Transcriptions
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
Video Link: YouTube
So, let’s begin. So, after yesterday’s video, then Zhecho posted a comment that just blew my mind. Because he has extended our work. He has made connections that I didn’t make. And this is wonderful. I love this.
I would love to be surrounded by, you know, 20 people of that intelligence. This is why I don’t play the role of guru. Because when you’re a guru, you only get people who follow you. You don’t get people who can make a contribution, who can advance the work. The very structure of the guru-disciple relationship ensures that. But when you have colleagues, when you have, not students exactly, but like research associates, then you can expand the work and it still retains its validity because it’s based on something real.
So, I want to say a couple of words about logic and the limits of logic. Logic is a wonderful tool. And what it does is, it enables us to build models, to create metaphors, to tell stories that are true—or at least believable—about what we know, what we don’t know, what we want to know, where we want to go, and so on.
In other words, it enables us to create a model of reality, a metaphor, an ontology that explains the world and how it works, or some aspect of that world. And gives us a way to then predict the outcomes of different actions. This is very valuable. This is what human beings do. This is what makes us different from the animals. That we have this ability to model things in language.
So, logic is basic to language. And language is a tool for telling stories, for making metaphors and models of reality. Now, the reality doesn’t change. The reality is what it is. And, depending on our skill, we can make more or less accurate models, more or less predictive value in those models. So, the main tool for making models is logic.
Now, that’s the strength of logic. Well, what are the weaknesses? Well, the weakness is, of course, we can use logic to create a model that has nothing to do with reality. And this happens all the time, doesn’t it? It’s an everyday experience for most people. That they make a model and use it to predict what’s going to happen. And it doesn’t happen that way. In fact, it almost never happens the way that we predict it. So, what’s the problem here?
Well, the problem is, our logic is usually inadequate. And also our knowledge. Because there is, in the final analysis, no substitute for revelation—in other words, if God wants to reveal what’s really going on. Then no amount of logic or reasoning or creativity can make up a story that’s any better than that. So, our premise here is that the Vedas are the revelation.
That means the role of reasoning in Vedic culture is to create a story that explains how that can be so. In other words, some of the things in the Vedas are just so out of left field, no human being could have ever thought them up. But, if we use logic and reason properly, and verify the results with our own spiritual practices, then we can concoct a story that explains the way it is, why it is the way it is, you see. And this is the meaning of Dharma**. Dharma means the way it really is, and **why it is the way it is.
And that’s not always given in the scriptures. Sometimes the scriptures will just reveal something and boom, lay it in your lap. In fact, it happens quite a bit. A lot of why we need commentaries on the scriptures is to tell the stories that explain the why. Human beings at least pose as rational, and they want to know why. So, logic gives us the tools to explain it.
Now, what are the different kinds of logic, and what are their strengths and limitations? Well, first we have two-valued logic, which is called Aristotelian logic, because it comes from good old Aristotle. It’s also known as binary logic, and it’s strictly dualistic.
Something is either existent or non-existent, true or false, right or wrong, saved or a sinner. Yes, Christianity is based on this binary logic. And so, of course, are computers.
And so this gives a very limited, very biased account of reality. And then we see that in the systems of thought that are constructed with binary logic. They’re also very absolutist and judgmental, because something has to either fit in one or the other categories: right or wrong, good or bad, in or out, up or down.
There’s no place in it for ambiguity. So our hero Einstein came up with a better way, three-valued logic. Einstein’s tensor calculus has three logic values: existent, non-existent, and indeterminate. Indeterminate means neither existent nor non-existent. Well, what does this remind you of?
Quantum superposition. That Schrodinger’s cat can be both alive and dead at the same time. Or an electron can have both positive and negative spin at the same time. It’s very difficult for us to comprehend, because we’re trained up with Aristotelian logic.
That’s really the only reason. Otherwise, if we look at life, there are so many things that are indeterminate. So many things that could be superposed, unknown.
The future, for example. Nobody really knows the future. All this logic and all this storytelling that we do is really just an attempt to guess the future. So, you know, it’s pretty much of a gamble, who is right and who is wrong. So there has to be some room for indeterminacy. And this leads to the Buddha’s logic.
The Buddha’s logic is four-valued logic. And the technical term is catuskoti, and in English, tetralemma—meaning a logic that has four different states. Something can be existent, non-existent; both existent and non-existent, or neither existent nor non-existent. And in the next videos, we’ll give some examples of all these, so don’t fret.
Or, I mean, you could actually look it up on the internet and find out what it means. And this is what we recommend, because if you do your homework, you’ll find so much value in these concepts. So anyway, Buddha’s four-valued logic is pretty cool.
But Jainas invented a seven-valued logic, which is super ultra cool. It’s called anekantavāda. Anekanta means there’s not one conclusion.
It depends on what context you’re in. The logic values are existent, non-existent, and indeterminate. But you see they overlap in this Venn diagram. So there can also be both existent and non-existent. Existent and indeterminate. Non-existent and indeterminate. And finally, existent, non-existent, and indeterminate. And all of these in the Jaina system are prefixed by the word syat. Syat is a Sanskrit word, and it means ‘in some ways’ or ‘in a particular context’.
So, you know, we talk a lot about context here. But let’s take a look at this word first, anekantavāda. Anekantavāda is a compound of an- plus eka plus anta plus -vāda.
And it means not one conclusion thesis. Ekanta means—I looked it up in the Sanskrit dictionary, which you should also do—the only end or aim, exclusiveness, absoluteness, necessity, directed towards or devoted to only one object or person. So anekanta means the negation of ekanta: not devoted to one object or person. Not a set doctrine.
Why is that?
Well, we’ve seen in the catur-darśanam, the four different views of reality according to spiritual realization, that some of the teachings in the different levels are contradictory. For example, in the level of bhakti, the viśiṣṭādvaita level, there are teachings of absoluteness. And of course, those teachings don’t hold when you get to the next level of vivarta-vāda.
So in order to understand how these two things can be right, we have to introduce the concept of context. Within a given context, something can be logically consistent, that as soon as you move out of that context, is no longer logical or consistent. This is why we need a more comprehensive, a more flexible, a broader, and more open concept of logic than simply binary: right or wrong, yes or no, true or false. Because in reality, there are different contexts. There are different views according to one’s state of consciousness.
So as consciousness changes, the view also changes. Everybody has experience of this. Come on: every day, we go from waking consciousness to dreaming consciousness, then into deep sleep. And then we come out again in the reverse order. Isn’t it?
And the conclusions and the futures and the logic that we use in waking consciousness does not apply to dream consciousness, does it? Just last night, I had this crazy dream where so many of the physical laws of the universe were suspended. Things can happen in dreams that are impossible in waking consciousness and vice-versa.
So we see as one’s consciousness changes, then the world around them also changes. The world that they perceive, the world that they operate in. And also, of course, the laws and logic governing what happens or the outcomes of the situations or the stories that describe the reality and give us a model for creating a future, they also change.
So if it can change from waking to dreaming and from dreaming to deep sleep and so on, it can also change from dvaita-vāda to viśiṣatādvaita-vāda to vivartha-vāda to ajata-vāda. The reality changes. The world that we live in changes.
Our expectations and abilities also change. That’s why we need a different story for different contexts. So the anekāntavāda gives us the tools that we can use to create a model that accounts for different states of consciousness, treating them as different contexts.
And in the next video, we’ll explain how that’s so and go through Jecho’s breakthrough discovery of how we apply that to the catur-darśanam.
ĀŪṀ Tat Sat. ĀŪṀ Śakti ĀŪṀ.