Hndu Mystical Experience in the Vedanta School

CHAPTER 6

Hindu Mystical Experience In the Vedanta School

6.1 MYSTICISM

"Mysticism is an experience of a transcendental union in this life with God, the divine, through meditation and other disciplines. Cleansing away of physical desires, purification of will, and other enlightenment of mind are the stages along the path of unification. Mystics suggest that God’s indwelling can be reached by delving within, or by the soul’s rise in successive stages."¹ Mysticism is more practical, helping people towards an experience of the divine Reality. Genuine mystical experience is the experience of an Absolute Transcendent, Reality beyond word, thought, image and concept. This experience may be interpreted and expressed indifferent terms. But the reality, which is experience, is always conceived as beyond name and form. It is called as Brahman, Nirvana, Tao, Al Haqq or God the Almighty in different religions.

Hinduism has been engaged over a period of four thousand years in a continuous quest for a right understanding of the nature of God, the Supreme Being, and of man’s relation to him. Vedanta means the orthodox tradition of the Hinduism. "The Vedanta is the system of philosophy which has grown up from the original revelation of the Vedas and constitutes, as its name implies the end of the Vedas."² This philosophical doctrine was first developed in the Upanishad in the sixth century. This tradition has been grown over the succeeding centuries being enriched by different sources, especially by Bhakti, the devotion to personal God, which produced the Bhagavad-Gita. It has developed various systems of philosophy, notably the Advaita, or non-dualist, doctrine of Sankara, the Vishtadvaita, or the qualified non-dualism, of Ramanuja and the Dvaita, or dualism, of Madhava. Still today all these systems have their own adherents. Thus the Vedanta presents us with a complex system of thought, which has grown up over three thousand years and is still alive at the present day.

In the theory of the Vedanta, there have been different answers to the question the nature of the universe and its relation to the ultimate Reality. But Vedanta has never found a completely satisfying answer to this problem. According to Griffiths, the mysticism of the Vedanta school is responsible for shaping and preserving the fundamental elements of the Hindu traditions. It is followed by majority of the Hindu today.

6.1.1. Advaita Vedanta

Griffiths maintains that Sankara was not "monist and that his doctrine is to be understood as non-dualism. Sankara’s non-dualism is not to be understood in the monistic sense, where by Brahman is the sole reality while the world is an illusion. But Brahman and the world are not two. They are not two equal and competing realties. Brahman is the absolute reality, and the world and human being are considered as having relative reality. The individual soul of the human being is identical with the Brahman.

To Griffiths, Sankara’s view the ultimate reality is ‘without duality’-it is an absolute simple identity of being-and in the highest state of consciousness, that of paravidya, the human being is conscious of this identity of being. He realizes the absolute, unchanging state of being in pure consciousness, and realizes at the same time that all the apparent multiplicity of this world with its ‘name and form’ is a superimposition on this pure identity of being. The world has the reality of an appearance of being to out present mode of consciousness but when we awake to a higher consciousness, we discover that it is a mere appearance like a dream of the illusion created by a juggler, or according to his favourite simile, like the form of a snake which is ‘superimposed’ on that of a rope. When we see the world, as it really is we see it as Brahman as the absolute being, and now ourselves in identity with this being. We then realize the meaning of the great saying of the Upanishads: I am Brahman, ‘thou are that.³

Griffiths maintains that Sankara was not a monist and that his doctrine is to be understood as non-dualism.

6.1.2. Sankara As Monist

Sankara is acknowledged to be a theologian basing himself on Sruti. He is known as the St. Thomas of Hinduism. According to Sankara, the knowledge the Ultimate truth was gained not by direct intuition or not by senses or reason, but by revelation. Griffiths says that, "the reason helps to lead the soul by means of negation and analogy (lakshana) to the experience of this ultimate Reality which Sruti reveals in which both sense and reason are transcended and the soul remains in a state of pure consciousness, of simple awareness, in which no object is superimposed."⁴ This state of consciousness is known as ‘Advaita’ or non-duality. It is at the experience of Being without a second. "To Sankara, consciousness always exists; because of the ignorance (avidya) the human soul is not aware of it. So we consider that the world has no distinct reality at all. Sankara beliefs that the one reality is the Brahman, the eternal, the infinite: that alone remain"⁵

6.1.3. Sankara as non-dualist

The world is woven on Brahman, meaning that Brahman is its support and foundation. Brahman is the absolute essence from which this entire world derives. Number of scholars who studies Sankara misunderstood Sankara and his doctrine of Advaita. So Griffiths began to reinterpret Sankara and came to the non-dualist conclusion on Sankara. According to Griffiths Sankara never denied completely the reality of this world. He only affirmed that though the external world has no absolute reality, as such it had a relative reality.

6.2. Visistadvaita

According to Griffiths, Ramanuja is the one who maintained the distinction in the Ultimate experience and accepted the idea of a personal God. Ramanuja maintained a distinction between God, the world and, the human. Ramanuja held that the supreme Reality is not simply a kind of impersonal or super-personal. It is a persona God. For Ramanuja God is a personal being, above all imperfections. The world of nature and the world of souls, all become his attributes. The personal God is called as the Lord, the omnipotent and omniscient, possessing the fullness of Being, knowledge and bliss, grace and love.

6.3. Dvaita

Dvaita is also a doctrine by Madhava, which upholds a radical distinction between God and nature. For Madhava God, the world and, the soul are distinct realties, and they are eternally different. For Madhava, "There is a fundamental diversity in the universe, between God, man and nature and between man and the world, and different beings in the world." ⁵

According to Madhava God alone exists absolutely and independently of himself nature and man exist in dependence on God, and human beings are also like God. But their difference lies only in their radical dependence of on God. Soul’s bliss depends on its dependent of God.

6.4. Advaita Vedanta

The Advaita Doctrine of Sankara is the most commonly accepted the theory of the universe by the Hindus. It remains one of the most fascinating theories of human genius and one, which does not cease to attract even when one may disagree. Sankara was deeply aware of the mysterious character of the Brahman- the Ultimate. Sankara affirmed about the world that though the external world has no absolute reality, yet it has a certain reality. He says, "It is an appearance of being, without origin, in expressible in terms of being, as of not being."⁶ Sankara acknowledged the mysterious character of the world. It is neither being nor not being, nether completely real nor completely unreal, and its origin cannot be explained. Sankara says that the world in its ultimate reality is identical with the Brahman, with the absolute reality.

About knowledge he says that the highest mode of knowledge above sense and reason is Paravidya and not aparividya. There is Sankara’s Advaita speaks about the Ultimate Reality without duality, which is simple identity of being, in the highest state of consciousness. For Sankara the Supreme Being was Nirguna Brahman that is Brahma without qualities or attributes.

END NOTES

1. Harkavy, D. Michael, The New Webster’s International Encyclopaedia (USA: R.R Donnelley & Sons company, 1991), P.739.

2. Grifiths Bede, Vedanta and Christian Faith (USA: First Dawn Horse Press, 1973), P.2.

3. Ibid., P.33.

4. Fernando Albano, The Hindu Mystical Experience (New Delhi: Intercultural Publications, 2003), P.159.

5. Griffiths Bede, Vedanta and Christian Faith P. 43.

6. Ibid.,P.33.