Alan Tan,
My responses to certain points/comments you made:
As a Zen sage once said :”Every time when I opened my mouth, I felt like I was lying”.
Yes, because every statement or assertion is based on a model that we have created. And, as we know, all models are wrong, but some models are useful.
The truth, if there is such a thing, is impossible to know; all our attempts — whether experimental or experiential — approach the truth asymptotically. We have reached the stage where more and more effort is needed to make smaller and smaller increments in understanding.
You see, the way we comprehend the world is by causes and effects: that all things in the universe have causes and they in turn have effects. And we call the relationships between those causes and effects “the laws”. But imagine that we overcame the 5% limitation, and succeeded in mapping out the 100% of the complex web of causes and effects in the universe, it would still not satisfy us. We would still ask the question where the entirety comes from. Now imagine again that we “figured out” where this entirety comes from X (the astrophysicists actually tried that, their answer is the Big Bang), we would still ask “why X?”. So the whole thing works like this: we try to answer one concept with another, but the answer begs for further questions. So on and so forth. Ad infinitum.
Speaking of models, I’ll give you an answer based on the Advaita Vedanta model (as I understand it): Our phenomenological world — the universe — is said to be defined by space, time AND causation. If one can posit an entity that is beyond space, time and causation, then that entity would be timeless, infinitely vast (no edges) and without a previous cause. Uncaused, you might say. The question “why” can be considered a causation question.(“Why does the universe exist?” is the same as “what caused the universe?”) It is unanswerable within the limits of the universe, as you point out, because you keep searching for the first cause, but beyond the universe, the question is irrelevant. It is “not even wrong,” as Wolfgang Pauli said.
In the same time, the universe runs fine. No problema. So I suspect that it is our way of asking the questions, and more deeply, our way of comprehension that puts us into this intractable dilemma. More specifically, we try to extrapolate our dualistic thinking of understanding the (artificially conceptualized) parts of universe, which proved to be somewhat successfully in terms of providing us with utilitarian values, to the understanding of the entirety of the universe. When there is only the whole, and no other “parts”, how do you understand it? Our dualistic minds have no idea.
Yes, in this universe, we cannot understand, nor can we adequately describe what we are trying to understand. The limits of language are the limits of our world. To live in the world of objects and time and space, we don’t need to understand anything more than physical laws. In fact, we don’t need much more than Newton’s classical mechanics to get along “no problema.” We don’t need to know about sub-atomic phenomena to build a building. (But to build a GPS system, we do need relativity)
So are we condemned by our human condition and trapped forever like ants on a basketball? I think in one way this has to be true, if we stick to dualistic understanding. On the other hand, numerous sages in history claimed that although the absolute cannot be understood, it can be experienced. And this experience is, as your words in the ending paragraph in your essay, “indescribable, inscrutable”, thus defies any dualistic understanding.
Clearly we need to be in an altered state — samadhi, satori, nirvana — to experience unity. Various people have claimed veridical experiences of such states and such understanding. We’re indeed trapped unless we find a way to these states. Our sensory bandwidth and our conceptual capabilities — steeped in the habits of time, space, causation — are incapable of apprehending. We have to reach a no-mind state. There are various practices prescribed for that. My preference is to use the mind to suspend the mind, somewhat like a pole vaulter’s pole that propels the jumper, but is dropped before the high beam is cleared. Don’t know if it will work or not, but fun trying.
However it’s not “indifferent” but full of love. I would take that as a definition of God.
Well, ok. If you define love as the blissful experience of unity (non-duality), then yes. Beyond that, I have not settled on another definition of love.
