Last Word On The Disagreement With My Religion Professor

The Brahman Experience-The Seat Of Freedom Continues
The Difference Lies In Getting There
Winter ’80

Well that’s about all I have to say about Uddalaka and Yajnavalkya. I
do have a few more observations, though. In lieu of our past
conversations, it seems to me that something is going on here that
needs more attention. I can’t help but feel that I’m in the middle of
that “elephant thing.” You know, where one blind guy holds the trunk,
and the other blind guys hold the leg and tail, respectively. They all
“see” an entirely different animal, but what they’re really “seeing”
is just one big elephant.

Paraphrasing from Hopkin’s descriptions of Brahman, consider the
following: The ancient sages of India perceived no chasm between
nature, humanity, and divinity. For the wise among them, all existence
was the manifestation of the universal principle, i.e., Brahman, the source
of all being, the producer and sustainer of all reality. Brahman was
the eternal that created the temporal; it was the uncountable waves of
an incomprehensible ocean.

In Nishitani’s Mahayana Buddhism (and with Nishida, his teacher), something
quite similar to the “Brahman idea” is going on. For instance, just as
when Yajnavalkya found at the seat of free will, atman, Nishitani, put
absolute freedom at the core of self. For Nishitani, free will emerged
from and returned to, absolute nothingness. On the surface, absolute
nothingness and Brahman appear to be opposites—empty and full. But are
they really?

Brahman, the Absolute, is beyond all categories of time, space, and
causality. In short, it has no measure other than the fact that it
transcends all measure. Yet, if we believe the sages, Brahman can be
realized and therefore experienced. Nishitani’s absolute nothingness,
like Brahman, permeates all things. If the “ripples of Brahman” vanish
back into the “timeless, spaceless, and causeless ocean of Brahman,”
then how is that any different from Nishitani’s nothingness that
permeates all things? In the reciprocal case the same holds true.
Waves exist because of the ocean—the ocean being Brahman here.
All things depend on nothingness for their existence—Nishitani’s
nothingness being the source of all existence here. Where’s the difference?

The sages in the Upanishads (as does the Buddha) call for the
eradication of all ignorance. We are told that when ignorance is
dispelled, “the infinitely great outside of us becomes the infinitely
great within us,” which is another way of saying that our inner self,
atman, merges with our outer self, Brahman. In the Buddhist philosophy
of Nishida’s self-awakening, we hear pretty much the same refrain. He
says, “When the ego awakens to its radical finitude–its nothingness,
realization occurs.” In all these spiritual teachings we hear the echo
of the “outside” and “inside” becoming one. Again, “at the point of
total openness and freedom,” says Nishida, “the self is no longer
separate from, but realizes its oneness with all the myriad things of
the universe.” When the ego realizes the illusion of its “I,” “me,”
“mine,” and stops seeing itself as an independent entity, it looks straight
through itself and sees “wholeness.” Are we really talking about two different
things here? In the Chandogya Upanishad, we hear once again, –upon the
realization of atman, “the formed and the unformed, the mortal and the
immortal, the abiding and the fleeting, the being and the beyond” all
become one with Brahman. In the absolute nothingness of self, says
Nishitani, “you find the convergence of opposites—self and non self,
being and nonbeing, the personal and the impersonal, the unique and
the universal.” How often do we have to hear this refrain before the
connection becomes obvious? In Brahman, we find the realization of the
unity of reality. In the “nothingness of the self,” according to
Nishitani, we find the dissolution of “all contradictions of the
world, such as inside and outside, one and all, evil and good.” In the
yogi’s “moksha,” and the Buddha’s “nirvana,” enlightened experience
all, where is the difference? Maybe it– the difference– lies in
getting there.

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