Vedanta - The Metaphysics of Avoidance
We have successfully disconstructed Tat Twam Asi by noting that it captures in a formulaic manner the intentionality and hence intentional temporality, the most universal existential structure. This is true not just of Indians but all human beings, perhaps also other living creatures that are nonlinguistic or prelinguistic. For all living things search for this and that and therefore infected with intentionality of some kind or other. And this also means the possibility of becoming FREE of this intentionality is also UNIVERSAL, all human beings are capable of attaining this state of genuine metaphysical freedom.
We gained this understanding, i.e. there is intentional-temporality as the integral structure of Tat Twam Asi by bringing together the metaphysical reaches pertaining to this of Tolkaappiyar ,Heidegger and Meykandar. Among these, Tolkaappiyar and Heidegger operate within I-T and do not attempt to disconstruct it. Meykandar using the insights of Tirumular, Appar Sambantar and a host of others successfully does this disconstruction and thus understands BEING whose njaanam is NOT temporal at all and hence absolute and that we can enjoy this atemporal understanding provided we effect the disconstruction.
But we noticed that this final disconstruction is NOT something we can do -- we have to AWAIT the Grace of BEING for that final disconstruction that would catapult us into the realms of Permanence, Absolute Understanding and so forth.
Let us use the term "thrice born" to describe those who enjoy this final disconstruction and hence enjoy Mukti, the final releasement from Samsara, historicity-- existential repetition, being born again and again into the phenomenal world. The thrice born are Muktas, those who have attained Mukti, NirvaNa and what not.
To become the thrice born is a possibility all of us already have and therefore EQUAL in that sense. This understanding provides the framework for becoming UNITED despite being different in sexuality, professions, birth. lineage and whatever. At the deepest level all of us hold the possibility of becoming the thrice born and once all of us realize this and restructure the mind along these lines then we have a social organization founded upon MUTUAL LOVE and RESPECT for each other and LEARNING especially the metaphysical type as the central ingredient of political life.
It would transpire that there are NO privileged individuals and anyone who claims such special privileges would turn out to be a cheat who would distort truths for very selfish reasons.
The spirit of social equality was, that was forged during the Bakthi period but unfortunately never became fully established with the necessary fundamental reorganization of the social ethos. It was a revolution that failed and one of the reasons it failed, was, I think, the rise of the Vedantic schools of thought that arose as commentaries to Vedanta Sutras of Badarayana, and with different notions about what constitutes Mukti -- the Advaita, Visistatvaita, Dvaita and so forth.
But how is that possible? How did Vedanta kill the spirit of bakthi?
Philosophy that begins with " therefore now inquire into Brahman " CANNOT be true philosophy, for such an inquiry CANNOT answer questions pertaining to the meaning of EXISTENCE but only articulate a metaphysics of AVOIDANCE of existence and NOT that of understanding. Vedanta makes one close the eyes to the existential struggles of man and justifies this methodically induced blindness through recourse to the authority of the Vedas
Let me explain this in some detail.
The ordinary existence, the existence of the philosophically naive is simply Being-in-the-World, simply living a life of basic passions and emotions, fully locked up in the world of the historical states oblivious to the higher possibilities that lurk behind the naive. Now when this is disconstructed and the naivety overcome with a heroic struggles to liberate oneself from the mundane then awareness grows of there being BEING and the possibility of drawing close to BEING and hence an attitude of Bakthi. The existence here becomes differentiated into Being-with-BEING-and -the- World (BBaW). This is the existential structure of the genuinely philosophical, where there is an understanding of the Metaphysical realms over and above the worldly and where BOTH ARE REAL only that the realms of BEING, the metaphysical realms are absolute and not transient as that of the physical. But the philosophical individual is both Physical and Metaphysical, trapped into the physical because of the bodily existence but TRYING to get releasement from it by metaphysical endeavors of various kinds.
Now this BBaW can be differentiated further into Being -only-with -World (BWW) and Being-only -with-BEING (BWB) where the emphasize is "being only with" that carries along with it the notion of negation, avoidance , exclusion, denial etc. BWW is the Godless metaphysics of Buddhists who were logical positivists of a kind such as Dignatha, Dharmakirti ARavaNa adikal of maNimekalai and so forth and who disallowed the matters of transductive perceptions and hence the Agamas and so forth as reliable sources of metaphysical understanding. They disallowed the TRUTH of the metaphysical realms and hence Bakthi as such. They could NOT disconstruct intentionality for they never recognized the presence of that by dissecting everything into flow of momentary particulars, including TIME which they dissected into a endless chain of photonic-times, the KaNikam. In this way they failed to understand and articulate a metaphysical realms WITHOUT temporality and hence BEYOND time.
Now the Vedanties , beginning from Badarayana seem to have opted for the antithetical to this viz. BWB, being only BEING and which they understood as the meaning of Aham Brahmam Asmi( I am Brahman really). The BEING is understood as the Brahman, the radiant and because of the "only" here we see also the emergence of the only Brahman is real and hence all else Mythiya, a falsity of a kind , adhysa and Aropitam etc. Being in the world as embodied person is DENIED as real and that too in order to maintain that BWB is the real possibility and justified by the authority of Vedas (which is NOT mythiya! )
With this begins a systematic blindness of the Vedantic traditions to the physical world, to existence as the embodied , historicity of existence and hence understanding as such. And since such a special vocation is NOT for everybody it also began to be asserted that only those privileged by birth to the study of the Karma Kanda of the Vedas are eligible for inquiry into Brahman thus transforming metaphysical inquiries themselves into a casteic affair and NOT something universal. Nowadays the caste restriction is no more but the acceptance of the Vedas as authoritative is insisted upon for otherwise " therefore inquiry into Brahman" cannot be maintained as proper starting point of philosophy.
In this way the emergence of bakthi and the FREE inquiry into metaphysical realms arising from existential struggles are DENIED as legitimate and dominance of Vedantic Brahmans in the philosophical world of India also ensured that the freedom of human mind be suppressed as a whole except when they talk about the Vedas and Vedanta fondly and with reverence.
ULLAGANAR
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