by John Wheeler
John Wheeler worked at Ready Systems in Mountain View, California when he posted to soc.religion.eastern in May 1991. A student of Vedantic philosophy under a living teacher in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi, he was one of the group's most sustained voices on the relationship between Advaita Vedanta and Buddhist philosophy.
The post arose from an exchange with another group member, S. Kumar, who had written privately to argue — along Krishnamurti's lines — that conditioning is the root of suffering, that the self and conditioning are identical, and that nirvana is the unconditioned. Wheeler disagreed, and included Kumar's letter with permission. His response develops a different analysis: both Vedanta and Buddhism hold not that the mind must be unconditioned but that the ego does not exist — and that the freedom we seek was never lost.
The phrase "Dharma disease" at the close — Wheeler's attribution of it to the Buddha — is his characterization of the mistaken view that quieting or reconditioning the mind is the path to liberation.
S. Kumar had written:
When I say that my thinking is conditioned it really means that it is based on memory. This memory may be a personal experience or an idea read or heard. So thought of any kind is conditioned — meaning that its origin lies in memory. Also the self is conditioning; they are identical, not that self is conditioned as a chair is brown. So the aim of life is — as defined in various Indian philosophies — the breaking of this conditioning or the conditioned chain of existence as put by the Buddha, the twelvefold chain of conditioned existence. Nirvana or Moksha is unconditioned, is beyond thought. From that unconditioned can arise thought which is not based on memory. Almost all Sanskrit slokas talk about the unconditioned which is not bound by time, beyond thought, which cannot be reached by thought. It is all quite simple and concise if one does not use thought to understand it.
Thanks for your response. From the thread of your argument I presume you are a fan of J. Krishnamurti? He was an interesting fellow no doubt, but his description of life, the mind, and how to attain freedom, etc. was actually quite idiosyncratic and considerably different from some of his more illustrious and — if I may say so — more enlightened Indian predecessors.
I might mention Shankara and Buddha as the most notable of the ancients, and as for a contemporary I would propose the greatest and most famous of all gurus of modern India: Sri Ramana Maharshi.
It is quite clear that the Vedantic sages have said with one voice that it is ignorance that is the cause of sorrow, not conditioning. What is the remedy? Self-knowledge — knowledge of the ever-free, ever-blissful atman, or real nature of man.
Krishnamurti's opinion that thought enslaves us, and that we are bound by memory, etc., was a peculiar notion of his. I do not think he had a clear understanding of the true nature of man, and consequently concocted all kinds of wild theories about suffering, conditioning, etc. Also his lifelong emphasis on sorrow, the futility of "this miserable world," etc., show that he was not a man established in the bliss and freedom of enlightenment. If you compare this with the life of Ramana Maharshi, the difference is obvious. Ramana did not ever advocate that beings are bound, limited, conditioned. Quite the reverse. His whole life he constantly stated that we are inherently free, and always have been.
To focus on thought, memory, and quieting the mind as Krishnamurti does just shows that he conceived freedom to be at the level of the mind. Ramana Maharshi would have said, "Leave the mind alone, realize the Self."
As far as Buddha was concerned — and I do not claim to be an expert in Buddhist philosophy — I believe he said that the root of suffering was the concept of a separately existing self or ego entity. My main source of authority for this is the Diamond Sutra where he is quoted as saying:
"No Bodhisattva who is a real Bodhisattva cherishes the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality."
Also a key element of his teaching was that the five skandas — the totality of elements which comprise objective experience — do not constitute an "I" or a self. The realization of this fact, and as a result the relinquishment of all concepts based on the belief in an ego, was — I believe — the "cause" of his awakening. Strange as it may seem, I do not think this conflicts with Vedanta philosophy at all. Vedantic sages also proclaim the non-existence of an ego or separate self. Compare this fragment of dialogue of Ramana Maharshi:
"How do I get free of the ego?" someone asked.
"Find out if it exists. Enquire: what is this ego. You will find that the ego does not exist. That is the best way to 'get free' of the ego."
Vedantic sages say the path to freedom lies through realizing the true self. Buddhist sages say the path to freedom lies in relinquishing the false self. Are they really that different? At the level of direct experience, what seems to be happening in both cases is that freedom, happiness, and joy arise in direct proportion to the degree one relinquishes the allegiance to the belief in an ego.
One final note. You say the holy texts say that reality is unconditioned, beyond thought, timeless. I would agree. But does this mean that in order to realize it you have to "uncondition" thought or still the mind? Can't you see that this is illogical? You are essentially saying that you have to mold the mind into a facsimile of the absolute in order to realize truth. According to the teachings I am familiar with, the mind is only the flow of thoughts, which are in themselves transient, ephemeral, and — from the highest angle — unreal. Why should one have to uncondition that which has no substance in order to find freedom? Could it be that beings only imagine they are in bondage and have been quite free the whole time? Enlightenment would seem to be awakening to this fact.
The idea that the mind enslaves us, and that it must be quietened, controlled, unconditioned, or otherwise modified would seem to be one of the most deleterious notions in the realm of spiritual philosophy. Buddha called the attempts to attain freedom by quieting the mind or manipulating the content of thought a "Dharma disease" — a false understanding of the import of his teachings.
Colophon
Written by John Wheeler ([email protected], Ready Systems, Mountain View, California) and posted to soc.religion.eastern on 15 May 1991. Wheeler was a practitioner of Advaita Vedanta and a student of a teacher in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi. The letter from S. Kumar is reproduced with his permission, as noted by Wheeler in the original post.
Preserved from the UTZOO Usenet Archive (University of Toronto, shiftleft.com mirror) for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].
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