Non-Duality and Morality

Originally posted by apushforenlightment

Originally posted by TheJourney
Someone who subscribes to non-duality accepts everything, including what we call evil...

though one who truly understands it would not tend in that direction...but you couldn't reject that in a true non-dualistic framework

Someone who subscribe to the nondual aproach belives 100% in the golden rule since hurting someone else is hurting you but that do not mean you cannot be a karmawall.

A nondual person do not have to accept any behavior from other people just because they are part of or will be part of the same whole.

edit on 11-10-2012 by apushforenlightment because: spellchecking

If there exists 'good' and 'bad'...

that is duality

If you condemn, you are acting out of a dualistic approach...

If you understand non-duality, you see all things as one, so you view everyone as like yourself, which could promote altruism, but it's not the non-duality itself that promotes altruism, rather the knowledge of non-duality.

reply to post by filosophia

but it's not the non-duality itself that promotes altruism, rather the knowledge of non-duality.

You don't see a logical contradiction in that statement??

Non-duality cannot imply one thing over another. Your insistence that knowledge of non-duality promotes altruism is predicated in a assumption which isn't based in anything more than your arbitrary opinion.

Again, and as I have emphasized, the concept of non-duality is central to nietzsche philosophy and an underpinning to much of his ethical brooding. Ananda Coomaraswamy was an Indian scholar of hinduism and a proponent of 'perennialism', he as well propounded a philosophy in sympathy with Nietzsches ubermencsch.

The point is this. What is the relationship between nonduality and action? Nonduality and action are mutually exclusive ideas, as one is merely a perception of the loss of subject/object, and so even the idea of unity implies some rudiment of duality, while the latter occurs within the sphere of duality.

Thus, in the end, a persons 'essential nature' determines his conduct in life. If he is naturally drawn to an emotional appreciation of the unity between all parts, this will be his unique experience of 'nonduality'; however, other approaches exist, because other types of individuals exist. Nonduality is a reality beyond the moral, as Nietzsche observed, beyond good and evil. Therefore, instead of identifying the essential unity of all things in a loving embrace, and so emphasizing the role of love in the perception of nonduality, followers of Nietzsche, Coomaraswamy, William Blake, Laveyan Satanism, or even in Sunni Islam, will choose to emphasize WILL, the attribute which precedes all differentiation and transcends all cognition.

One could well argue that Will, and Power, is more intrinsic to the world of nonduality than love, since love always implies some submission of the self, and therefore freedom, to another, whereas will fully expresses the freedom inherent in the concept of nondualism.

So you see, there is no agreement. Some emphasize love, other's, will. And both are right from the viewpoint of non-duality.

In short, the idea that peace would result from a society which sees things in the terms of non duality is grossly wrong, as Hinduism shows us. In the Hindu hierarchical society, theres a special place for each 'class' of people; and each class necessarily lives according to their essential nature. Thus, the priestly class inclines to a full perception of nonduality, the lesser class is very philosophical, but being statesman and nobles, they have the real world to deal with, which in turn exposes them to a different, less convivial appraisal of how nonduality works i.e. in terms of power. Then you go lower and nonduality assumes a different form, in worship of nature gods, spirits, etc.

Nonduality is certainly good. It is thoroughly libertarian, socialistic, statist, anarchist etc. Since it necessarily conflicts with a world of forms and difference, people must choose some direction, and not all choose the same.

Duality or non Duality. Thats two options. In this mutliverse are there more options. Black, white, grey. I want the colours of the rainbow. A rainbow morality.

Originally posted by dutchmilpo
reply to post by Sly1one

 

I only partly agree, but completely disagree with Your final statement that there is no duality.

Neutrality -as in "non-duality'(!), basically, is self-destructive. It only exists by grace of duality. The whole good/bad/neutral discussion is self-immolating by nature. (oh my.. here we go.. Metaphysics and Wittgensteinian semantics..brrr..

) Depending on one's school of thinking, neutrality as such is a state abóve, or a state inbetween. Yet, that "state of existence" is due to the real good/bad dichotomy.

It gets even worse if cultural preconceptions about good/bad enter the fray.

It's the dreaded "foundation" discours.Hów far do we descent into Krypke semantics, or other math-mased semantics and logic?

Correct me if I am wrong, please, do.

edit on 11/10/12 by dutchmilpo because: (no reason given)

sorry it took so long for me to reply to this...
in anything that is a combination of two things(good, evil etc)...you have to account for and acknowledge the neutral outside perspective that is created by seeing each of those sides....without objectivity and viewing them without the bias of each of their contrasting perspectives....take a step outside of the machine to see the machine in a way...

duality ONLY accounts for two concepts...you can limit the perspective to a duality if you like but as I said you have to intentionally ignore the 3rd perspective to do so...

lets take yin-yang for example...its not really a duality because you have yin one part of the machine...and you have yang the other part of the machine...and you have yin+yang which is the whole machine which can only be seen from outside the opposing perspectives.

at least that's how it all makes sense to me...

reply to post by Sly1one


Ah, I see.
Yes, I thìnk I understand Your point:"Duality requires an neutral 3rd" to observe, said, duality, thusly creating an hiërarchical ehrmm.. "triad". with a non-duality-motivated 3rd party. Makes sense...in an odd way.
But I dó think it's one step too far to see that "non-duality"as a motivator for true morality, benevolence and charitability. That's júst a step too far.

Maybe duality is just a step in the right direction, but I concur that there are more perspectives, éven some amalgamates (yin/yang, one of the most sensible approaches imho), depending on the subject, where a duality-approach lies at the foundations.

Still, duality, or tri-ality ( ) negates non-duality. For the neutral, pseudo, non-duality observer, there is stíll duality.

The whole concept of a non-duality motivated entity seems a paradox to me.

Buut, having said that, my professor in classic logic once, very eloquently, described the classic conundrum how 2 x 2 can be 5 which is about as paradoxal, logical, but not intuítively logical as it gets.