Meykandar, Hume and Heidegger

Meykandar, Hume and Heidegger

The problem of the reality of self has been long debated in India and as a Final Conclusion (Siddhanta) it has been  concluded positively - there is a substantial entity that is called ‘self’ and is different form BEING (God, Brahman) etc, suffers existential repetition and escapes from that historical way of Being-in-the-World by attaining Moksa. I want to make some comments in relation to  the posting below and show that while Hume is way off, Heidegger comes quite close to Meykandar but falls short of the final conclusion because he failed to note Moksa as the Fundamental INTENTIONALITY that provides the motivational dynamics for all actions including the metaphysical. Heidegger could not see through DEATH and its metaphysical significance as Moksa itself.

1.

Moksa is NOT simply a propensity to believe and which is simply a constituent of the  inherited understanding, transmitted by language, metaphysical traditions and so forth.  The desire for Moksa lies at the deepest layer of human understanding and transcends language, culture, traditions and so forth. In fact there cannot be these elements without there being as an apriori the pressure for Moksa as something there with the soul. Language, culture, religions and various other kinds of cultural expressions are different shapes this pressure for Moksa takes. In our investigations unless we analyze and go to the depths of Human INTENTIONALITY, we shall never lay bare the Fundamental Intentionality and which is the desire for Moksa and at which point a person becomes a Mumuksu, the one who desires Moksa and nothing else.

Punitavati (c. 5^th cent) is good example of such a person.   One can see also this as the meaning of TiruvaLvar’s metaphor of PiRavik Kadal Niintal, a metaphor as old as Sumerian Suruppak’s NeRi ( c. 3000 BC).It is given to ALL of us- whether German or English Tamil or Chinese Black or White Man or Woman - it is already GIVEN as there, but at the deepest layer of Human Understanding. Our problem is that we are LOST on the way and remain fixated to the imagined and inherited.

2.

It also follows that the ‘self’ is there as a substantive entity as that which seeks Moksa for nothing else- the body the cognitive processes -thinking feeling etc can SEEK out Moksa as it involves ESCAPING from the involvement or engagement with the body and mind. The mind cannot escape from the mental by annihilating itself. There has to be something ABOVE the mind, something that uses the mental mechanisms as TOOLS for gaining an understanding and with that DESTROY ignorance and when the time is ripe even escape from being caught up by the body that comes along with several instincts (sexual etc) and mental mechanisms or modules (Manam Buddhi AhaGkaaram and Cittam) that predispose to THINKING.  We cannot FREE ourselves from THINKING as such by thinking. Here we can make sense of Heidegger’s notion of Authentic Existence, not in the way he explained it but rather in the way Punitavati articulated it - seeking miiNdum piRavamaai, seeking escape from the throwness into existentiality that comes as endless births and deaths.

3.

Now since there is hermeneutic process that causes the self to EVOLVE towards the Fundamental Intentionality of seeking Moksa and nothing else underlying the Being of self i.e. the Ways-of- Being-in-the-World of an anma or self, the Existence, there has to be  BEING who is the GROUND of this evolutionary movement and where this BEING is along-with as well ABOVE the self  and Itself already in Moksa (Anati Mutta Citturu). For only what is already in Moksa can work for the Moksa of others. It is here that  we can locate the ‘conscience’ as the inner CALL as Heidegger sees it.  BEING in remaining along with the anmas, always keeps on calling the self towards it’s own authenticity - a continuous reminder that at the moment it leads an inauthentic life from which it should escape and become free.

4.

We have a CLUE to all these in our TIME consciousness. While Hume and Kant do not go beyond what Tolkaappiyar(c. 300 BC) calls Terinilai Kaalam, the world time that breaks into past present and future always presupposing a point of reference common to the community, there is also the KuRippu Kaalam that Tol notes as part of verbal structure of languages. This KuRippu Kaalam is INTENTIONAL Time and I believe this is what Heidegger means by TEMPORALITY, the way of presence of TIME within the mind that is projective into the future. The Da-sein that projects into the future and hence  in temporality is nothing else but this anma but with intentionalities of all kinds for the intentionalities are essentially projective. The intentional Da-Sein cannot on its own become free of temporality and at the absence of  acknowledging the presence of BEING which promotes Moksa only DEATH will be seen as that towards which the Da-Sein is moving as Heidegger thought. The authentic life is NOT that of awaiting DEATH but rather that of Moksa. Moksa is also death but it the FINAL DEATH, a death after which there is no rebirth, phenomenal presence with another body etc and hence it is not the ordinary death which terminates only one lease of existence.

5.

The fundamental Temporality is the time consciousness instituted by Fundamental Intentionality viz, the seeking of Moksa, and which is moving unto BEING by the PULL He exerts and in which self becomes purified and enlightened so that it becomes the SAME as BEING in the qualitative aspects. When this transmutational and evolutionary movement of the self comes to a close it becomes the SAME as BEING and in that also enjoy Njaanam, the Absolute Illumination that makes everything translucent like a book that has been read many times and fully understood so that it can be thrown away.

At this point there is NO temporality at all as there is no Intentionality at all  and Speech as such becomes impossible. The primordial impulse towards linguisticality is INTENTIONALITY and when it is no more, speech also becomes impossible. The enjoyment and communication of this Njaanam is only through Deep Silence (Moonam)

Dr Loganathan Krishnan @ Ullaganar