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Alberto Martin has spent many years studying and practicing Christianity, Sufism, Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta (in that sequence) plus, at one time, the religion of the Crows (a native tribe of N. America). "For me, it has been universalism all along ever since I read Plato when I was 15 years old. Lately my attention has been focused on Shankara's Advaita Vedanta and non-duality."For this author, Plato and Shankara say practically all that can be said about reality and the way towards its assimilation and exemplification.In this work Martin answers many of the probing questions anyone of us is led to ask along our lives.

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Philosophie et théologie

Philosophy of religion

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
Date de parution	30 novembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781398486508
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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D uality & N on- D uality
Alberto Martin Garcia
Austin Macauley Publishers
2022-11-30
Duality & Non-Duality About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Foreword Metaphysics or Spirituality Truth and Reality Consciousness or Self Eastern Philosophy Consciousness and Mind Advaita Vedanta Duality And Non-Duality – East and West Mind Enlightenment or Realisation Creation or Cosmogony Sufism Western Philosophy Science and Philosophy More On Free Will Psychology and Psychological Advice Ethics and Society Miscellaneous
About the Author
Alberto M. Garcia practiced as a general surgeon in Toronto, Canada. He also studied western philosophy at Toronto University. Philosophy, particularly Greek, has been a dominating interest for him. Later, it has been Hindu philosophy, particularly Advaita Vedanta and non-duality.
Publications: Sleeping, Dreaming, Awakening (Sofia 2008), Frithjof SchuonandAdvaita Vedanta (Sacred Web, 26: 2010), Unmanifest-manifest, Becoming-Being (Prabuddha Bharata (2019).
He is also the author of a book of poetry (2007), and another book in Spanish, Por el Camino de Santiago (2003), a sustained reflection on the spiritual path (the “inner journey”).
Dedication
In memory of Satchidanandendra Saraswati Swamiji, my virtual mentor.
To my 6 grandchildren.
Copyright Information ©
Alberto Martin Garcia 2022
The right of Alberto Martin Garcia to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398486492 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398486508 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ® 1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Acknowledgement
I am indebted to all Masters from East and West who have guided my life path all along.
I have also had great help from Susana Marin and her invaluable suggestions. Heartfelt thanks to her.
Endearing thanks to my wife, Angeles, and to our good friend Sowmya, who gave me good advice and, besides, took the two of us to India.
Foreword
This book consists of a selection from Quora of some of the most relevant questions concerning metaphysics or spirituality that encompass the Eastern and Western traditions. The approach is catholic or universal, as can be appreciated in the table of contents. I make no apology for giving comparatively more prominence or coverage to the Eastern tradition, particularly to what is called Non-duality and or Advaita Vedanta. Some examples of non-dualist Western philosophers or mystics are accounted for, in particular, the greatest (in my estimation), Plato, not forgetting Plotinus, Meister Eckhart, Ibn Arabi, etc. Plato can be compared to some extent to Shankara, the latter being perhaps the topmost philosopher and mystic the world has given birth to.
It must be advised that the reader will find some repetitions—mostly in some of the questions or themes—something that is inevitable given the nature of the book. The latter consists of a compilation and selection of Questions, together with my Answers, in Quora—from 2014 to 2019—on crucial areas of thought and experience, again from East and West. Much thought or reflection has been dedicated to this endeavour, any considerations of recompense or expectations being quite out of place.
Of course, appreciation and thanks to all sources of joyful inspiration are implicit and must be acknowledged, together with the persons or authors behind them. Such are too numerous to mention here. I make an exception with Sowmya Shree, who was a great help during my (impish) travel to India in 2018 being the instigator of it. I would have been lame and lost without her. My other crutch could not have been any other than my dear wife, Angeles.
Two words about the title of the book (or part thereof)—Duality and Non-duality. These are two aspects of the one truth or reality, as it were in search of unity: the truths of empirical or everyday life, and the truth of what transcends and, at the same time, embraces them as a higher truth. The latter cannot but be ineffable, not amenable to definition or description, and can only be actualised in Self-realisation. As the seers of ancient India uttered, ‘Reality is one—the sages call it by many names’. These words, which corroborate what is known as the ‘wisdom of the ages’, come out in one of the Indian Upanishads , the Mundaka Upanishad .
‘Let a man devoted to the spiritual life examine carefully the ephemeral nature of such enjoyment, whether here or hereafter, as may be won by good works, and so realise that it is not by works that one gains the Eternal.’— Mundaka Upanishad.
‘I counsel you, that in the earnest exercise of mystical contemplation you leave the senses and the activity of the intellect, and all that the senses and the intellect can perceive, and all things in this world of nothingness and that world of being, and that your understanding being led to rest, you strive towards a union with him whom neither being nor understanding can contain. For the by unceasing and absolute renunciation of yourself and all things you shall in purity cast all things aside and be released from all, and so shall you be led upwards to the Ray of the divine darkness, which exceeds all existence’.—Dionysius the Areopagite.
‘God has made the soul so cunningly and so secretly, that no one knows truly what she is.’—Meister Eckhart
Metaphysics or Spirituality
Are human beings truly free?
If you believe you are an autonomous individual existing in a vast cosmos among other independent individuals, then you could be (psychologically) free. But, paradoxically, that is a narrow, limited view, for you can see yourself as being the whole universe and all life thriving in it. Then what?
What is the nature of something that is unactualised/unbuilt?
A thing—whatever it is, also the world—unactualised is somehow held in potency, unmanifested. If I remember well, the efficient cause in Plato’s philosophy, an example of which is the mental image a craftsman has before the execution of his work (different in Aristotle). In medieval philosophy, natura naturans , also unmanifested, as against natura naturata , which is created, manifested (for Baruch Spinoza, the same idea it is the self-causing activity of nature, which is a different account).
In Hindu philosophy, prakriti is the power of nature to create, that is, before manifestation. After mahapralaya (annihilation of the world or universe), the latter stays in abeyance, potentiality, before it manifests again—cycle after cycle (a series of big bangs?)
Also, a bindu (‘dot’, ‘point’) is ‘the compact mass of spiritual power or energy ( shakti ) gathered into an undifferentiated point ready to manifest as the universe…the material cause and substance of creation’. John Grimes, A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy .
Can time exist without consciousness?
From the viewpoint of Advaita Vedanta (and I also believe Zen and Dzogchen), time is not just something elusive but ultimately unreal—only an idea or concept. The same with the concept ‘now’, which cannot be elucidated or otherwise measured. ‘Now’ can only be a symbol of eternity, immeasurable but always present. ‘Eternity’ is itself a symbol or slanted conception of reality or existence/being, which is timeless. For the absolute time does not exist. Consciousness alone is real and, thus, timeless. Stated differently, ‘what is never ceases to be; what is not never comes into being’ (Shankara). Parmenides, Gaudapada and Shankara are strong in that position.
The only thing that can be verified 100% to exist is your own consciousness (‘I think, therefore I am’); does this affect/change your own beliefs in any way, and how so?
Descartes probably thought of himself as an individual (human) being, to begin with, and he wanted to demonstrate to himself—starting from 0—that he was an existent thinking being—he thought that thinking, as an immediate reality, was closest to him. However, he could have said, ‘I feel, sense, therefore I am’, or, better still, ‘thoughts and sensations are occurring’—to whom or what…who or what is behind all this? If Descartes presupposed that ‘he’ was an individual, a ‘someone’ while doing his investigation, there was no warranty for it. Thus, either his premise or his conclusion was in error even before he started.
In other words, who/what is the ‘I’? Is there an ‘I’? Because, if there is a subject (‘I’), it is not necessarily a human one: I (supposedly an individual thinker/feeler) could be a thought in the mind of someone, some entity, greater than myself.
Thus, I would modify the question at the beginning to read: ‘Consciousness/Being is the prime reality; what follows from that?’ Can Consciousness be called ‘a subject—I?’ If it can be called ‘beingness/Being, could it also be called ’Intelligence-Being’, or ‘Intelligence-energy’ (instead of ‘subject’; thus, ‘It’ instead of ‘I’)?
Is everything metaphysical?
‘Is everything metaphysical?’ My answer is a resounding yes! despite the prevailing physicalist theory that holds that everything is reducible to matter/energy. This position is being insistently questioned ever since the rise of the new physics (the role of the observer, the uncertainty principle, etc.). No one knows what matter is intrinsically and why an atom is an atom—its nature is a mystery; scientifically, we can only talk about mechanism, ‘behaviour’ or function, concerni