness of all beings and of all things, which has been called "nirvana", "God", bliss, and "our true nature". Thank You.
(4) Ensinamentos Espirituais - Ramana Maharishi - Editora Pensamento/Cultrix - Brasil
