AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon May 03, 2021 5:41 pm
The experiential knowledge of Mind knowing Itself
is an
idea.
No it's not, that's the key difference. But because the Western philosophers are unfamiliar with such experience, all they know is ideas only and therefore they naturally arrive at the conclusion that such knowledge must be just another kind of idea. And there is indeed such idea- the universal Mind knows itself as an idea "I exist, I am". But in addition to such idea there is a direct experience of it that is not an idea, but the one from which such idea originates (and usually it happens unconsciously without realization of such connection and origination). But such experience is not just the experience of "I am" but experience of itself in every form and every phenomenon. Every form and phenomenon turns out to be reality directly experiencing itself in such phenomenon.
But that tradition also goes much further to specify more ideal relations (not necessarily "all there is to reality") in addition to the simple fact that Mind exists and can know Itself
Right, studying those relations is definitely a good part of the Western contribution. Yet, even that knowledge is slightly distorted because of the lacking component of experience, and based on that, investing to much value and emphasis to the relations and ideas only (because according to its view, knowing ideas is knowing everything to be known about reality). In a way, it's lacking a balance. I'll quote myself here with this analogy again:
It's like you always looked below the horizon paying all your attention only to all the variety of life that happens on the ground and all the mechanics and relations of that, and you thought that the life on the ground is all there is to life and to the world. And suddenly you raised your eyes and for the first time see the luminous and indivisible sky. There may be a temptation to forget the ground and get stoned just looking at the sky, but I don't think it's a good choice either. Instead, it is better to enhance you view and see the whole picture at once all the time - both the sky and the ground, and keep walking on the ground while enjoying the wholeness of the landscape. This is where we can find the perfect balance between being too much lost and focused in the details of what happens on the ground, or being stoned and focused on the sky only.
So the world of ideas and relations in such all-encompassing view becomes only one of the aspects of reality, still an essential one, but not exhaustive or complete in itself.
Another thing to note is that ideas can definitely reflect the reality, but never entirely accurately and comprehensively, and therefore, because there is no ultimate and most accurate way to reflect it with ideas, there may be a variety of ways to reflect and express it, neither of them any truer than the other. For example, different non-dual traditions (Taoism, Buddhism, Advaita) reflected the reality with different ideas and expressions that may seem to be somewhat different, but still all of them pointing to and reflecting upon the same experiential reality. Therefore, there is definitely a universal reality, but no universal truth as an idea that can comprehensively encompass it.
