Tattvadarshi, Gyaani, and Bullshitter

Let us agree on the proposed division into two categories: “1) That which exists or could exist (2) That which could not and does not exist but is present (therefore ‘Real’)”. Let us also accept that (1) collects: “(a) everything that we know like Earth, stars, mud, (b) everything that we can think of or imagine – models, formulas, triangles, present and future scientific theories, tooth fairies, ‘murtis’ of Ganesha, methods or procedures of performing ‘abhisheka’ etc. (these exist and could exist in our minds, even the ‘Real’ we imagine still belongs here as long as it is an imagined object)”

Let us also agree: “So our traditions recommend actions that, when followed, can lead to the ‘Real’ which does not exist but is present. (This is where, your sentence in one of your posts that speaks of “…the fruit” at the end of the Nirvana Shatkam exercise, in the strictest sense of the term would be ‘gyana’ or ‘knowledge’ of the ‘Real.’

The shloka ‘asato ma sat gamaya…’ that you wrote about, talks about traversing through…(1) to reach (2).”

A word or two about the deletions. Two sentences have been deleted: “…it turns out that (a) and (b) together would exhaust everything we can grasp with Physics, language and the mind. The ‘Real’ in (2), our traditions can point to but not express with tools of the mind.”

The reason for deleting the above two sentences is this: since your question is about the possibility of “testing or discovering the distinction” between ‘real’ and the ‘present’ intellectually, let us not begin by the assuming the answer. If we assume that the ‘real’ cannot be grasped with language and mind, and that it cannot be expressed with “the tools of the mind”, then your question, “how can one test for this or make or discover this distinction intellectually?” can only have one answer, which you also give: “I think the answer has to be that one cannot”. Let us, therefore, take your question seriously and think about it; let us not assume an answer is true, before the question has even been formulated. In that case, an additional advantage accrues: you say, “As far as I know, all ‘gyaanis’ also report that the ‘Real’ is beyond intellectual reach.” This thought, if not its formulation, would then become a sort of ‘test case’ or an adequacy condition: does the answer succeed in accounting for (or shed some light on) such reports? Such a move will restrict the possibility of giving an ad hoc answer to your question. Finally, a caveat: let us not get distracted by the word ‘present’. We are talking about ‘presence’ as contrasted with ‘existence’. With these preliminaries out of the way, let us begin.

Your question is this: “How can one distinguish between something that could exist, as in category (1) and something that absolutely cannot and does not exist BUT IS PRESENT — I mean how can one test for this or make or discover this distinction intellectually?”. Let us split the sentence up after the ‘em-dash’ and approach each of the parts sequentially.

 1.  Can one “make” this distinction? That is, is it possible to make this linguistic distinction? Yes, because it has been made; yes, it is also semantically and logically sensible: ‘existence’ collects items in (1) and ‘presence’ is anything not collected by it. Is there linguistic evidence for such a distinction? That is, is this distinction technical and linguistic in nature (like ‘graphemes’ and ‘phonemes’: we neither write graphemes nor hear phonemes) or is there evidence for that distinction in language-use? No, it is not technical. Previous posts gave multiple examples: of the word ‘real’ qualifying ‘existence’ (‘does it really exist?’, for example) that demonstrates the use of this distinction in daily language-use; of the use of ‘presence’ that distinguishes it from ‘existence’. (Properties that we use to identify objects, events and processes that might or might not exist in the world are differentiated from ‘presence’: the word ‘charisma’ in ‘he is charismatic’ does not pick out a property of a ‘personality’, whether the latter exists or not, for example.) Thus, yes, we, the users of natural language, do make this distinction and, yes, it does make psychological and linguistic sense. Can one make a ‘conceptual’ distinction? That is, can one make this distinction theoretically or conceptually? Two general answers: (a) any theory about human language-use has to account for the linguistic and psychological evidence. Thus, yes, it is possible to make such a theoretical or conceptual distinction. (b) While it is possible that this language-use is wrong (using the word ‘fish’ to name ‘whales’, for example), only knowledge can settle this issue (the way the theory about ‘mammals’ in biology solved this issue of language-use). That is, the situation demands and requires knowledge to settle the issue whether or not one ‘could’ make the distinction that we make. Therefore, yes, one can make this conceptual or theoretical distinction.

Summarizing: yes, we can and do make the distinction between ‘real’ (‘presence’) and existence. There is nothing problematic about making the distinction. If one wants to deny the distinction, one better have a very, very robust theory that tells us why and how we could be wrong. No philosophical fiat or linguistic stipulation can do this job.

2.  Can one ‘discover’ this distinction? That is, is the distinction fictitious or is it ‘there’ in the world? (The most natural formulation, ‘Is the distinction ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’?’, has been avoided for obvious reasons.) Two general points: (a) People see, hear and experience the difference. Unless people from all cultures are hallucinating and because people talk sensibly and understandably about the world using this distinction, it must be ‘there’ in the world. (Of course, it could be the case that people are wrong; but, then again, we need an extraordinarily robust theory to tell us that our experiences are hallucinations. This is an issue for knowledge.) (b) The Indian traditions do not countenance (either linguistically or conceptually) any access to anything that is not there in ‘the World’ (Vishwa). ‘The World’ is everything that was, is and shall be. Nothing in the past or in the future is so distant that it is not ‘there’ in the world; everything accessible item (whether Pitruloka, Swarga, Atman, Brahman, Kuurma or Narasimha, Shunyata or the Tathagata….) has to be in ‘the World’. (Even collective ‘hallucinations’ have to be ‘there’ in the world.) Therefore, the Real must be there ‘in the world’: ‘para’, the ‘other’, must be ‘there’ in the world (Vishwa), if it has to be accessible. Apparently, according to Indian traditions, it is accessible. Thus, the distinction is ‘discoverable’.

3. Can one ‘test’ for this distinction? This can be read as a request for criteria to distinguish between real and existence. However, if read that way, the answer is not satisfying: our criteria to make this distinction (and understand it when made) are implicit. We do not need the criteria to be available explicitly to talk, communicate or experience. In a sense, it begs the questions already dealt with: can we ‘make’ or ‘discover’ the criteria? To this, the answer is also known to the US public: ‘Yes, we can!’

Let us try one half-way house reading: is it possible to formulate criteria that help us distinguish in ‘unfamiliar cases’, whether something is ‘presence’ or whether it is ‘existence’? We could, if ‘presence’ itself were (or had some or another kind of ‘property’ that distinguished it from) a property that objects, events and processes have or possess. However, this problem gets crucified immediately: presence is different from existence precisely because it is not any kind of property that objects, events and processes in the world have or possess; it does not even possess or have the property of ‘existence’, if that is seen as an ‘ontological’ property of existing objects; it is not even something that ‘could’ but does not exist. Because it is neither an existent nor a non-existent object, it does not and cannot possess any property that these objects possess; nor can it possess ‘existence’ as a property, if that property exists. It is the ‘para’ (the ‘other’) that is either the ‘other’ of ‘iha’ (if ‘iha’ is ‘existence’, it is the ‘other’ of existence) or the ‘other’ that is negated by ‘a-para’ (‘the non-other’). Both, however, are in Vishwa. Existing objects, processes and events in ‘the world’ (if ‘apara’ is existence) are the negations of the ‘presence’ or ‘the real’. Existence becomes ‘Unreal’ but only the ‘Unreal’ can exist. ‘Apara’ is the ‘only thing’ that exists. This half-way house reading gets crucified because it seeks ‘properties’ in order to distinguish between the ‘Real’ and ‘existence’, when neither the ‘existence’ nor the ‘non-existence’ of properties could possibly distinguish the ‘Real’ from ‘existence’. Therefore, we cannot ask for criteria to find out whether an ‘unfamiliar’ item in the world exists or whether it is the ‘Real’. We can distinguish only by using properties of some kind or another. If this ‘unfamiliar’ has ‘unfamiliar properties’, it is an object that exists with ‘unfamiliar properties’. The ‘real’ is tightly connected to this ‘unfamiliar object’ as well, not as some or another property but the way it connects to ‘familiar’ objects. The ‘Real’ must manifest itself in this unfamiliar object as well.

Let us now try another half-way house reading: Is this a ‘true’ or a ‘false’ distinction? Here, the crucifixion is equally painful but a bit more helpful. What could ‘truth’ mean in this case? If it means whether we can give a true or false description, the crucifixion is painful: no, we cannot generate true or false sentences about ‘the real’ because these words require mapping the domain of sentences to the domain of objects, events and processes in the world. The function can only map properties (or their instantiations) to sentences. That is, the mapping can occur only within the domain of existence. (This is a simple formulation. More is not required at this moment.)

The more helpful aspect of the crucifixion would slightly reformulate the question: Is it possible to have knowledge of ‘the real’? When we try to answer this, the accrued advantage (spoken of earlier) becomes visible: if we can have knowledge, why then have ‘gyaanis’ found it difficult to speak (clearly, lucidly and transparently) about ‘the real’? Thus, for the pain to become helpful, you need to shift the terms of the question from ‘truth’ to ‘knowledge’.

To keep the reflections simple and manageable, barebone outlines of two issues are required. Please keep in mind that these formulations are meant only to facilitate the thinking process and do not perform other functions. Further, the following convention is used: ‘accessing the real’ is seen as a process; the word ‘enlightenment’ refers to this process, while abbreviating the phrase ‘accessing the real’. That is, ‘enlightenment’ is about a ‘process of accessing the Real’.

The first issue is to avoid waiting pitfalls. One such is the word ‘enlightenment’ itself. The word connotes a huge set of thoughts and emotions, and generates wants and desires of all kinds. Therefore, let us clear our minds by taking up less confusing images to avoid the traps that await us.

Most human beings, much like you and me, very often (if not mostly) find themselves in unhappy situations or feel unhappy about something or the other in the world. (‘Unhappiness’ is a generic word here that merely helps you identify the situation, however you might want to name it: sad, worried, disturbed, not content, upset, uncomfortable, etc. etc. could also do the same job as ‘unhappiness’.) The assumption is this: people prefer not to be unhappy. That is, if possible, they would like to move away from the state or situation of unhappiness. To the extent they formulate it in positive terms, as a move ‘towards’ something and not merely as a ‘move away’ from something, they would use words like ‘peace of mind’, ‘stability’, ‘acceptance’, ‘contentment’, ‘satisfaction’ and so on. (In Sanskrit, they could say that they seek ‘Shanti’, ‘Samaadhana’, ‘Trupti’, etc.) These are vague terms, of course, but that does not affect their desire to reach that state or have that feeling. If a ‘learned’ vocabulary is at your disposal, you might use words like ‘tranquillity’, ‘equanimity’ and such like. Generally speaking, achieving this (state or feeling) suffices for most people. This is the first issue.

The second issue is the reference framework, which is Indian. From within such a framework, regarding the previous point, one could say that in myriads of ways, Indian traditions try to help people reach this state: from pujas through discourses (‘pravachanas’) to meditations (dhyaana, japa).

Now, some from among them want and seek more. They seek, let us say, Ananda (‘happiness’). This group is relatively small, compared to the total population. Despite their small number, Indian traditions cater to them too in myriads of ways. Let us divide these seekers of Ananda into two groups: those who seek knowledge of what they seek by imposing very strict conditions on what counts as knowledge; the others, who are not so demanding. Make no mistake: both seek Ananda and both also seek knowledge about it. One of them, only relative to the other, is extremely stringent. Such seekers are identified by Indian traditions as those who pursue the ‘gyaana marga’ (the ‘path of knowledge’) or do ‘gyaana yoga’. When used in a generic sense, this word picks out all such seekers; all of them are ‘gyaanis’; they are not ‘a-gyaanis’. However, the word means more to those who pursue the ‘path of knowledge’. (In what follows, your question will get picked up and dealt with from within this path.)

If so much is clear, then we can speak of enlightenment in these terms: those who seek Ananda seek ‘enlightenment’. What, then, is this Ananda that one seeks and how does one ‘find’ it?  To those following the path of knowledge, these are also knowledge questions: what is the nature of what one seeks, how does one know that one has found it and how and why does what is accessed generate Ananda? These sub-questions indicate that, as the ‘knowledge-path’ sees it, one could find ‘ananda’ (i.e. one could be ‘happy’) without knowing what its nature is, how or why something brings forth Ananda. That is, one could be ‘enlightened’ without having ‘knowledge’ of the process of ‘enlightenment’. A bit more sharply: one could access the ‘Real’ without knowledge either about the Real or about how the Real relates to existence. In a generic sense, as said before, each person who accesses the Real is a gyaani; in terms of the knowledge path, that is not the case. There is a difference between those who access the Real and have knowledge of it and those who access the Real without such knowledge.

If this is the case, what happens to your question, when you ask, ‘is it possible to have knowledge of the Real?’ If that was not possible, gyaana marga or gyaana yoga could not exist or practicing such a path would not be possible. But the path exists; therefore, according to Indian traditions, knowledge of the Real is possible. Of course, the natural tendency would be to ask the question: what is the Real then? (This natural tendency requires to be addressed in a different way, which, hopefully, the third post will do.) For now, there is another issue of importance: how familiar is the above paragraph in the Indian traditions? Old hat, really, one would say. Consider, as a mere illustration, how the Gita draws the above distinction in the chapter on Gyaana Yoga, obviously. The reference is just to one shloka in the fourth chapter (4.34). Even there, let us just pick up the second verse of the shloka.

It begins thus: ‘Tadviddhi’, which compounds the words ‘tad’ and ‘viddhi’, meaning ‘Know (or learn or acquire knowledge of) that’. Know what? Skip now to the second verse. ‘Upadeshyanti Te Gyaanam’: ‘Knowledge will be taught to you’ (a rough translation). That means: what is taught to you is ‘knowledge’; this teaching will be in the form of ‘upadesha’ (‘discourse’, ‘sayings’, ‘instruction’) that fundamentally and necessarily makes use of language; learning or understanding this instruction requires the use ‘intellect’ and ‘mind’; that will lead you to ‘know’ (viddhi). The gyaana that you need to acquire will be taught as gyaana by using language. In short: if the knowledge of the Real is taught in language, the Real must be ‘graspable’ by human intellect and should be expressible in language. (The deleted sentence from your post, “The ‘Real’ in (2), our traditions can point to but not express with tools of the mind”, would then not be true according to Gyaana Marga.)

The distinction is pretty obvious: ‘Tattva’ and ‘gyaana’ are distinguished; one is associated with ‘seeing’ and the other with ‘language’ and ‘learning’. Only those who have gyaana of tattva are called gyaanis, then.

Who can do this teaching? ‘Gyaaninaha’: the ‘knowledgeable’. What makes them into ‘gyaanis’? What ‘knowledge’ do they have? Or what are they ’knowledgeable’ about? Or, better put, what should they know and what qualifies them to ‘teach’ knowledge? Well, they are ‘tattva darshinaha’: they have seen (darshina=to have seen, to see) ‘tattva’. ‘Tattva’ compounds two words: ‘Tat’ and ‘tva’, which mean ‘that’ and ‘-ness’. (‘Manushya-tva’ means ‘human-ness’, for instance.) ‘Tattva’ means ‘thatness’ here. The gyaanis’s are those who have gyaana of ‘thatness’ they have seen.

In the Gyaanamarga, therefore, the generic word ‘gyaani’ denotes a tattvadarshi; someone who has seen ‘thatness’, an ‘enlightened’. The Gyaani, however, has knowledge of tattva. Only this knowledge can be taught, not the tattva itself. Furthermore, it should be taught and learnt as ‘knowledge’, not in any other form. No knowledge of ‘tattva’ is possible without accessing it; accessing it alone is not enough because, without knowledge, it is just ‘thatness’ (even when it generates Ananda).

Now, hopefully, you see how bullshit and enlightenment are linked to each other. One cannot talk about the Real without thought, language and reflection. Those who spoke of ‘Atman’; ‘Brahman’ etc. travelled the knowledge route. Even when you are not on this route, you only speak ‘knowledgably’ about it. However, because you do not have the required knowledge, the only thing you can produce are imitations or fakes. That is, all you have and can use are sentences (some ‘true’, yet others ‘false’). Then you are forced into presenting this set of sentences as ‘knowledge’ but hide this fact (that such a set is not knowledge) through sheer verbiage or many more sentences. This is what bullshit is, is it not? It trivializes knowledge by presenting it as a set of sentences. While it is true that Samasara is the only available route to Moksha, please do not forget that only moksha enables you to see that Samsara traps. In exactly the same way only knowledge enables you to see that even though true sentences are the route to knowledge (false sentences never are), they are traps as well. Truth, if seen as a property of sentences, does not liberate or free us. Unlike The Bible, the Gyaana Marga says that seeking truth (for its own sake) traps and enslaves. ‘Does Truth set us Free?’ It does not, it enslaves us. They are properties of ‘existence’ (i.e. they are sets of sentences or propositions). Existence is the route to the ‘Real’, to be sure; but if you focus on ‘existence’ for its own sake, you will be enslaved. Thus, those who present true sentences (whether as doctrines, or dogmas, or theories, or hypotheses, or models) as though that is knowledge simply bullshit. Please do not think that ‘falsehood’ frees us, when we say truth enslaves. No, only knowledge liberates. As knowledge about the falsity of a set of sentences can liberate, so can knowledge about their truth. In both cases, knowledge liberates, not truth. The ‘value’ of truth is derivative; truth is valuable, if and only if it leads us to knowledge. Samsara is valuable, if and only if it leads to moksha. Truth, not falsehood, is the route to knowledge, in the same way life but not death is the route to moksha.

What has been said is enough to answer your question, ‘why do gyaani’s report that the Real is beyond intellectual reach?’ Three obvious, derivable answers: (a) they are tattva darshi’s; ‘gyaani’ is being used as a generic term here; (b) of course, unless ‘research’ is done into ‘thatness’, the darshana of ‘thatness’ remains beyond intellectual reach. Without ‘research’, the process cannot be understood. (c) a more interesting problem is this: our languages are languages of existence. It is very difficult to use a language of existence to talk about the Real, which is connected to but is itself neither existence nor non-existence. All three are non-ad hoc answers to your question. At the same time, it tells you how to begin distinguishing a ‘tattvadarshi’ from someone who is both a gyaani and a tattvadarshi, and separate these two from bullshitters. There is a clear distinction among the ‘enlightened’ themselves.

Finally, a more rounded answer can be given to your questionnow. Yes, knowledge about the Real is possible and it can be taught as knowledge. Its acquisition, as with all knowledge, requires bending one’s back and learning. If you want to know Einstein’s theory of Relativity, you not only need some prior knowledge of physics and mathematics but also the ability to put in the effort to follow and understand the exposition. E-mail conversations might elucidate, but they cannot replace a deep and thorough-going study. This is the demand of all knowledge, not just of the Real.

One of the worries you express would disappear now. You say: “If it were possible to achieve this distinction intellectually, through thinking, logic or contemplation, the fruit of this exercise would belong in category (1) for it would still be a model or body of logic of some kind that ‘exists.’”. Indeed, as is the case, a product or a fruit of thinking is, say, a theory or a hypothesis or a model. As it is obvious from what has been said about ‘truth’ and ‘bullshit’, one should not claim that some or another theory, hypothesis or model is ‘Knowledge’. Even when we say that ‘science is knowledge’ (which I subscribe to), no one with any ‘knowledge’ of science suggests today that science=theories or hypotheses or models. A few decades ago, the project to define science as a set of theories completely collapsed; the last two heroic attempts were made by Wolfgang Stegmüller, who tried to use set theory to conceptualise science, and Jaakko Hintikka (and some of his students), who tried even less successfully to use logic of questions and versions of Game theory to think about science. Even though theories, questions and answers are crucial components, they are not identical with science or knowledge. Today, this is also well-known. (The Gita, in the same Shloka cited above, makes it abundantly clear that Indians knew this four thousand years ago.)  In fact, as has already been said, calling a ‘theory’, or a ‘hypothesis’ or a ‘model’ (a set of true sentences) as ‘knowledge’ is to bullshit.

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