World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 274

bels for the one and the same non-dual reality. Whatever is experienced in the three states, waking, dreaming and sound sleeping is, only a manifestation of Brahman, which Puligandla labels as 'power'. By the practice of yoga, mental modifications could be halted and there could be consciousness without any object. This objectless consciousness is the Atman and is none other than the unmanifested Brahman. Brahman is immanent when it gets manifested into varieties of worldly phenomena. It is transcendent because it cannot be experienced as a phenomenon that is the object of consciousness. "Atman is Brahman" is, according to Puligandla, a profound pheonomenological-analytical truth.
Coming back to Daya Krishna, he seeks to underline the homogeneity of Atman and Brahman by saying that both are postulated entities. N.S. Dravid does not agree. According to Dravid, Brahman is a theoretical entity but Atman is not. He supposes "Atman is Brahman" is a subject-predicate statement in which the subject is always given whereas the predicate is ungiven (sic). This would not be correct if Daya Krisna's contention is fully conceded to. Bokil prefers to call "Tat tvam asi" as a 'metaphysical hypothesis'. This sentence, according to him, is grammatically correct but systematically misleading as Brahman is not an expression belonging to natural language. "Atman is Brahman" is a case of pseudo-identity. "The structures of metaphysics and religion are all founded on such pseudo entities." Bokil is critical of the phenomenological approach to the Vedantic thesis given by Puligandla and Beena Gupta. The latter claims that application of the phenomenological finding to one's own consciousness would lead us to a horizon of pure, experiential consciousness and its structure transcends the linguistic and the interpretative differences. But Bokil observes, "Hin recommending to us to look at experience rather than language they are using language to convince us of their approach." His conclusion is that search for philosophical truth without language is like search for a black cow in the pitch of darkness. Phenomenological route to Brahman takes us to a dead end; it does not throw any light on the nature of identity supposedly stated in "Tattvamasi."
It may be pointed out here that the word 'hypothesis' has its primary use in science. It is used only metaphorically with respect to metaphysics. Although for Bokil the expression 'metaphysical hypothesis' is in place, Bokil objects to Dravid's contention that the meaning of "Tattvamasi" can be made intelligible by invoking metaphorical meaning (bhagatyaga laksana). Bokil says that Dravid's proposal of understanding the meaning of "Tattvamasi" beats him completely for the simple reason that he does not look upon philosophy as a spiritual discipline as Dravid does. For him philosophic enquiry is strictly argumentative.
N.S. Dravid gives a rejoinder to Bokil's contention that "Tattvamasi" is a pseudo-identity and needs verbal understanding in order to make its
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