Nature of Consciousness

[Parisi & Watson]

-----Original Message-----
From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG
<ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
Date: Monday, July 19, 1999 11:14 PM
Subject: Re: Nature of Consciousness


<snip>
>>cannot be established except through supposed revelation. I would think
>that
>>many people, both Eastern and Western, would find such a position to be
>>lacking.
>
>Again, yes and no. There are lots more people who are quite comfortable
>with the idea of a received revelation than there are people who question
>this.


I am strongly allergic to it personally, since it calls back the worst of my
Christian upbringing. And we have only to look at the strife that has been
provoked among Jews, Christians, and Muslims by their overlapping and yet
antagonistic 'revelations' to see how dangerous and misuided such an idea
can be. Beyond that, I've always been a little puzzled by the notion that
God as some sort of absolute impersonal consciousness yet has the
disposition to write books. If that's legitimate, then why not go all the
way and also have something like Papal infallibility? I don't mean to be
glib, but for many years I have thought that one of the most precious things
about Indian philosophy is that it minimizes appeals to such ideas. Yes, the
Vedas are authoritative, but I thought we could get along with just using
them as a guide combined with personal exploration, rather than treating
them as infallible, unquestionable truth from the beginning. Was I mistaken
in this?

Robert.