Advaita Vedanta, Idealism, Schopenhauer

[Bob]

I want to discuss the connections between Advaita Vedanta, Idealism, and some aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy. I invite @felix_dakat t to give us his insights into Vedanta.

As I understand it, Advaita Vedanta is a school of Hindu philosophy that emphasises the non-dual nature of reality. It asserts that the ultimate reality (Brahman) is beyond distinctions and that the individual soul (Atman) is ultimately identical with Brahman. According to Advaita Vedanta, reality is an undivided and unchanging unity, and the perceived diversity of the world is considered an illusion (maya). This perspective aligns with the concept of absolute idealism, where ultimate reality is a singular, all-encompassing consciousness or substance.

Whilst Idealism is a broad philosophical term that encompasses various schools of thought, in the context of my intention, we can focus on absolute or metaphysical idealism. Absolute idealism posits that the ultimate reality is mental or spiritual in nature, and the material world is an extension or manifestation of this underlying mental or spiritual reality. This aligns with the Advaita Vedanta notion of a singular, non-dual ultimate reality. Idealist philosophers like George Berkeley, Fichte, and Hegel have explored similar themes with different nuances.

According to what I have read, someone who has not been brought into this context is Arthur Schopenhauer, who was influenced by Indian philosophy, particularly by aspects of Vedanta and Buddhism. While he didn’t fully embrace the non-dual perspective of Advaita Vedanta, he acknowledged the importance of the concept of unity. Schopenhauer’s philosophy shares some affinities with idealism, especially in his emphasis on the primacy of the will as the fundamental reality underlying the world. The will, for Schopenhauer, is an irrational and blind force driving all phenomena.

Despite his distance from certain tenets of idealism and Advaita Vedanta, Schopenhauer’s emphasis on a fundamental, underlying unity in the nature of reality resonates with some aspects of these traditions. But I think you can see the connections exist between Advaita Vedanta, Idealism, and certain aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, particularly in their shared exploration of a fundamental, unified reality that transcends the apparent diversity of the world.

Anyone want to comment on what I’ve written so far?

[felix_dakat]

I think you introduced the topic quite well, Bob. The central proposition of Advaita Vedanta is “Thou art That”— “you are that. It’s not about something outside of you. It’s not about some “other”—someone or something else. It’s all about you—who you really are. We have forgotten who and what we are. We experience ourselves as separate persons in a universe of objects. Reality is actually non-dual. The Vedantists call it “Brahman”. The 9th century philosopher Shankara said “Brahman is the reality; The world is not in itself real; The individual self is not different from Brahman.” That’s who you are!

Schopenhauer’s philosophy is encapsulated in the title of his principal opus, “The World as Will and Representation”. The world as representation is basically Schopenhauer’s exposition of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”. The world as will Is his attempt to elucidate Kant’s “Thing-in-Itself”. He expounds on the unconscious Will which is essentially a metaphor for the internal force of Nature. In this he was a forerunner of Freud and Jung.

[Bob]

Schopenhauer’s philosophy synthesises Kantian epistemology with his own metaphysical insights. He proposes that the world is a product of representation shaped by the intellect and, simultaneously, an expression of an unconscious, irrational will that underlies all existence. He thereby extends and refines Kant’s ideas, suggesting that the world as a representation is a product of the human intellect and the forms of intuition.
Analytical Idealism, as proposed by Bernardo Kastrup, suggests that whereas we don’t see things as they are, there still is the real world outside of our perception, which is within the “mind-at-large.” So, although our perception is a subjective construct shaped by our cognitive apparatus, our senses deliver a reliable “interface” with reality.

How does Vedanta see this?

[felix_dakat]

Kastrup claims that after he arrived at his analytic idealism independently, he was accused of plagiarizing the Upanishads. Then he checked it out, and discovered a remarkable affinity with the ancient philosophy. In Kastrup’s earlier works he didn’t clearly discriminate consciousness from mind as Vedanta does. He maintains that distinction now. The main difference I see now is that as a metaphysician Kastrup tries to approach subject matter objectively, whereas Advaita Vedanta points us to who and what we are.

[Bob]

You remember this conversation, don’t you?
Eastern and Western Lenses to Analytic Idealism | Swami Sarvapriyananda & Bernardo Kastrup (youtube.com)
I found it interesting that Swami Sarvapriyananda was quite welcoming even though Kastrup’s hypothesis was indeed very similar to Vedanta.

I wonder how a conversation between Schopenhauer and Swami Sarvapriyananda would work out?

[HumAnIze]

Hinduism, ew. No thanks.

[Bob]

Do you understand Hinduism, or Advaita Vedanta in particular?

[HumAnIze]

Thankfully not. But I’m glad you seem to enjoy it.

[Bob]

That seems to be an odd reply! How can one be “thankfully” ignorant? On my travels I have continually encountered Buddhists and Hindus and I found their point of view very eye-opening, even if it was culturally far removed from European culture. I have also recovered from ailments using Ayurveda medicine, which have never returned, whereas I always suffered the side-effects of Western medicine. We tend to have very closed minds in the West - I wonder why?

[HumAnIze]

Well played sir, but you failed to correct for the very Hindu-like oversimplicity as deliberate blindness-to obvious facts in favor of a happy ignorance. Then goes on to talk about closed minds in the west – ha. I do enjoy a good laugh now and then, you know that much about me

What is thankful ignorance? The mechanism you mockingly employ as a partial disorientation-to certain phenomena which may not be appealing to you in the moment, for example the phenomenon of aesthetic aversion or “grossed out” with regard to a particular religious ethos and/or its adherents or what it implies and does not imply. But the mechanism itself, despite your clever attempt to turn it against itself, is actually nothing more than a multilayered awareness feeding insights upward to cognition from underlying more directly sensitive intuitive or instinct-level areas that have access to abstraction-as-such accumulated modes or nodes of information ripped directly from the fabric of reality via what is loosely called incidental learning, only you’d need to push that through a properly philosophically-expanded phenomenological and existential lens, over time of course, to get to where I’m talking about.

But like I said, I’m glad you find it all so enjoyable. Certainly it is easy to find easy things enjoyable with most enjoyable thing being easiness itself, and this fact being essentially near the core of religions like Hindu or Buddhism. What is lost in translation? Who cares, right? Just be happy and besides, it’s already a part of your eastern paradigm to accept difference and not try to change things, so why are you even bothered by the “closed minds” in the first place? To be is to be. Or are you a bodhisatva delaying his own nirvana in order to help out the poor unenlightened creatures left here on earth? More likely there are still errors in the code that you haven’t solved yet.

[Bob]

@HumAnIze

Well played sir, but you failed to correct for the very Hindu-like oversimplicity as deliberate blindness-to obvious facts in favor of a happy ignorance. Then goes on to talk about closed minds in the west – ha. I do enjoy a good laugh now and then, you know that much about me

Well, I am pleased to have entertained you, but as you might have noticed, I am a Westerner myself and therefore prone to Western thinking. It is just that somebody giving a comment like this:

@HumAnIze

Hinduism, ew. No thanks.

Does make me ask why “ew”?

To then receive a statement that you are “thankfully” ignorant of Hinduism does suggest that you value a closed mind with regard to certain aspects of the world. As a naturally curious person, I went to the Far East to understand and when I came across the Ayurveda doctor and explained my ailment, he offered me a cure and an explanation as to what I was doing wrong.

I met with criticism (not least from my doctor) for taking a “heathen brew” despite obvious success because I preferred it to his medicine. I also heard many superstitious tales surrounding Hinduism, and although I am not likely to be a Hindu soon, I realised that each microcosm has its wisdom.

@HumAnIze

What is thankful ignorance? The mechanism you mockingly employ as a partial disorientation-to certain phenomena which may not be appealing to you in the moment, for example the phenomenon of aesthetic aversion or “grossed out” with regard to a particular religious ethos and/or its adherents or what it implies and does not imply. But the mechanism itself, despite your clever attempt to turn it against itself, is actually nothing more than a multilayered awareness feeding insights upward to cognition from underlying more directly sensitive intuitive or instinct-level areas that have access to abstraction-as-such accumulated modes or nodes of information ripped directly from the fabric of reality via what is loosely called incidental learning, only you’d need to push that through a properly philosophically-expanded phenomenological and existential lens, over time of course, to get to where I’m talking about.

So, rather than mocking, I was confused as to why someone who was willingly ignorant of something still had a critical opinion (“Ew”). Your verbal diarrhoea in an attempt to show your intelligence only serves to veil the fact that you understood why I asked but were too embarrassed to give a simple answer. In fact, as is so often the case, it was you who was attempting to mock me.

@HumAnIze

But like I said, I’m glad you find it all so enjoyable. Certainly it is easy to find easy things enjoyable with most enjoyable thing being easiness itself, and this fact being essentially near the core of religions like Hindu or Buddhism. What is lost in translation? Who cares, right? Just be happy and besides, it’s already a part of your eastern paradigm to accept difference and not try to change things, so why are you even bothered by the “closed minds” in the first place? To be is to be. Or are you a bodhisatva delaying his own nirvana in order to help out the poor unenlightened creatures left here on earth? More likely there are still errors in the code that you haven’t solved yet.

Your further extortions are just proof of what I have said above, and you obviously fail to understand that you answered my innocent question, “Do you understand Hinduism, or Advaita Vedanta in particular?” with a display of arrogance that you have only perpetuated in further answers.

I don’t know you, and from what you’ve stated here, I suspect that I don’t want to either.

[HumAnIze]

But I’ve already given you not only the shape of the space of the answer but a very clear example of part of that answer, one that would be worthy of much further discussion. Yet you are either unaware or pretend to be unaware of this. And as you already probably also know about me, I get bored with boring thinking and mental laziness. You’re not a troll so I am treating you normally, unlike some others here. But if you continue to hyperbolize, ignore and falsify there’s not much I can do.

So trying one again to break through that ‘eastern’ veil, what do you think it is that I have already offered here in terms of reasons for my aversion to Hinduism? And in addition to that, given my mapping of the space itself, what other connected or related or derivable reasons might you reasonably infer to exist alongside that and within that same space? Or perhaps you are an ideologue and actually see nothing even possibly objectionable about Hinduism/eastern religions at all? Maybe your healing experience was so profound as to turn you into a cultist on the entire subject, I don’t know. You tell me.

[Bob]

@HumAnIze

But I’ve already given you not only the shape of the space of the answer but a very clear example of part of that answer, one that would be worthy of much further discussion. Yet you are either unaware or pretend to be unaware of this. And as you already probably also know about me, I get bored with boring thinking and mental laziness. You’re not a troll so I am treating you normally, unlike some others here. But if you continue to hyperbolize, ignore and falsify there’s not much I can do.

Well, thank you for introducing the concept of ‘thankful ignorance’ and elaborating on its mechanisms. You refer to a nuanced interplay between cognitive processes, aesthetic preferences and underlying intuitive or instinctive levels of awareness. Your perspective on multi-layered awareness feeding insights upwards from more sensitive, intuitive areas provides an intriguing framework. Although I appreciate your emphasis on the need for a philosophically broadened phenomenological and existential lens to fully grasp the implications of this mechanism, it sounds like delving into incidental learning and its connection to the fabric of reality requires careful consideration over time.

However, I can’t help thinking that your response was an attempt to express disagreement, challenge or perhaps even ridicule my interest in Advaita Vedanta or the broader philosophical concepts I was discussing with Felix. The criticism of using a mechanism in a “clever attempt to turn it against itself” could be interpreted as a way of dismissing or belittling my perspective. But since text-based communication can sometimes be ambiguous and interpretations can vary, perhaps less loaded terminology can be used.

@HumAnIze

So trying one again to break through that ‘eastern’ veil, what do you think it is that I have already offered here in terms of reasons for my aversion to Hinduism? And in addition to that, given my mapping of the space itself, what other connected or related or derivable reasons might you reasonably infer to exist alongside that and within that same space? Or perhaps you are an ideologue and actually see nothing even possibly objectionable about Hinduism/eastern religions at all? Maybe your healing experience was so profound as to turn you into a cultist on the entire subject, I don’t know. You tell me.

You seem to be pressing for a deeper exploration of your own aversion to Hinduism, trying to understand if I can identify and discuss the reasons you’ve presented. You also inquire about any connected, related or derivative reasons within the same conceptual space. In addition, you raise the possibility of ideological bias or lack of critical enquiry on my part, suggesting the possible influence of personal experiences, such as a transformative healing experience, in shaping my views.

I would suggest that my enquiry is far from exhaustive and that there are many aspects of Hindu society that I would not apply. But that is the same as my love of Western literature, despite my dislike of aspects of Western culture, or my appreciation of holistic Western medicine, despite seeing flaws in standard medical procedures. So I think you are assuming too much, and instead of engaging in a normal discussion, you have turned it into a competition.

[felix_dakat]

Sarvapriyananda has several times mentioned Schopenhauer’s statement, "In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death”.

[Bob]

[HumAnIze]

Says the guy who kicked an old lady down the stairs for making noise outside of his room.

I suppose any form of anger management would have proven beneficial, including eastern mystical self-opiatizations.

[HumAnIze]

So no, then. OK, fair enough.

[Bob]

Do you mean the old lady who knocked on the door, spouted some disparaging things and when asked why she was doing it, cried “Abuse, abuse!” ran down the stairs and tripped?

[felix_dakat]

So to you character matters. What about your own?

[HumAnIze]