Psychology in Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita | Rāmānuja
Psychology in Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita | Rāmānuja
The psychology of the self or ātman is described negatively by examining certain faulty definitions and views.
The materialist (Cārvāka) view that the ātman is an assemblage of atoms and physical changes is erroneous as matter does not think and seek mukti.
For the same reason, the view of the vitalist that it is life (prāṇa) which is an inner activity or vital impulse that maintains and multiplies itself is untenable.
The sensationalistic or empirical view of the Buddhists that the self is a cluster of sensations or five skandhas made of mind-body is rejected on the ground that it denies the unity and continuity of the enduring self.
Manas, the inner sense organ, is itself a mode of prakṛti and is not a spiritual entity.
The rationalist or idealist who says that “because I think, therefore I am,” ignores the different lapses and levels of consciousness and it is more true to say that “because I am therefore I think.”
The sociologist also errs when he makes the self an element of the social organism. The adjectival theory which makes the self an attribute of the absolute ignores its uniqueness.
Finally the monistic (Advaita) explanation that the jīva is an illusory reflection of Brahman in avidya regards it as a mere fiction or phantom without any moral or religious value.
Rāmānuja repudiates all these views. The term ātman brings out its eternal self- conscious and free nature more than the Western terms, soul, spirit or self, as they are not free from animistic and spiritualistic associations.
It is a tattva or ultimate reality like God (Paramātman), and it is by metapsychical or logical insight and not by mere empirical knowledge that its meaning and value should be discovered. It is self-manifest and is its own proof.
The Gītā, according to the Viśiṣṭādvaita, as expounded by Ālavandār, Rāmānuja and Vedānta-Deśika, clearly brings out the nature of the ātman by distinguishing it from prakṛti and Paramātman.
The ātman is different from the twenty-four categories of prakṛti and is eternal, self- luminous and morally free.
Owing to the confusions of previous ignorance (avidya), it mistakes itself for prakṛti, is imprisoned in embodiment and migrates from body to body.
But by self-renunciation it can realize its own true nature. Then the self is freed from egoity or ahaṁkāra and knows it has its own intrinsic value.
The jīva is monadic and infinitesimal, but its jñāna is infinite and all-pervasive like light and its luminosity, though at present it is limited by its karma.
It can contract and expand according to its normal and spiritual development and it thus admits of different degrees of evolution and involution.
It is almost inert in the unconscious state of sleep, dim in the sub-conscious state of dreams and clear in the waking state and is confused in the abnormal states of illusion, hallucination and hysteria.
These states shade into one another and are continuous, but not self-contradictory like light and darkness.
The ethical and religious meaning of dream psychology is ignored by psycho-analysis and subjectivism.
The psycho-physical conditions of jñāna in the subtle or sūkṣma śarīra and their feeling tone are the effect of the moral law of karma. If knowledge is obscured by avidya, even omniscience is nescience on a cosmic scale and scepticism would be the only result of such pan- illusionism.
Jñāna as self-consciousness is therefore an integral quality of the ātman. It is self-realized and exists in and by itself, but jñāna as attribute (dharma-bhūta-jñāna) exists for the self (dharmin) as its revelatory quality. The two are distinguishable but not separable.
The relation between ātman and Paramātman in terms of the logical, ethical and aesthetic ego was already referred to in the triple attributes of Brahman as ādhāra, niyantṛ, śeṣin and sundara.
The logical ego(jñātṛ) is the effect (upādeya) of Brahman the cause (upādāna). It is its a-pṛthak- siddha-viśeṣaṇa or inseparable quality and amśa or mode of Brahman who is thus the source, subject and true infinite (vibhu).
As the ethical ego(kartṛ), it stands to Brahman who is pure and holy as His means (śeṣa) or servant (dāsa) or son (putra) and exists as a means to His satisfaction; it subserves the divine end of spiritual perfection.
The aesthetic ego (bhoktṛ) combines intimacy and holiness as the enjoyer of the beauty and bliss of Brahman and is divinely transfigured. Brahman is thus the soul (śarīrin) of the jīva, its source, sustenance and controller.
Though the jīva is the subject of its knowledge (attributive intelligence), it is itself, from a higher standpoint, the attribute (prakāra) of God and is inseparable from Him, the substance (prakārin).
The Bhedābheda explanation of jīva as an emanation of Brahman deprives jīva of its moral and spiritual value. The monist explains away individuality as a figment of avidya.
Rāmānuja's view reconciles pluralism and monism, moralism and mysticism by insisting on the integrity of jīva as a moral and spiritual entity with its own freedom,
but it abolishes separateness and exclusiveness by the idea that it is a spark of the supreme self, and therefore capable of mystic union. It is an organism and also an organ of the absolute.
Rāmānuja’s view gives a new orientation to avidya by identifying it with karma, and by attributing the imperfections of life (like avidya, karma and kāma) to the jīva. Every jīva comes from God and goes back to Him as the home of all perfections, and is deified.