NOTES ON AWARENESS
ANIL MITRA PHD, COPYRIGHT © 1979
– 1981, REFORMATTED May 2003
Document status: May 28, 2003
Inactive, information only –
content has been absorbed to Metaphysics
Other action: archive, no
further action necessary
I retain these notes because, despite their primitive character, they
remind me of a time in my life when the world was stark and unfiltered. My life
had pain and beauty. It is exciting to look back and see how where I am now is
so distant from and yet so related to where I was then
ANIL MITRA
1994
I’ve deleted a lot. I want this to be useful to me. I don’t want to be a “pack rat” of old ideas and writings. I’ve added some points to make this more useful. Some of the initial enthusiasm has been lost
ANIL MITRA
May 28, 2003
CONTENTS
The “meaning of life” is not found at the feet of a guru. Where is the
original guru? There is no getting outside life to find a secure and final
meaning. Meaning in things is found… and made. It is made by thought and
action, by living
This is like the question of the
foundation of knowledge – we do not get outside ourselves and so every
foundation requires another. It seems that external foundation is not possible.
But – is knowledge something that requires foundation or that requires a
secure and certain foundation? It is something in process. Kant’s
transcendental analytic is based on a picture of knowledge; no matter how
sophisticated an understanding it is still a picture. Is there a way out?
Heidegger and Wittgenstein feel that the way out is to not seek a way out; the
way out is to stay in, to secure your moorings in rather than out. That, too,
is a value-picture. Pictures don’t stop. But, towards final understanding:
Taking “picture” as rather
literally, a sequence of pictures may converge,
“Picture” may be taken too
literally [even the notion of “picture” is part of some kind of picture]; that “the
way out is the way in” is a sufficiently different kind of picture that it cuts
the Gordian knot of infinite regress in foundationalism… that, of course, does
not mean it is the final story,
However, the idea of knowledge as a
process, of “error” [as though we could place a giant “X” on a part of reality]
properly reinterpreted as part of the knowledge process of trial and selection –
an essential part of the motion of knowing… this idea is surely a start on the
way to either: some other truly foundational end or the process and the phases
of the process as its own “end,”
… and though certainty and security have their value and appeal, perhaps the approach to the “highest destination” is through error and the uncertain path. Our actual experience and our usual models or our experience show that that is the way to what certainty we may have..
I don’t think I should seek happiness. Values are found in tradition, thought and action or experience. My correct and total pursuit is of goals. I don’t want my goals to be deflected. I do want happiness
On a discussion between Alan, Laura and
myself. We discussed the
We discussed the University rhetoric. Some of it is ridiculous. What is the quest for “excellence?” It sounds like a state of being without ambition. But, truth and knowledge are not meaningless
But there are other issues which are not as meaningless. Academic freedom and honesty. Pursuit of knowledge. Seeking truth
The university is a complex
organism. I will not judge it by white –as in black and white– standards. I
wonder, what is the better source of change – adherence to absolutes or
compromise?
We consider the historical origins, the complex shaping forces, the evolution of the University and its environment and the very fact of its survival and continued existence. It is here that the function is to be found
Ideas shape institutions and
institutions shape ideas. Ideas are a source of strength. Ideas are expressed
in words. So what’s the matter with administrative use of words.
It’s when they become empty rhetoric. When their words become dull and listless
and open lies. So the criticism is not of the University or of the use of
words, but of the people who misuse the English language, stripping words of
their meaning by dishonest and repetitive use. We are all guilty. Where can we
stop the flood?
This is true for so many institutions: government, business, schools, marriages, rationality
What was seen to be true, above,
for knowledge [that “foundation” is being in] is seen to be true for other
institutions: values, politics, social arrangements, culture, modes of thought…
Does time cease with full knowledge? Compare observers with full,
partial and no knowledge
Thoughts on reincarnation – is this idle, contrary to the value of this
life? It’s certainly no worse than watching football. “Too much” TV is
destructive; so is too much TV. Loving football is one passion that makes
Is there reincarnation? Why not? My present thought, 2002, is more sophisticated; but the old thought was useful. Ergodic theorem; arrays of universes; Friedman models
Physics appears here as a path to philosophy. Counting of atoms and probabilities is useless. Science has more bearing as metaphor than as logic
Nietzsche says, “At the bottom, every human knows he is in the world just once, as something unique, and that no accident, however strange, will throw together a second time into a unity such a curious and diffuse plurality…” He also believed in the eternal return
Cycle and hypercycle. Merging of all consciousness
But how does this change my life on
earth? What is the relevance for passion and
diffusion; ecstasy and pain?
Problem of “wishful thinking.” And of magical thinking. Magic is the confusion of word and object
If winter comes, can spring be far
behind?
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
If the red slayer thinks he slays
Or if the slain thinks he is slain
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep and turn and pass again
Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same
The vanished Gods to me appear;
And one are shame and fame
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When they fly I am the wings
I am the doubter and the doubt
And I the hymn the Brahman sings
EMERSON
Formation of opinion; balance between stability and motion of society;
unstable systems cease to exist. What mechanisms erect and maintain attitudes,
determine what is perceived as real, as central?
Animal and social forces; the force of discovery – the Shaman
One of Alan Muller’s favorite
musings, “Anil, don’t think. Thinking is dangerous for your health.”
I look for beauty.
I work well in stress, in deprivation
Swadesh Mahajan’s comment “Wisdom and creativity are exclusive”. Creativity and stress occur within of reality, Wisdom and Nirvana upon breaking through
That’s a simplification and a polarization
A tentative enquiry into the real follows
I’ve deleted it. It’s tired and old; it was bright eyed
I will live with fear and pain perched on my shoulder
Tension between desire
for beauty; actual ugliness. Look at the ugliness – is it so? And is the beauty
so?
I wrote something about living fearlessly. This means not giving into fear that aborts life. Do not put off until tomorrow what you can put off forever
Will to awareness; to correct
thinking -- that truth is a web, not a collection of bits floating in gruel
I am an artist and my canvas is my
life: only my life?
What is humility?
Dreams, when the ego is asleep
Intuition, mystic insight
Rational
Altered states; meditation; yoga
Does a bighorn find the mountains
beautiful; does he quiver to the mist over the lake?
What are the boundaries of self? Not everything happens in the brain;
the boundaries of mind – what are they?
[An example of words used as a “deflecting
shield” in the defense of an established institution.]
1. Do you believe in God?
2. What do you mean by “belief” and
by “God”?
1. “God” is a transcendent quantity; “God” is good; “belief” is a transcendent means of knowing transcendent quantities
2. What do you mean by “transcendent”?
1. Transcending physical, biological, social, ethical, moral categories; transcending all categories known by our physical selves
2. Nature, then, can be divided up
into at least two levels – the ground level, and the transcendent level? The
ground level can know itself through sense perception and rational activity;
the ground level can know the transcendent through belief?
1. Yes
2. Can the transcendent level know
the ground level?
1. Yes, of course
2. How?
1. Transcendent means
2. Can we, of the ground, know the
means?
1. No
2. Why?
1. Because the means transcend!
2. Does it transcend even belief?
If so, is there a third level of categories?: 1. Ground,
known by rational--sense activity, 2. Transcendent, known by belief, and 3. Super-transcendent,
not known by belief?
1. No. The nature of belief is that it does not provide full knowledge
2. Rational activity does not
provide full knowledge either?
1. Yes
2. Does that mean that rational
activity and belief are similar?
1. Similar in that aspect but not the same
2. Is belief available to every one
1. In principle. There are different levels of knowing through belief
2. Is there any absolute standard
of belief?
1. No
2. Then what decides the choice
between two beliefs or belief systems. In particular, why are belief systems
dogmatic and why is there debate?
1. Imperfection. Belief is also part of an on-going process
2. Might not the full truth about
the transcendent be known then? Specifically, we may learn the methods
available to the transcendent for knowing? More generally, the ground and the
transcendent may unite?
1. No
2. Why so?
1. I believe it
2. Is that not an absolute
standard?
1. No. I believe it
2. May I ask further questions
about belief?
1. Yes
2. If rational activity involves a
form of knowing and if belief involves a form of knowing, why not classify the
two under one principle: knowing?
1. No. They are different forms of knowing
2. How so?
1. Belief is not certainty. Belief is incomplete
2. But neither is rational activity
1. Rational activity attempts to approach certainty. Belief does not
2. Are there any limitations to
belief?
1. At any given time
2. The same is true for reason! [Reason,
here, includes sense perception.]
1. The distinction does not have to do with certainty
2. What does it have to do with?
1. Belief relates to spirituality
2. Is there a distinction between transcendent and spiritual
1. No
2. Then your introduction of spiritual is circular
1. No, it has an emotive content
2. Does not the ground level have
emotive content?
1. Yes, but not spiritual
2. Are we not capable of spirituality
1. Yes, but not of our own volition. It has to be received
2. Then there is no point in trying
1. One has to be in the right condition to receive
2. If spirituality is not
volitional, but receptivity is, then receptivity is what we are after, isn’t
it? And is not receptivity true spirituality?
1. No
2. What is?
1. Having received!
2. We have no control over having received, except to place ourselves in the right space, but the distinctions are made on the basis of who has received and not who was receptive
1. The truly receptive ones are the ones who receive
2. What makes one truly receptive
as differentiated from going through the motions of being receptive?
1. The distinction is transcendent
2. Is there anything I can do to be
truly receptive?
1. Yes
2. Then I have control over certain
transcendent things?
1. Not control. But you can open yourself up
2. Is this circular?
1. No. At each stage our discussion transcends the previous stage
2. If there is a distinction
between receptivity and true receptivity, is there not a distinction between
belief and true belief?
1. Yes
2. How is this known?
1. It is a transcendent question knowable through belief
2. You are being evasive
1. No. Just as there is a distinction between non-receptivity, receptivity, and true receptivity; there is a distinction between ordinary knowing through reason, between belief and true belief. Belief that is not true is essentially self-deception. You have belief that is not true, that is why you have come to me
2. I deceive myself
1. Yes
2. Why do I do this?
1. Fear
2. Of what am I afraid?
1. Truth
2. It seems to me that you are afraid of truth. This is why you invent multiple categories and flee to one when the others become uncomfortable
1. No. Multiple categories represent my transcending my own finiteness, fear, and ignorance, step by step. This process is available to you, too
2. Is there any one who does not
need this process?
1. No
2. Why are we that way?
1. It is a fact of living. Is there
anyone who has never wanted?
2. I do not know. Let me tell you my situation. I do not agree with the distinctions you have built up. That we have tensions and wants does not seem an altogether undesirable state. In a sense we can transcend these by accepting and knowing ourselves. But this is not a transcendence from one category to another. It is an inner transformation, a change. I do not accept the distinction between belief and reason. Far from saying that reason is supreme, I believe that belief or trust is the true form of knowing. Everything I know, that I need or want to know, I can know as surely as I know my wife. If I need to build a separate belief system, I am dividing up my awareness into two parts. One part I can be sure of in a simple way. The other part I cannot be sure of. Why should I believe something that I am not sure of. There must be a payoff
1. Is there anything you can know
in a simple way? Your wife?
2. [Aside .] This has gotten funny. [To 1.] Yes. Not in the sense of certified truth, but in the simplicity of living
1. That is precisely what I mean by the transcendence of faith. You have said it as well as a true believer
2. Does that make me a true
believer?
The Dhammapada opens: “We are the result of
all that we have thought.”
I became aware of beauty. In nature and its sensations, in dreams, in
man and relation, in love and hope, in poetry and music, in science and
mathematics, in the active use of mind and body, in philosophy, in
contemplation and awareness, in the infinitude of the Universe and the mystery
of being, in loneliness and in sharing too -- in these have I experienced,
often, lonely and private beauty of stunning power. I came to love this beauty
and it became an objective to experience and seek it,
even to create and find it
I became aware, too, of frustrations to this objective. We create ugliness. I am finite, will age and die. There are contradictions within my search for beauty; pain often goes with beauty. I have material needs [wants] and emotional needs such as respect and status. There is inertia, discomfort, sickness and pain, fear and doubt, a feeling that when I focus on beauty I abandon responsibility
Tagore
wrote:
I slept and dreamt
That life was joy
I awoke and saw
That life was duty
I acted and behold
Duty was joy
Buddha instructed, “Work out your
own salvation with diligence.”
NEW AWARENESS
Out of tension grew awareness
A complex of forms is a frame. One frame is a set of frames; each
similar to another up to a point. This is time
Words and uses
Assignment of feelings to inanimate neither helpful nor unhelpful
Awareness
Ambition to go beyond…
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