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Karma as the Source of Diversity

The vedas acknowledge divine karma as the origin of all creation, preservation, and destruction. However, since God does not have desires, unlike humans, he is not constrained by them. In the first chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.6.1), we discover that karma is one of the three main causes of diversity, alongside name and form. The variety in names is a result of speech, and the variety in forms is a result of the eye, while the mind and body are the sources for the variety in actions. For every action, the body serves as the source, the controller, or the lord.  Within the body, the mind, speech, breath, organs of action, and organs of perception are regarded as the primary deities who receive sustenance from the body and carry out their respective functions. Nevertheless, we cannot solely depend on them to combat the impurities and the malevolent forces that can infiltrate our body, as they are susceptible to evil and demonic influences, thoughts, desires, temptations,...
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TRUE SENSE!



This blog would cover the topic sense from Vedantic point of view and make this clear that it's our senses that deceive us or report the reality to us.

If we get the conclusion from evolutionary science or modern cognitive science, it's that our senses deceive us i.e. they do not report the reality to us. This straight away doesn't mean that senses are misreporting, because if we observe, evolution has not designed our senses to report reality. Rather, evolution has designed our senses to protect us and make sure that we survive and pass on our genes to the next generation. That's just the conclusion of the Darwinian science. In fact, in Darwinian psychology, our body & mind is designed as vehicles for our genes, which will be transmitted to the next generation.

So, what makes sense is that, senses are not meant to report the reality but to report that thing in such a way that it enables this human-animal to interpret that reality to survive.

This concept could be better understood by the classical example of a rope misinterpreted as a snake in Vedanta. Our senses are developed to survive & so, 9 out of 10 times, we see the rope as a snake, a mistake with no harm. But, for the 10th time when there's really a snake, our senses also helps us to survive by not getting a poisonous bite from the snake. This evolution started when people used to live in the forest. Snakes were much more in number than a rope & so, such sensory instincts were to be developed for survival.

Thomas Nagel, a great philosopher who wrote: "What Is It Like to Be a Bat" has discussed the bat's perspective to see the world against the humans perspective to see the world. Whereas the bat uses sound, human uses eyes to see the world.

Vedanta fully agrees with this ideology. In fact, Buddhism and Vedanta both agree to this. This is really rare. For Vedanta, this deceiving of sense is a vital part of Maya that does not allow us to see how & what of the true world.

The hedonic treadmill is a better term for this deceptive sense which means that our mind makes us feel happier than being actually happy after getting the thing. We sometimes feel that if we get something that we desired, we will be happy. But after we get it, happiness is not the same that our mind made us imagine. Here, it doesn't think of correcting itself. Rather, it starts imagining the happiness from another desire getting fulfilled.

Senses, therefore, are better designed for evolutionary success & not for reporting the reality.


Twitter:@merrill_ab


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  1. UnknownAugust 26, 2020 at 8:29 AM

    Great

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ganesh YegneshwaranAugust 26, 2020 at 9:40 AM

    Happy roots searching to all. This 17 year old continues to amaze me with his sustained zeal in searching for the true meaning of self.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownAugust 26, 2020 at 3:10 PM

    Nicee

    ReplyDelete

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