Randolph Thompson Dible II

Metaphysics, Professor James Corrigan

September 28, 2008

The Metaphysical System in the Tao Te Ching and Sankara

I have decided upon two systems of non-dualistic metaphysics that we have been

studying, as of the options these two are most structurally similar to my own

metaphysical system. I have chosen Sankara’s Advaita Vedanta, as given in the excerpts

of his Brahmasutrakarika, and excerpts from the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu.

Both systems posit a fundamental distinction in our understanding of the world, between

subject and object or being and non-being, as source and ultimate reality, respectively. I

have taken what I believe to be true in these and all other systems I came across, and by

such reflections and peak experiences in my formative years, formed convictions about

the possibilities of a correct metaphysical system.

In Advaita Vedanta, “the final truth is that nothing has really come into existence

(ajativada) in the first place.” (King, pp. 54) But in the beginning of the

Brahmasutrakarika excerpts we observe a discussion about the distinguishing of subject

and object as primary to the ‘Ego’ and the world of the ‘Thou’ (‘Non-Ego’). Sankara

states that in man such error is natural and he calls it ‘superimposition’, the result of

‘wrong knowledge’. This ‘wrong knowledge’ is ignorance, ‘Nescience’, from the

Sanskrit word for “not knowledge”, avidya. Knowledge or vidya means discrimination
of the true nature of the Self, or subject. This true nature of the Self (Atman), according

to Sankara, is that the Self is Brahman (the Absolute; the great, ultimate Reality, also

meaning, to expand). This is the meaning of Non-Dualism (Advaita) in Vedanta.

This basic position of non-dualism in Advaita Vedanta is very similar to that proposed in

the Tao Te Ching, indeed it may be the same insight in different terms, and in a different

context. In Chapter 1 we learn that being (the Named) and non-being (the Nameless) are

the same. Without a rigorous study of the milieu of the manifestation of these texts in

their respective languages, it is difficult to be certain that they are proposing similar

principles of non-duality regarding dualisms of the same kind, but it seems that the

descriptions of ultimate reality, and of penultimate reality are consistent. In Taoism we

find that the Tao (“the Way”; the ineffable origin and a state of existence before it

happened) is described as “Infinite and boundless, ... ”, followed by the admission of its

ineffability; “...it cannot be given any name.” This state of being seems paradoxical –

both being descriptions, one positive, the other negative, indicating that even the names

“Infinite and boundless” are inadequate while simultaneously proposing them. But the

next line assures us that this strange description is as empty as it seems to propose: “It

reverts to nothingness.” And in the Brahmasutrakarika, Sankara begins with proposing

the necessity of correctly discriminating subject and object, while admitting no true

reality to differences since they are all truly Atman, which is Brahman. This of course

seems an inconsistent or paradoxical position, yet what it seems to propose is that while

subjects (jiva, jivatman; individual selves) and objects are absolutely complimentary, the

‘highest’ of these, subjectivity itself (the capitalized ‘Self’) and objectivity itself (or
Brahman, although this former term is by no means employed, it is to be inferred by the

relation of ultimate reality to the pure subject), are not different. “As the magician is not

at any time affected by the magical illusion produced by himself, because it is unreal, so

the highest Self is not affected by the world-illusion.” (Cooper, pp. 81)

The identification of Atman with Brahman in Sankara and the identity of the Tao from the

Tao Te Ching are very similar in other ways also. Nirguna (impersonal, without qualities)

Brahman and the ineffable nature of the Tao both can be positively described as simply

what is meant by “the metaphysical Infinite” (which Rene Guenon contrasts with the

“mathematical Infinite” in his critique of “The Metaphysical Principles of the

Infinitesimal Calculus”), the Absolute Infinite, which Cantor intended to mean God, as

ultimate reality. The cosmogonies of these two philosophies posit the source or origin of

the cosmos in the first drawing of distinctions: in Sankara, the world begins with the

interior self, the highest self; “The enjoyers and the objects of enjoyment do not pass

over into each other, and yet they are not different from the highest Brahman. And

although the enjoyer is not really an effect of Brahman, since the unmodified creator

himself, in so far as he enters into the effect, is called the enjoyer (according to the

passage, ‘Having created he entered into it,’ Taitt. Up. II, 6), still after Brahman has

entered into its effects it passes into a state of distinction, ... ” (Cooper, pp. 82). And in

the Tao Te Ching; [He] returns to the state of the Ultimate of Non-being. ... Being the

valley of the world, He will be proficient in eternal virtue, And returns to the state of

simplicity (uncarved wood) ... Therefore the great ruler does not cut up [draw

distinctions] ...” (Cooper, pp.21)

I will quote two passages from the Tao Te Ching to give a more systematic structure to

this simple, however negative the description, cosmogony, to show how the ultimate

reality interfaces and originates the contingent world. This simple relation is in fact the

Buddha’s principle of co-dependent origination, the logical structural basis of formation

and extension (brh, that which expands) in general. Chapter 40: “Reversion is the action

of the Tao. Weakness is the function of the Tao. All things in the world come from

being. And being comes from non-being.” Chapter 42: “Tao produced the One. The

One produced the two. The two produced the three. And the three produced the ten

thousand things.” From these excerpts we find that the world comes from ultimate reality

(Brahman in Advaita Vedanta) but only indirectly, for it comes directly from the One

(oneself, Atman, the Self). This ‘One’ can be identified with ‘being’, as the source or

penultimate reality.

This situation of being as penultimate and “non-being” as ultimate is also the case in the

proto-logic of George Spencer-Brown’s “Laws of Form”, the calculus of indications of

distinction, wherein the universe comes into being by the drawing of a distinction in the

otherwise “unmarked state”, and this is called “the first distinction”, whose being is

logically necessitated by the nature of becoming from one state to another (most

primitively, the not-one state) or time in-itself, which he calls “oscillation without

duration”, the square root function of negative one, (“sqrt –1”, the imaginary number, “i”)

which solves as being both one and not-one at the same time, whose simultaneity and

difference exists at different orders or levels or dimensions, which also accounts for how
dimensions themselves come to be. The primacy of the fundamental act of drawing a

distinction is popular in the second-order cybernetics community which follows Spencer-

Brown’s calculus in applications to technology, as Spencer-Brown himself did originally.

But Sankara was hip to the Laws also. “Brahman is hidden behind the sun. It has been

suggested that the term ‘maya’ derives from the root ‘ma’ – to measure. In this sense

maya denotes the construction of boundaries and conceptual distinctions (vikalpa) in that

which has none (nirvikalpa). It is a measuring (ma) of the immeasurable (amatra).”

(King, pp. 219)

While my basic metaphysical poise can be found in points of agreement among different

philosophies, such is only the basis which has been firmly impressed upon me and upon

which I have built the further structure of my metaphysical system. The essential

structure of my metaphysical system is that the Absolute Infinite is ultimate reality, and

the One is penultimate reality, and these two respectively are pure Superjectivity

(Objectivity) and pure Subjectivity. Although from our perspective, within the contexture

(Gotthard Gunther’s term for logical domain) of being, on this side of the distinction,

ultimate reality appears as the Absolute Infinite, granted, in my system, this is not the

case for the “Absolute Infinite”, which has no “itself” itself (has no self other than pure

Subjectivity, which is our transcendental Self (Nirguna), which is the Absolute Infinite

bootstrapping itself into existence, and away from ultimacy, so in a way, there is no

Infinity for-itself, only the great perspective, and within that the other points of reference.

The first distinction, Difference itself, is pure self-reference, and this is precisely the

distinction between distinction and indication or difference between difference and

reference, which is also my general theory of reference. I also have a general theory of

actual consciousness as the union or difference (form of) of subjectivity and

superjectivity. There is also a general theory of time in-itself as the basis of

dimensionality, and an axiology, the axiology, which has an axiological axiom of Infinity

being the reality of all meaning, value and significance, which is precisely what

objectivity is (all objects “explode to”, rather than “reduce to”, ultimate reality, which can

just as well be considered “unconditional love” in the abstract (which is actually most

concrete), God, granted consciousness and Profundity, which is its true nature, formless,

purely valuationally Infinite), but all these go beyond the scope of this paper, and are to

be reserved for another time.

Bibliography

“Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought”, Richard King,

Georgetown University Press, 1999.

“Laws of Form” George Spencer-Brown, Cognizer Company, 1994.

“Metaphysics: The Classic Readings”, edited by David E. Cooper, advisory editor T. L.

S. Sprigge, Blackwell Publishers, 2000.

The Laws of Form:

Addendum:

I am an abstractivist, and activist for abstraction. Moreover, I hold that the concrete

comes from the abstract, rather than the vice-versa traditional view. Indeed, ultimate

reality is the most abstract. Penultimate reality is second-most abstract, and of images in

the imagination, it is the most abstract. But being an ‘abstractivist’ came after the fact of

my metaphysical understanding. And the importation of the structure (the isomorphisms)

of George Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form also came after that fact. The discernment of

the truth behind mystical revelations by the tools of philosophical metaphysics was the

original worldly device for the attainment of this understanding, recognition, or

recollection, correction, reconnection. Then came the nomenclature and metaphysical

justifications. By adding the insights of the Laws of Form, the new developments of

dimensionality arrived all at once, in one of those epiphany-moments, echoed in altered

states of consciousness (chitti vritti; mind-stuff modification) where further connections

were trained. I wish to expand on this system, as well as viewing it from the outside, but

if you care to have me expand, just let me.