Advaita Vedanta

Author(s): Kalidas Bhattacharya, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 37

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A Modern Understanding of...
It cannot be said that you and he are only objects to me quite as much as other objects and may be withdrawn from in the way they are. This cannot be said if only for the reason that in my awarness of he I am aware of him as a possible person, as one who, with his body and mind, can claim himself as an I exactly as I do. The only difference is that while in claiming myself as a person I understand myself essentially as I the pure subjectivity that is free of body (and mind), I understand him as a person only so far (and necessarily so) as I understand him through a body-identified, in other words, solely by means of that body and, therefore, in whatever way, though partially, with it. I am not directly aware of him as a centre of pure consciousness even implicitly as I am in my own case explicitly. I am aware of him as a centre of pure consciousness only as he would claim it as his I. As for you, it is only a he selected for my addressing, with, however, this important distinguishing feature that in my addressing you - or one of the 'he's as you - I feel somehow confronting your 'I', you as a centre of pure consciousness, directly. You and he are as much independent subjects as I am and should not, therefore, be understood in terms of the I that constitutes me as pure subjectivity. The theory known as ekajīvavādat is unacceptable. How, now, to transcend the individuality that lingers in introspection ?
Some hold that this individuality derives ultimately from the individuality of the mind and body, called mine, and would, therefore, lapse automatically as these latter are withdrawn from. Their idea is that pure subjectivity as such, forming the final essence of the individual, is impersonal, though misunderstood as personal, i.e. individual, because of its undistinguished fusion with the mind and body, called mine, so that with the process of dissociation from these completed it comes to be realized as it is in itself, as free of all indivi. duality. At the first stage, indeed, of introspection there is still some reference to mental states, but as that reference is
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I have here touched only the central point of eka jivavada.