Inconceivable Distinction and Non-distinction

Philo­soph­i­cal thought regard­ing the rela­tion between God-dess and humans, God-dess “and the world of finite expe­ri­ence, the noumena and the phe­nom­ena, is directed along two main lines. Some, empha­siz­ing the essen­tial dis­tinc­tion between the infi­nite and the finite, accept the absolute tran­scen­dence of the one over the other, while oth­ers, empha­siz­ing the iden­tity between them regard” God-dess “as imma­nent in the human spirit and the phe­nom­e­nal world.” (150)

Both lines of thought have their strengths and weak­nesses. Both are needed for an ade­quate full expla­na­tion of the sit­u­a­tion. By the incon­ceiv­able power of God-dess, “the con­cepts of iden­tity and dif­fer­ence are tran­scended and rec­on­ciled in a higher syn­the­sis. Tran­scen­dence and imma­nence are made the asso­ci­ated aspects of an abid­ing unity in” God-dess. (152) This is a form of panentheism.

The imma­nent aspect of God-dess is called Cos­mic Con­scious­ness. Simul­ta­ne­ously, God-dess with full splen­dor of infi­nite per­fec­tion, infi­nite poten­cies and infi­nite attrib­utes tran­scends all finite things. Cos­mic Con­scious­ness “is the imma­nent reg­u­la­tor and observer of the actions of the finite souls, and the uni­fier of all exist­ing things.” (152) God-dess is the bliss­ful, per­sonal absolute above and beyond the world of the senses. God-dess per­vades the uni­verse in a hid­den form in which all beings exist. God-dess sup­ports all, yet exists beyond all as the source of everything.

Due to God-dess’ incon­ceiv­able power, noth­ing is impos­si­ble. God-dess can “be both dif­fer­ent from the world and iden­ti­cal with it, to cre­ate the world out of” him-herself “and remain out of it. This can­not be explained by rea­son­ing.” (153) It can be real­ized by log­i­cal impli­ca­tion, how­ever. “Simul­ta­ne­ous exis­tence of iden­tity and dif­fer­ence is…inconceivable, because it is con­tra­dic­tory.” (153) “The view relat­ing to absolute iden­tity is as illog­i­cal as the one relat­ing to absolute dif­fer­ence.” (154)

We may explain that iden­tity and dif­fer­ence are involved, but not exactly how the two are rec­on­ciled. That is incon­ceiv­able. Incon­ceiv­able iden­tity and dif­fer­ence applies not only to God-dess and his-her ener­gies, but also to mate­r­ial objects and their energies.

God-dess appears in many forms but is one. God-dess’ sport, name and form are at once dif­fer­ent and non-different. Even the dif­fer­ent parts of God-dess’ “body are dif­fer­ent yet non-different, for each part can per­form the func­tions of the other parts and of the whole. The part is, thus, actu­ally iden­ti­cal with the whole, though still a part, and as such dif­fer­ent from the whole.” (155)

God-dess’ incon­ceiv­able form “can­not be con­ceived because it is infi­nite and immea­sur­able.” The Vedic scrip­tures describe God-dess “as ‘the great­est of the great’ and ‘the small­est of the small,’ as ‘one who moves and yet moves not,’ as ‘one who is far as well as near, imma­nent as well as tran­scen­dent,’ and as one who does not have the mind or sense organs like ours and yet per­forms all the func­tions of these.” (156) We can­not com­pre­hend these descrip­tions of God-dess’ incon­ceiv­able form. God-dess remains a paradox.

Incon­ceiv­able “sig­ni­fies the mar­riage of the oppo­site con­cepts of ‘dif­fer­ence’ and ‘non-difference’ lead­ing to a higher and fuller unity.” (157) Only God-dess’ incon­ceiv­able potency can rec­on­cile tran­scen­dence with imma­nence and main­tain God-dess’ purity in rela­tion to the phe­nom­e­nal world. Incon­ceiv­abil­ity rec­on­ciles real dif­fer­ence with real iden­tity. This per­tains to God-dess, the liv­ing enti­ties and nature, as well as to all ener­gies and their possessor.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 10th, 2008 at 15:26 and is filed under Steve's Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.