Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker by Pavan K Varma

Author:Pavan K Varma [Varma, Pavan K]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9789387578258
Publisher: Westland Publications
Published: 2018-04-20T18:30:00+00:00

Shankara’s philosophical interpretation of the empirical world—that it may exist, but it is not what it appears to be—is now being definitively borne out by theories of relativity and quantum physics. Shankara stated his position not on the basis of mathematical equations but from a philosopher’s perception that there cannot be two ultimate realities, and that even if this duality seems to exist, one of them is unreal, both as perceived, and for its transience. The quantum world demolishes the notions of conventional reality, while simultaneously establishing that all phenomena is inherently and constantly in flux, coming into existence in one nano second and being extinguished in another, an entire series of transient configurations.

However, what Shankara asserted with calm certitude has exasperated modern scientists, unable, perhaps, to fully accept the fact that ‘all their theories of natural phenomena, including the “laws” they describe, are creations of the human mind; properties of our conceptual map of reality, rather than of reality itself.’17 Quantum physicist Richard Feynman exclaimed that quantum mechanics deals with ‘nature as she is—absurd.’ Einstein himself took some time to come to terms with the new world of modern science, famously remarking that ‘God does not play dice.’ But, ultimately, he had no other recourse than to endorse, albeit reluctantly, the findings of quantum physicists, which so closely resemble Shankara’s concept of the material world. Centuries before the world of quarks and quantum packets, Shankara could say with equanimity that what is transient cannot be real and what is eternal cannot be transient, but this simple inference came as a shock to Einstein himself. As the great scientist wrote in his autobiography, ‘it was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere upon which one could have built.’

Some prominent western philosophers echoed Shankara’s Advaita vision. David Hume (1711–1776) argued that there is no rational ground for believing in an objective reality. George Berkeley (1685–1753), in a tone reminiscent of the subjective idealism of the Vijanavada Buddhist scholars, went further to state that nothing exists except the mind and its ideas. The amusing thing is that many quantum physicists, faced with the inferences of their own research, referred to these western philosophers, while being seemingly unaware of the Upanishad-based insights of Shankara’s views, systematised into a rigorous structure of philosophy at least a millennium earlier!

While physicists in our time looked outward, both into the macro cosmos and the microscopic sub-atomic world, Shankara, hundreds of years ago, looked inwards into the nature of the real itself. This inward journey, no less meticulous than mathematical equations, telescopes and microscopes, led him to infer that outward reality, as we think it exists, is maya. It exists, at a certain level (sat), coterminous with the limited comprehensive powers of our sensory faculties, but is illusionary at another level (asat). The mind is a gullible prey to the immediate seductions of what it sees. Thus, the real nature of the empirical eludes it, and it becomes a victim to maya’s veil, which masks reality, avarana and distorts it, vikshepa.

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