by David Norman Willmott
In his essay, ‘Putana,’ Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura has warned us:
“King Kamsa knows very well that if the faith in the transcendental is once allowed to grow it is sure to upset all his empiric prospects.
[...] Kamsa is strongly persuaded that faith in the transcendental can be effectively put down by empiricism if prompt and decisive measures are adopted at the very outset. He attributes the failure of atheism in the past to the neglect of the adoption of such measures before the theistic fallacy has had time to spread among the fanatical masses.
But Kamsa is found to count without his host. When Krsna is born He is found to be able to upset all sinister designs against those who are apprised by Himself of His advent. The apparently causeless faith displayed by persons irrespective of age, sex and condition may confound all rabid empiricists who are on principle adverse to the Absolute Truth, Whose appearance is utterly incompatible with the domination of empiricism.
But no adverse efforts of the empiricists, whose rule seems till then to be perfectly well-established over the minds of the deluded souls of this world can dissuade any person from exclusively following the Truth when He actually manifests His birth in the pure cognitive essence of the soul.”
I met the empiricist not long ago. I run into him quite often in fact. He tells me: "I accept your view, but as long as your view assumes that you have "knowledge" then you can no longer learn."
So I say: “Well that's just typical isn't it? You value learning, but you refuse to call what you have learned 'knowledge', since you know that later you might find it flawed. What is the meaning then of your so-called learning?”
He goes on: "All of us have experiences, and we can interpret those experiences in very different ways. We can respond to them emotionally and intellectually. We can interpret those experiences as being passed into us from outside of ourselves. It may well be true. But that is a rational judgement that we make. The only real truth is your experience. The meaning you attach to that is man-made."
So I retort: “And you know this because...you have experienced 'the only real truth'? And because you have experienced the 'man-made' nature of the meanings I attach to my experiences? ...You know, for an empiric relativist you sure do sound rather absolute. Try being consistent with your philosophy and say, ‘The only truth I experience is my experience; and I experience the meanings I attach to my experiences as being constructed by myself and my fellow man.’”
He goes on: "Maybe it's true. Maybe your god is speaking to you and maybe you are listening. But regardless, how that manifests itself to you is still your rational brain interpreting your own sensations and emotions. To elevate that to knowledge is a very limiting stance to take... Because you have no knowledge. You have experience. And to assume you do have knowledge informs every subsequent experience you may have, inhibiting your chance to grow."
So I retort again: “My dear empiricist, I'm afraid you've just inhibited your own chance to grow. How do you know you actually have a brain? Have you ever seen one? And if you have, how can you verify its existence independent from the impression of it that your eyes have conveyed to your mind through your own grey-matter (which you can't verify exists either)? What about your eyes? Can you verify those? Or your finger-tips? The inescapable fact is that you have absolutely no means to measure the tangible existence of any entity that presents itself to your sensory experience. By your own power, you only have the right to say that you can smell, taste, see, touch, hear, think and feel. You have no right whatsoever to pronounce evaluations regarding the nature of the objects you contact. Therefore to elevate your sensory perception of a quasi representation of a "brain" to "knowledge" is a very limiting stance to take, don't you think? — Because you have no knowledge that your “rational brain” is, in fact, interpreting your own sensations and emotions. You only have what the good scientist tells you; and you both only have your perceptual experience. So your unverifiable assumption that you do in fact have a brain—independently of your perceptual experience of it—has only informed your every subsequent experience, thus inhibiting your chance to grow. Oh dear.”
"Now it is my view that all our sensations, and emotions and spiritual comfort are created within ourselves through a lifestyle of acceptance and compassion and experiencing the now without judgement. It is your view that your experiences are direct connection and a proof of the existence of god."
“Very good. You said it: It's your view. I'm just curious though if you came up with your view all by yourself as a product of interpreting your perceptual experiences... or have you been reading any books? And by the way, I haven't expressed any view about the nature of my experiences. I have expressed my acceptance of what the Vedas have told me is God's view of the world that I experience. And so far, I have experienced part of the validation of that view.”
"...Either of us could be right. Or more likely neither of us is right. There probably is no right... Just our own experiences."
“There you go again...defeating your own philosophy. Why don't you stick to talking about your experiences and leave conclusions for people who actually accept them.”
"But if you choose to believe that your view and interpretations constitute a knowledge and mine do not... Then debate between us is pointless as you approach that debate with a debilitating sense of superiority. I am always delighted to discuss spiritual experiences with someone who is willing to share open-mindedly. But if you have decided you are right and I am wrong then debate is redundant and seems only to serve your own ego as I can see no other purpose for it.”
“I know your grievance is not that I have my own experiences and interpretations of them. Your grievance is that I appear unwilling to entertain the validity of how you interpret your experiences. So I ask you: Have you ever found that you interpreted an experience inaccurately? Have you ever made a judgement about your experience of the universe that turned out to be wrong, i.e. it was contradicted by a subsequent experience? If so, then yes: your method of interpreting your experiences is invalid, and so you need a method that doesn’t lead you to err. However, I have no problem with the principle of experience or interpretation. My argument is with the idea that knowledge cannot be established. You said there is experience, and not knowledge; but why do you think I still have something to learn then?
If experience was all-important, you wouldn’t care whether I thought I was right or whether I thought you might be right or whether I thought neither of us was right. Because it wouldn’t matter, as long as I’m taking in experience......right? So if knowledge is an ontological fallacy—a red herring we might say—then why make the effort to teach me that experience is of prime value while conclusion is false? Is THAT not a conclusion right there? Or is conclusion only false when that conclusion claims that conclusions are valid? Why are the things you value, like acceptance of the moment and compassion, valuable to you? By affording them value you accept them as knowledge, since they inform your every subsequent experience. Therefore, if my crime is that I discriminate between knowledge and ignorance by accepting the existence of both, then I’m afraid that you are just as guilty.”
...Now someone might think that the empiricist is being quite reasonable, generous, and gentlemanly. I mean, isn’t it commendable and personable to tolerate, accommodate, and respect all others’ viewpoints on life? Isn’t that innocuous? And isn’t he justified in requesting that I should do the same? But here an important question comes up: What are the symptoms by which you judge if someone is personal? Are they just that he appears liberal towards all other viewpoints by allowing everyone else their own relative speculative philosophies in order to avoid being challenged about his own? .......Because that seems like a good definition of impersonal. And when he is challenged about his own, he feels his viewpoint hasn’t been respected. But respecting other viewpoints means facing them with your own. It means to assert the identity you have chosen and to acknowledge and deal with others. And since identities can be contradicting, respecting them can mean confronting them; it can mean saying that I am right and you are wrong and if you can’t show me otherwise, then I will show you how it is so.
And yet the speculating empiric "gentleman" would rather remain impersonal on the plea of “let’s live and let live,” which is a nice idea, indeed; but an idea that’s rendered a nullity when “let’s live” means that others must die, and that such “living” bites the hand that feeds it. Sadly, the empiricist cannot “let live.” He doesn't like the fact that I can take my own (or rather Krsna’s) conclusion as truth, leaving no room for his. Now there is of course room for his, but why must I let it be at God’s expense? The reality and value of subjective individual experience is an absolutely valid element of his philosophy...but if he wants to throw out God as well, then he can expect a fight...
If I were to kowtow to his relativistic stance by saying, “Yes, I believe in God, but based on the limited nature of my subjective experience, I am also prepared to accept that your atheistic belief could be right”, then what the hell would be the meaning of my professing a theistic belief? Faith in God is like backing a thoroughbred (in a one-horse-race) that’s inspired to run for your deliverance in proportion to the measure of investment that you offer. The doubting man might think: “There are two horses in this race (well—maybe a thoroughbred and a donkey), and either of them could win. So I’ve decided to invest only a little time and energy in my thoroughbred (since I don’t like risking loss). If it wins I’ll cheer and collect my profit; but if it loses...well, what to expect—there were two horses in the race.” ......Will the thoroughbred be very much bothered to run?
...Or I might even try it this way: “Ok. I’ll back this horse in style, put everything I’ve got on it — and if it wins, I’ll make a killing; but since I have already conceded before the race that there’s a chance it could lose...then if it does lose...I should get my money back, maybe even with the gains that should accrue to me on the other horse’s winning......just as I said it might.” — No bookmaker would take you seriously since your faith in your own horse is nothing more than laughable. Put your money where your mouth is...as they say. So all this: “I think that..., but maybe it could be...” jargon is just nirvisesa-sunyavada: just faithlessness. But substance, personalism, means commitment. It means risk, and only risk, trust, yields profit. Yes: I choose to trust that there is an objective reality over and above my subjective experience. I choose to trust the testimony of the One that lays claim to the pure objectivity of infinite subjectivity. There’s a good chance I will never be privy to such a One’s infinite subjectivity, but if by accepting His testimony I find my own subjective experience to be perfectly complete, then what do I care if I can never objectively verify what ‘absolute’ might be? So yes, it really does all come down to experience......But the genuine proponent of pure experience would broaden his horizons by permitting his experience to augment through trusting a testament that hails from beyond his experiential ability to verify it before trust awards him the experience to verify it. In other words, a true believer in experience would risk trusting the testimony that, for example, beyond the darkness of his enclosure, the sun is illuminating all directions...and thus he would step outside. ......It’s a risk — he might be cheated by his informant! (But at least he would gain a “cheated” experience to add to his collection of experience). Just as surely though, he could be vindicated with the realization of a wholly other and promised experience that would have been unattainable without his trust in testimony. The stifled empiricist, on the other hand, would rather remain in his cell until the sun decides to join him.
Yes, the speculating empiricist would like me to ‘live and let live’—but does he practice what he preaches? Living and letting me live means, “I think either of us or none of us could be right, but if you think that you’re right and I’m wrong, then you’re welcome to think like that and I won’t judge you for it.” ...But when I tell him that he's wrong, boy do I get judged! And boy does he try to vilify me for my conviction in transcendence—faulting me for its advocation because he cannot see it for himself. He would like to make me out as a ‘bad sport’; and for not succumbing to his empiric outlook, which taunts my mind with, “maybe I’m right, maybe you’re right, who can say?” and which is plagued by doubt about the nature of existence—He cries at me, “foul play!” ...So how personal are we talking here? People should be consistent. Accepting an absolute truth means drawing a line: “This is reality, and that’s illusion”. Accepting relative truth means no line; so what anyone wants to believe (or indeed do) should be perfectly cool — even if they want to believe in absolute truth...which inherently, necessarily, subjugates relative truth. ...So why give me a hard time about it?
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Prabhupada compares “the typical aggressive empiricist” to king Kamsa, who is “ever on the lookout for the appearance of the truth for the purpose of suppressing Him before He has time to develop.” The Acarya states: “THIS IS NO EXAGGERATION OF THE REAL CONNOTATION OF THE CONSISTENT EMPIRIC POSITION.” And he continues: “The materialist has a natural repugnance for the transcendent. He is disposed to link that faith in the incomprehensible is the parent of dogmatism and hypocrisy in the guise of religion. He is also equally under the delusion that there is no real dividing line between the material and the spiritual; he is strengthened in his delusion by the interpretation of scriptures by persons who are like-minded with himself...” The Acarya concludes: “...The effective silencing of the whole race of pseudo-teachers of religion is the first clear indication of the appearance of the Absolute on the mundane plane. The bona-fide teacher of the Absolute, heralds the Advent of Krsna by his uncompromising campaign against the pseudo-teachers of religion.”
Therefore, by accepting the application of Krsna Consciousness, the dedicated soul will ultimately awaken a pure theistic disposition that is so incontrovertible as to silence all atheistic speculations based on gross ignorance about the cause of one's grotesquely over-prized subjectivity.
Objectively, “right” and “wrong” are legitimate principles since it is fairly obvious that we share a common environment of experience (unless everyone I’m talking to is merely an extended participant of my private universe, in which case I’m only ever arguing with myself, so what the hell...), and if you operate any component or participant of that environment “right”, it responds in a certain satisfactory way, and if you operate it “wrong”, then you have a bad day ...So it’s really not a matter of who is right and who is wrong; it’s a matter of who is in the position to decide who is right and who is wrong. I don’t find myself to be the originator of the world I experience and so I’m not in the position to judge, on my own, who may be right and who may be wrong. No. I must accept some authority. That authority can either be my own faculties of perception and discernment, or it can be something beyond them, something informative, partial or complete, though revealed to me (naturally) through auditory reception. Personally I choose the ‘beyond’ option—and the complete variety at that; but anybody is welcome to make himself his own authority. I don’t mind. Go for it... If it doesn’t turn out so great, he can always pick up a Bhagavad–gita and see if that works any better. But if being one’s own authority brings eternal increasing happiness, then I’m happy for the guy, and I would certainly be willing to concede he could be right. Trouble is I’d have to bother myself, eternally, testing (and trusting his communication of) his experience, before I’m satisfied that it holds true ...Too bad eternity doesn’t finish. And since it appears that none of us will live very long in any kind of close proximity anyway, I reckon my experiment would be cut short prematurely. So I’m just going to take a risk and bet that the empirically-guided search for happiness won’t lead to any eternally increasing experience of it... and my complete Vedic authority makes me confident of that.
But Srila Prabhupada says it best: “The Lord reserves the right of not being exposed to such mental speculators. And because they cannot enter into the network stem of the lotus feet of the Lord, all material speculators differ in conclusions, and at the end they make a useless compromise by saying, "as many conclusions, as many ways," according to one's own inclination. (yatha-rucam). But the Lord is not like a shopkeeper trying to please all sorts of customers in the mental speculator exchange. The Lord is what He is, the Absolute Personality of Godhead...” (SB 2.4.21 purport)
Kamsa ...you’re just plain wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment