Accessing ‘Para’ (Real)
It would be a good thing to narrow-in on the ‘spookiness’ of the accessing ‘Real’. However, because there is a very great danger that ‘access’ can be conceptualised as an access to a ‘supra-mundane’ or a ‘spiritual’ world, or to a world that is not accessible to ‘sciences’ but can be ‘spiritually’ accessed, etc. a few extra words are required. Therefore, an attempt that might reduce one possible kind of spookiness that you might be referring to.
1. Is it possible to speak of accessing ‘things’ that might not exist in the world? Yes, we do it all the time. For the time being, all our sciences depend on this possibility. Mathematical objects, ideas, belong here; so do entities like ‘meaning’ and ‘knowledge’. The so-called ‘Platonic forms’, the ‘Platonic world of ideas’; the so-called ‘third world’ of Popper, the philosopher of science; the endless debates about whether there is a Mathematical world (in which, sets, numbers and infinity, etc. exist) that one accesses (the so-called Platonism in Mathematics); whether mathematical objects exist in the world or in ‘another’ world, namely the ‘mathematical world’, etc.; what ‘meaning’ is (whether or not ‘meaning’ is in the head, or in sentences, or in the world or somewhere else); what ‘knowledge’ is (is it a set of sentences or theories, or beliefs, etc.)… These are discussions about the question whether objects require to ‘exist’ to be accessible. If mathematical infinity does not ‘exist’, what does it mean to perform mathematical operations on them on which our modern day physics rests on? How is it possible that operations on such objects (assuming they do not exist) could ever tell us anything about the physical world? Etc. Etc. Thus, there is nothing ‘spooky’ about either the question or even a positive answer to it, when asked: could we access ‘objects’ that do not exist? Apparently, every single great mathematician is platonic; all of them believe in the existence of a ‘mathematical world’. That is, they ‘see’ and work with ‘objects’ that apparently do not exist but, because they are unable to think how such entities are ‘accessible’, the ‘existence’ of a mathematical world gets postulated. When they say such a world ‘exists’, all they mean is that they are accessible. ‘Existence’ is required because they cannot see how objects that do not exist could ever be accessed. Attempts to speak about ‘para’ as another, different kind of ‘world’ simply track this mode of speech.
2. Of course, in a very specific sense, such objects do ‘exist’. It is not possible that there could be ‘thoughts’ of any kind (logical, linguistic, mathematical, artistic, etc.), if there is no material/energetic foundation or sub-stratum to thought. (This is what our current knowledge says about the world.) Hence the enormous attraction of ‘reductionism’, when talking about mind/brain issue: human thinking (of every kind) is founded on and therefore reducible to brain activities. Or, in more general terms, all sciences are reducible to physics. However, note that both the attraction of such programmes and reactions against these revolve around the ‘spookiness’ of the idea that one could access objects even if they do not exist. Because of this, one camp gives such objects ‘existence’ in special ‘worlds’: the mathematical world, the logical world, the linguistic world, the psychological world, the artistic world, the universe of discourse and so on, including the spiritual world, the supra-mundane world, the adhyatmic world, etc. etc. The number of ‘worlds’ that populate the world has become infinite today. The other camp denies these ‘special’ worlds in one domain only to countenance the existence of many such worlds ‘elsewhere’ or constantly try to deny such worlds and their existence. In short, there is nothing spooky about the question itself; it is very well-known to us throughout more than 2000 years of history of the West. The same applies to the answers.
3. This ‘spookiness’ goes away completely, if one realises the following two points: (a) Access of any kind requires that the accessed ‘object’ is present in the world; (b) ‘presence’ of an ‘object’ does not imply or mean its ‘existence’. The first point, in some senses, rests on multiple sources: from trivial considerations about human psychology, through our theories in physics and biology to deep philosophical disquisitions. The second point could be illustrated as a very obvious ‘of course’ thus:
Consider statements of the following kind: ‘he is charismatic’; ‘he has presence’; ‘he has a magnetic personality’; ‘her beauty is blinding’; ‘people notice his presence in a room’; ‘this house has character’; ‘there is something attractive in this wood’; ‘there is something to this painting, or poem or sculpture’; ‘I was moved deeply by this symphony of Bach today’, etc. etc. etc. ‘Charisma’ or ‘magnetic personality’ might be a called a trait of an individual; but of what kind? ‘Beauty’ might be ‘skin-deep’, but, again, of what kind? Do houses, woods, etc. have ‘characters’ and, if they do, of what kind?
When you look into such statements and experiences, you notice that these words do not, could not, indicate any kind of property or trait as we use and understand these terms. We do not mean that a magnetic personality means that the personality of the person has a property or trait that is similar to something like ‘shyness’ or ‘abrasiveness’, ‘kind’ or ‘vulgar’, etc. The word picks out something else. We do not use the word ‘repulsive’ to speak about a ‘magnetic’ personality, even though we do know that like-poles of a magnet repulse. What do we do then? One route: these exist in a ‘Platonic’ world. Second route: in a very non-trivial sense, what we are saying in every such statement is that the properties or traits spoken about should not be understood as things that exist. They cannot be predicated of people or objects the way we normally do: there is a difference between a ‘neurotic’ personality and a ‘charismatic’ personality and one of the differences lies in the fact that ‘neurosis’ and ‘charisma’ cannot be used the same way while speaking about personalities. In very simple terms: these terms indicate that we are accessing ‘objects’ that do not exist but are present in the world. In more general terms: one accesses things that are present without requiring that they exist. Even briefer: presence does not mean existence. However, both are in the world.
4. Of course, there are questions: what is presence, if it is not existence? How does one access presence? Etc. However, this situation is not ‘spooky’; we do it all the time and such language-use is very familiar to all of us. We might not have knowledge about ‘presence’ and various modes of accessing presence; but spooky, it definitely is not. There is nothing spiritual or extra-mundane about something that human beings do all the time. However, know this much: presence is always predicated upon (or ‘manifest’ in) existence. As a slogan: no presence outside existence. If anything is present, it is and must be there in this world, dependent in some way or another on existing objects. This is as hardnosed a ‘materialism’ as it can get.
5. Consider, in this light, the ‘Asato ma’ shloka: ‘through’ (not, ‘from’) asat to sat, through tamas to jyoti (not ‘from’), through ‘mtrityu’ to ‘amritam’ (not ‘from’). It is only through samsara (not ‘from’) that you reach ‘moksha’. This is the ‘para’ of Indian traditions. ‘Para’ has to be present in the world, but it does not exist. It is only through ‘apara’ (the not-para) that you can access ‘para’. The ‘brahma-in-the-para’, ‘parabrahman’, must be present in the world and is accessible only through ‘apara’. Where is this para, then? Only possible answer: everywhere. In this ‘pillar’? as the father of Prahlada asked. Yes. But as something that does not and could not possibly exist: as Narasimha. Sarvam khalvidam brahma. Why? Para, because it is not an object in the world, cannot be unique either. Presence is either everywhere in the world or it is nowhere. ‘Presence’ is neither one (‘monism’) nor two ( a possible reading of ‘a-dvaita’). You cannot map the domain of numbers to presence for the simple reason that ‘presence’ is not a domain. Hence there can be no mathematical function that can do the mapping.
6. A-para is ‘not para’, i.e., it is not presence. This ‘apara’ exists in the world, in ‘iha’. ‘Iha’, the world, has no negation in Sanskrit: there is no ‘A-iha’. Stands to reason: there is only the world, there is nothing outside the world. Therefore, the Indian languages do not allow a negation of ‘Vishwa’ either (a-Vishwa, for instance). Para is not the negation of ‘iha’; para only means the ‘other’.
7. Hopefully, however cryptically, the point is clear: there is no room in the Indian traditions for ‘the spiritual’, ‘the mystical’, the ‘supra-mundane’, ‘the Divine’ and such like. There has never been. Why then, today, is such talk peddled all over the world as ‘the’ characteristic property of Indian ‘religions’ and Indian culture? This, of course, is a question of primary importance to all of us.
Just one request to the possible readers of these and similar, other posts. Please do not palm-off these thoughts as your own without understanding what is being said. The problem is not one of stealing ‘my’ ideas without due acknowledgement. It is of an entirely different kind: when you indulge in this kind of plagiarism or dissimulation (using formulations without knowing what they are trying to say as though they are your own and, thus, you know what they say), while ‘honestly’ expressing your ‘indebtedness’, I am compelled to stop using these terms, concepts and languages. Then, these ideas cannot be developed any further. It has happened many times in the past. Please: do not damage the project because you want to be recognised as an ‘original’ thinker. The project is far too important to be used for such a trivial purpose.
zrp:ldne1