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Glossary of Terms
(references to De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, unless
indicated. See concordance
for correlation with pages in the New Critique. The concordance
is in pdf format.)
| illusion |
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| maya |
Opbouw articles |
Dooyeweerd uses the word 'maya' in some early
articles that he wrote as a student in the journal Opbouw. In
Vol. II. 1915 , there is an article by H. Dooyewaard [Sic]: “De
Troosteloosheid van Het Wagnerianisme” [The Comfortlessness of Wagnerianism].
He says at p.100:
Wagner’s hoofdgedachte dan is deze: de mensch
leeft een leven, jammerlijk verblind door de maya der verschijning.
Dat maakt dat leven toonloos en dof, zonder muzikale verdieping, zonder
doel ook. Daarom zoeke hij de wedergeboorte.
Wagner's primary idea is then this: man lives his life,
piteously blinded by the maya of appearance. That makes life
toneless and dull, without musical depth, and also without a goal. That
is why he seeks rebirth.
In the same article, Dooyeweerd says at p. 103:
Maar den fijngeaarden zachtmoedigen Indiër moest
een dergelijke passietaal vreemd in de ooren klinken. In zijn ziel werd
het pessimisme tot een subtiel vreugde, het zich losweten van de schijnwereld,
verheven boven de hartstochten, die den sluier van maya weven, het ware
leven onder den glans der eeuwigheid.
But such passionate language would sound strange to
the sensitive gentle Indian. In his soul, pessimism becomes a subtle
joy, a knowledge that frees him from the world of appearance, elevating
him above the passions that weave the veil of maya to true
life in the brilliance of eternity.
Dooyeweerd wrote another article in Opbouw about
music. It concerns Richard Strauss, entitled, “Een oude schuld aan
een paria” [An old debt to a pariah]. He refers on p. 169 to the
Buddhist monks who were opposed to Indian theater, and he says that they
had "torn open the veil of maya" [“zich der sluier
van maya hadden uiteengescheurd"]. This is in the context of high
mysticism, which views the “Diesseits” [this temporal side]
of this world as of only temporary importance.
Dooyeweerd's references to maya are therefore in the
sense that the temporal world is considered as an illusion. Now it is
true that advaita or nondualism
is often associated with a view of temporal reality as illusion. But that
may not be a correct view of nondualism. A view of temporal reality as
illusion is associated with monism, where there
is nothing but God and we are identical with God. But nondualism is not
the same as monism. Nondualism can allow for the temporal world to be
real.
But although the temporal world is real, it has only
a relative reality. It does not exist in itself.
As Dooyeweerd says, temporal reality exists as meaning,
pointing to what is beyond. And because temporal reality has a relative
reality, Dooyeweerd can emphasize the importance of science, of engaging
with the temporal world. This is also why Dooyeweerd appreciated the writings
of Frederik van Eeden,
who spoke of a "scientific mysticism." This interpretation of
temporal reality as real and not illusory, but yet only as relatively
real, is supported by some Hindu traditions of nondualism:
1. Even Ramana Maharshi says
that the world has a relative reality. He says that the doctrine of maya
is often misunderstood, and that Shankara did not deny the reality of
the world. He only denied the world’s reality when it is considered
apart from Brahman:
He made three statements: that Brahman is real, that
the universe is unreal, and that Brahman is the universe. He did not
stop with the second. The third statement explains the first two; it
signifies that when the Universe is perceived apart from Brahman, that
perception is false and illusory. What it amounts to is that phenomena
are real when experienced as the Self and illusory when seen apart from
the self. (The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, p. 16)
Ramana relies on a text, the Vivekacudamani,
which may or may not be authentic Shankara.
2. Ramana was also influenced by tantra, which has this view
of a relative reality of the world. In tantra, maya
is not so much illusion as the creative power or shakti of Brahman
[or Shiva]. This power is seen as feminine, much like the Western tradition
of Divine Wisdom or sophia.
3. Some neo-Hindus are use 'advaita' in this sense of 'not-two'
but also 'not one.'
4. There are many schools of nondualism in India, including modified nondualism
[vishishtadvaita], which was the basis of Ramanuja's philosophy.
He is not nearly as well known in the West as Shankara. Ramanuja speaks
of communion and not union, where some separateness of our selfhood remains
in order to praise God.
It has become increasingly clear to me that much of Hinduism's attractiveness
to Westerners is in fact "neo-Hinduism" [Hinduism that has been
highly influenced by Western Christian ideas. See the writings of Halbfass
and Hacker]. Even Ramana Maharshi had many Christian influences, as is
evident by his references to the Bible, which he probably learned as a
boy in a Christian school. The same can be said of many Buddhist traditions.
Most of what is attractive to the West, such as the Kyoto school, or the
writings of D.T. Suzuki, can be shown to be highly Western. See James
Heisig's recent book, Philosophers of Nothingness.
Despite the difficulties in explaining nondualism, the alternatives of
dualism or monism
(whether materialistic or 'spiritualistic')
are even worse. Most Western Christian thought is caught in a dualism
that also tends to depreciate temporal reality. This is especially the
case in pietistic and fundamentalist views. And modern scientific views
are caught in either the modernist dualism dating from Descartes or else
they have resorted to a denial of the spiritual. To speak of 'Christian
Nondualism' helps to shock us out of our normal ways of thinking to a
complete change of mind, a 'metanoia.' It is not an empiricistic
view of reality.
The doctrine of creation ex nihilo,
which I believe expresses our dependence on God, has been wrongly used
in a dualistic way to suggest that the 'nothing' from which we are created
is something other than God, thus setting up a dualism that ensures our
separate individuality and existence in relation to God.
Dooyeweerd makes this point:
But it is well known that the words ex nihilo
have turned out to be not entirely harmless in Augustine's theological
exposition of the doctrine of creation, since they foster the idea that
nothingness would be a second origin of creaturely being bringing about
a metaphysical defect in the latter (“Cornelius Van Til and the
Transcendental Critique of Theoretical Thought,” Jerusalem and
Athens, p. 460, fn15).
And in his Response
to the Curators, Dooyeweerd says that the idea of a boundary between
God and creation is a reference to our deep dependance on God, and not
a separation between God and creature:
The creature on the other hand stands under the law.
That means the deep dependence and limitation of the latter. Calvin
keenly carries through this basic idea with respect to human knowing,
as in his Inst. I, 10,2 and I, 5,7 he takes the field against the
“vacua en meteorica speculatie” about the substantial
being of God (“quid sit apud se” in opposition to the
“qualis erga nos”). The idea of a boundary breaks through
here clearly and brightly.
and
And that Mr. Hepp should subscribe to the remark
made from a certain side, that the law boundary is a separation [scheiding]
between God and creature, which would be in conflict with the community
with God in Christ, is just as unlikely to be accepted.
So Dooyeweerd's view differs from both the idea that the wolrd is an
illusion, and from the idea that the world has an independent existence.
Rather, our present, day to day existence, has no existence or reality
in itself, but only as it relates to God. Our experience is "from,
through and to" our Origin (NC I, 9).
Revised Mar 11/06
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