In Knowing Oneness, we compared Didonian and Upanishadic onenesses. The novel addresses this issue:
"'Oneness is the ideal in this culture, I'm learnin', as 'tis in a lot of others,' she told Flandry. 'They consider the whole world to be potenti'ly a single entity. By ceremonies, mystic contemplation, hallucinogenic foods, or whatever, they try to merge with it. An everyday method is to make frequent new interconnections. The matin' season, 'round the autumnal equinox, is their high point of the year, mainly 'cause of the ecstatic transcendental 'speriences that then become possible.'" (p. 472)
The whole world is a single unity but not even potentially a single entity in the Didonian sense. Their "entity" is a single self-consciousness generated by an interconnection between three units of different species. My disagreement with Vedanta is precisely that I say that the universe is one and conscious but not one consciousness. It is conscious of itself through many individual conscious organisms. Of these, many experience only animal sensation. Some, human beings, are self-conscious and linguistic, able to abstract and conceptualize. Of these, many experience only alienation and separation, not oneness. Some intuit and realize oneness. The universe itself is not a single self-conscious individual but the totality of subjects and objects, selves and others.
Flandry asks whether pantheism is not natural to Didonians. Kathryn replies that pantheism is no more natural to Didonians than monotheism is to men. Some Didonians, exalting their own communion as distinct from everything and everyone else, resemble human mobs supporting a warring state. Yes, Didonian oneness might well stop short at that point.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Despite your explanations, I still hesitate over such phrases as "My disagreement with Vedanta is precisely that I say that THE UNIVERSE IS ONE AND CONSCIOUS but not one consciousness. IT IS CONSCIOUS OF ITSELF through many individual conscious organisms." The text I highlighted seems to contradict the rest of what you said. I think it makes more sense to simply say individual intelligent beings, human or not, are aware the universe is one but not itself conscious.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I don't think it's contradictory but it is largely a matter of how to express it. We can experience oneness, however we express it.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I think it does not really make sense to say "The universe is one and conscious but not one consciousness." An idea, literally construed, I would deny.
Ad astra! Sean
Testing. There are different ways of saying it.
Kaor, Paul!
But some ways of expressing one's ideas can be confusing, ambiguous, unclear, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
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