Saccidânanda vs christian trinity

[Anonymous No.18309410]

We had an hindu thread earlier where the idea that the two are the same were posted. I was banned in another thread so I couldn't answer to some anon defending it. Hence I create this thread in order to clarify this confusion.

If you read about this subject in the hindu or christian tradition you are welcome to help us find the truth. And if you know where traditional autorities talk about this too.

You could also know about the litterature in india or somewhere else talking about that.
Brahmabandhav Upadhyay, in favor of this confusion because he was a "catholic hindu" was quoted in the previous thread ; do you think Rabidranath Tagore held the same opinion about the christian trinity ? Do you know if he talks about that ? Apart from these suspect movements of interreligious confusion (Brahmoism in this case) do you think traditional hindus talk about that and refute (or eventually accept) it ?

Link of the thread : >>18277938

My original post
>>18282800
The idea wast that the Trinity has a logic of dependance, or causality, of one person to another, but not Saccidananda. That's one of the main difference.

Back to answering the anon :
>>18289873
>For there to be bliss (ananda) there must be consciousness (cit), for there to be consciousness (cit) there must be being in the first place (sat).
>The two are the same

How you can say it means a lot :
>to be bliss (ananda)
>to be
That means bliss must be in order, well, to be. That means bliss is an existence in itself.
But you still try artificially to distinguish it from being.
Hence if you can't distinguish, you can't put any causality (or procession) between the two.
In fact, Blissfullness is Being, and Consciousness is Being. Being is conscious by definition ("enjoyement of being"), or else it would be ignorance and it would be void.
So there is no reason to distinguish between three different ways of naming the same essence because by definition they can't be caused by one another. The causality, in the christian trinity is based on the "levels of participation" of the same essence (I will quote some fathers of the Church latter).

[Anonymous No.18309422]

For now let's see the opinion of the advaita vedanta :
>Taittirîya Upanishad (II, i, 1), "Satyam jñânam-anantam brahma", "Brahman is reality, consciousness and infinity"
Does this triad talk about the Trinity too ? Does that mean the Spirit, third term of the triad, is infinity and not the others ? Or that the others cause the infinity of the third ?
According to Shankara's commentary of this verse, these three words are in apposition with Brahman, not in a relation of mutual dependency (and I don't think he have heard about the christian trinity, so he said that spontaneously, without christianity in mind). Good luck to find a source saying otherwise.
The composite saccidânanda doesn't even suggest any dependency.
In the same way, if anantam is remplaced by ananda, bliss, can we say a part of God is not blissfull, and even a person ? Can we say God activate his blissfulness, causes it ? (because the Spirit, that some want to identify with ananda is said to proceed from the father, and not is inherent or implied by Him (and if you are papist from the Son too).

Now there is two way to dissect it logically as there are two traditions : the christianity and of the sanatana dharma. Their respective logic being falsified in different ways by this false assimilation.

First the christian logic doesn't compute with this blasphemy (indeed it is) :
The Son has never been said to be the consciousness of the Father (supposedly sat, being), but his Image. In the first case that would mean logically that the Father has no consciousness or that the Son has no Being in himself (Being (Sat) and Consciousness (Cit) being distinguished), or that the Spirit has neither Being nor Consciousness in Himself but that he is only blissfulness and that he rely on the Son or the Father for this. If they have the attribute of the others, then they are not different from the others (bliss, being a being, is no different from Being iself). The fact the Son is the Image of the Father means he has the same infinite being and is a replication of the being of the father (he is no inherent of the Father since it would mean he is just the Father explained). In other word we can't suppose it appart from being, since he has it. So He is not the consciousness of the Being, he is being out of being, light out of the light,... "consubstantial with the Father", out of the creed, means He has a being, distinct from the Father so we can say it's the same Being.

[Anonymous No.18309432]

Second the hindu logic is hurted :
Brahman is immutable. In fact that's what the sanskrit word "Satyam" means, and since everything changing is doomed to disappear, Advaita vedanta says it's unreal. That's why this word is translated as "reality". So even this adds a difficulty, because we now have "immutability, consciousness, bliss". Brahman's nature being immutable, he doesn't have a qualification of His nature that comes from another : that is, consciousness doesn't come from immutability. His nature is immutable and is never dependant upon another aspect of His nature. In other words, God doesn't have to act (pure actuality doesn't mean acting, you seem to twist the Aristotelian logic, it just means pure being, and in the case of God, it doesn't need actualization, or it would mean it is not God but a changing being, progressing in himself towards blissfulness).
There is no distinction between knower and knowledge in Brahman, as vedanta says. God doesn't have to know Himself, He Is knowledge and the Self, he doesn't emanate or activate his consciousness, he is this as well as pure being. Any distinction is just verbal and can't be a real causality (Engendering of the Son, or processing of the Spirit).
Not to add pure being without consciousness is Prakriti, maya, absolute ignorance. But that is a complicated notion of Vedanta. Just remember Brahman is by definition conscious of himself, or else it would mean He is Prakriti, ignorance, nihil or non-being.

The western papist understanding of the Trinity (knower, known, knowing), that imposed itself to India through catholic elements such as Upadhya (who latter reconciled with Hinduism two month before his death) doesn't make sense at all. God doesn't have to construct Himself, or to act, he is not composed. There exist no unconscious and logical moment when God was not conscious and had to become it. To be, means to be conscious of what you are, to be is knowledge of existence, and blissfullness is being. So there can't be knowledge aside from the one who knows in God. There can be no act in God, He can't take knowledge of himself because by being, he knows himself. Being is knowledge and knowledge is being.
On can't argue it's just a verbal distinction, because Trinity is not just verbal and if it were just verbal then it would be simply appositions to Brahman and not three "modes" dependant on each other.

The separation, in God, of the subject who knows and the object known, by the western christianity, is the creation of that which breaks consciousness or knowledge and Being and consequently stops the knowledge by identification of the being deer to Guenon, central for the loss of Gnosis.
If you understood what I said previously, you would have a sense of it.
This comes from the filioque and the new triadology attached to it.

[Anonymous No.18309436]

The papist blasphemy goes so far as to separate being and knowledge, to think God as to act to experience blissfullness, he IS blissfullness, since he is Being, since he is Conciousness. He doesn't need to take consciousness of himself....

>TL ; Dr : the christian Trinity is not the same as Saccidânanda because Being, Consciousness and Blissfulness are the same, can't be distinguished and thus can't be caused by each other.

[Anonymous No.18309446]

Why is it that people outside of any tradition get it, christian mystics get it, buddhists get it, the sufis get it, taoists get it, hindus get it, everybody gets it except devout christians and reddit atheists get it?

[Anonymous No.18309517]

>>18309410
>That means bliss must be in order, well, to be. That means bliss is an existence in itself.
>But you still try artificially to distinguish it from being.
it is. there is no argument for this, it is prior to logic, but this is how it is.

[Anonymous No.18309522]

>>18309446
In fact you can find exclusivism everywhere, but indeed, christian insisting the most on devotion, they really can't detach there thinking from Christ.
Atheist of just a product of papism and protestantism

[Anonymous No.18309527]

>>18309410
consciousness is at the least neither being nor non-being, if it isn't even in fact
>"Brahman is reality, consciousness and infinity" Does this triad talk about the Trinity too ?
no.

[Anonymous No.18309556]

>>18309517
>it is prior to logic
It is not, it's just a distinction between two words. But in fact, it is synonyms. The same if said God is pure Good and pure Being.

>>18309527
>consciousness is at the least neither being nor non-being, if it isn't even in fact
What do you mean ?

>no
Of course not, nor other triads constructed from this one

[Anonymous No.18309620]

>>18309556
actually I think I messed up and mixed two things up. by "bliss" do you mean the bliss of self-knowledge? Because this, it seems, has to be somehow conscious. What I thought you meant is the motivation for creation in the first place, the original, unspeakbly good pre-eternal cause. consciousness is not and can not be conscious of this cause, as far as I gather. It is not an object for knowledge, except maybe as a manifestation, some form of derivative. what consciousness is conscious of I understand to be "being".

[Anonymous No.18309631]

>>18309620
I suppose one could consider being to be a quality of consciousness itself, it seems more or less semantically valid even though nothing really can be said of it

[Anonymous No.18309640]

>>18309620
>the original, unspeakbly good pre-eternal cause
therefore also the organizing principle of the same

[Anonymous No.18309711]

>>18309620
Yes I mean Blissfulness of God Himself, his own nature.
I didn't mean the motivation for creation, that indeed can't be conscious, since from the advaita vedanta point of view it's ignorance (Prakriti), ignorance being unconsciousness itself.
Consciousness, or enjoyment of pure being, is the nature of Good. So consciousness can't be other than Being.

>>18309631
consciousness is knowing being. To know something is to assimilate it in yourself. Being is by definition, empirically, to know what you are. If you are pure being (in the case of God), you are conscious of everything that is and can be. Hence Being is Consciousness and Consciousness is Being.

[Anonymous No.18309828]

>>18309711
I'm being a self-important fag anon, I apologize. Good luck with your thread, I am also very curious to see what it could yield.

[Anonymous No.18309946]

>>18309828
No problem anon and thank you !

[Anonymous No.18311017]

bump

[Anonymous No.18311690]

I’ll give you a bump

[Anonymous No.18312050]

>>18311017
>>18311690
Thanks anon, anyway seems not a lot of people are interested finally. Even if a lot liked the idea in the other thread and defended it.

[Anonymous No.18312056]

>>18312050
*anons

[Anonymous No.18312059]

The sloppy metaphysics of advaita has been refuted many times. It's not a good look to plagiarize Buddhism and think you refuted it.

If you apply the principles of advaita consistently you should be shitting where you eat.

[Anonymous No.18312071]

>>18312059
>The sloppy metaphysics of advaita has been refuted many times.
It has never been refuted once, Shankara himself though decisively refuted Buddhism and the Buddhists have never had the intelligence to respond to his arguments

[Anonymous No.18312110]

why dont you just get a blog? its pretty clear you dont actually care about having any kind of discussion or discourse, i mean for fuck's sake you've been doing this for literal years and still havent cracked open the mmk. this would save us the trouble of having to deal with you spamming the board, and free you from the character limitation of 4chan posts.

[Anonymous No.18312132]

>>18312059
>The sloppy metaphysics of advaita has been refuted many times
How and where ? Why do you think it's sloppy ?

>If you apply the principles of advaita consistently you should be shitting where you eat.
Why would you do that ? And advaita vedanta recognize the relative.

>>18312110
I'm not the one people call "guenonfag". I suppose if you knew him well you could have made the difference.

[Anonymous No.18312148]

>>18312132
seen the difference*

[Anonymous No.18312209]

>>18309410

[Anonymous No.18312236]

>>18312110
>noooo! please stop refuting the school of sophistic nihilism known as (((buddhism))), I cant stand the thought that something might actually exist for real!?!?

[Anonymous No.18312238]

>>18309410
>That means bliss must be in order, well, to be. That means bliss is an existence in itself.
Sophism. With the same logic, we can say that everything that "is X" is reducible to being. "There is a cat, lol there is so being is cat".

If there is bliss, it is indeed that there is a certain quality (bliss). There is thus a difference between the existence (there is) and the essence (bliss) of this thing.

In God, there is no difference between essence and existence: he is ipsum esse. But he has internal relations that do not limit him in any way.

For there to be bliss, there must be a consciousness that perceives it. And it is necessary that this consciousness is.

From the being, logically follows the logos, from these two follows the bliss.

The whole in a single act, simple and unique, of God: but three distinct relations.

Besides, any signaling can be only trine.

[Anonymous No.18312259]

>>18312209
>About the Parabrahman saying, His eternal self-comprehension or word is to be conceived as identical with the divine nature and still as distinct from the Supreme Being in as far as He, by comprehending Himself generates His word. God, knowing Himself by producing or generating His own image and word, is called Father; and God as known by Himself by this inward generation of the word is called the Word or the Son.47

>The fourth stanza, Upadhyay dedicates, to the Holy Spirit, who is Ānanda or bliss. By the very way he begins the stanza it becomes clear that he is thinking of Ānanda as not just an emotion or state of rest in the Godhead but as a ‘someone’ (a ‘One’), who in this context is presupposed as a person. He says, “One who proceeds from the union of Sat and Cit, the blessed (breath), intense bliss.”48 Although here, as in the previous two, there is no argument to affirm the personhood of bliss (Holy Spirit), but it has already been solved in Upadhyay’s previous argument where he tries to assert a personal distinction within God yet maintaining God’s unity by supporting it with the understanding of sattva, rajas and tamas as three distinct elements which are found unitedly in prakriti.49

>For Upadhyay it was very clear that the Trinity – saccidānanda exhibited “the very nature of God as one essence possessed undividedly by Three Persons.”50

[Anonymous No.18312269]

>christo-vedic synergism

[Anonymous No.18312285]

>>18312238
>From the being, logically follows the logos
how
not really sure what is meant by the logos desu, a lot clearer on the other terms

[Anonymous No.18312290]

The subject Brahman knows itself as the object Brahman, and thus generates a second term, both identical and different: the Word, the Son.

From these two terms, internal relations of the simple and unique God, love is born: the bliss, ananda.

All understanding is necessarily triune. Without it, Brahman would not know itself, and would be blind, or cold.

[Anonymous No.18312304]

>>18312285
>23The scholastic (Thomistic) epistemology in short (which is also Aristotelian in origin), is that ‘the knower becomes one with the object that he knows. Thus the knower becomes the known.’ This depends upon the theory that like is known by like, simile simili cognoscitur. (ST Ia. 84, 2 responsio). Here Aquinas quotes Aristotle, De Anima I, 2. 404b17. Aquinas also holds the Aristotelian idea of the intellect which is understood as a writing tablet on which nothing is written. (ST Ia. 84, 3, sed contra). Thus it is always in potency and its knowing anything is always in act in the sense that it comes to know the essence of the object by having the form of the object impressed upon it (which is immaterial). The final act of knowing is the word (verbum mentis) which contains the definition of the object known (which in turn contains the explanation of the essence of the object). For a detailed explanation of what I have said above see Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. II (London: Burns & Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1950), pp. 388-398. In God the object of His knowledge is He Himself, which gives rise to the Word (which proceeds as subsisting in the same nature unlike in human beings), and in this knowing He gets the greatest pleasure which is signified as love by Aquinas. So the Father is the principle without principle, Son being the Word that is generated (Generation within the Godhead is eternal) from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the love that flows from the Father and Son. ST Ia, qq. 33-37.

[Anonymous No.18312321]

>>18312285
God knows himself. Being infinite and perfect, his knowledge of himself is infinite and perfect: totally in his image: God. This knowledge is the Word, or the Son. It is a product, both identical and different. From this knowledge, God loves himself because he is Perfect: this is the third term. This trinity is an internal relationship from all eternity.

[Anonymous No.18312352]

>>18312321
Of course, you need the revelation of the risen Jesus to know that these three terms are personal. Without revelation, reason can only arrive at this impersonal inner trinity within God: this is the Hindu satcitananda, or what Aristotle speaks of. But reason can take one that far.

[Anonymous No.18312367]

>>18312290
>The subject Brahman knows itself as the object Brahman
Advaita denies that Brahman knows Itself as an object, if that were so He would not be non-dual anymore because there would be a division of subject and object. Advaita says that the Atman can never be known as an object, and they dont make an exception here for Brahman. The Atman-Brahman’s uninterrupted self-revealing of His own luminous presence to Himself is immediate, intuitive and transcendental/prior to the distinction of subject-and-object. There is no contrast of “I and that” or “subject and object” or “observer and observed” in non-duality. Brahman is not eternally knowing Himself as an object, He is undivided spotless awareness that has no notion of otherness.
> Without it, Brahman would not know itself, and would be blind, or cold.
why?

[Anonymous No.18312380]

>>18312321
this implies a predisposition on the part of God

[Anonymous No.18312387]

>>18312304
in my own experience I doubt that the joy of knowing the knower is the same as the love that is manifest in creation. could be, but I doubt it.

[Anonymous No.18312391]

>>18312352
Moreover, God, who is being itself, is therefore also consciousness and bliss (ipsum esse). The atman of the Hindus is the primordial esse that every existing receives from the only real Being (wahdat al wujud): http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/Public/articles/A_Thomist_Approach_to_the_Vedanta-by_Bernard_Kelly.aspx
>In order to realize that primordial Being as the Self it is necessary to turn away from accidental determination and from every particular intellection of the mind—to what? Maritain appears to be on the right lines when he suggests that the Hindu approach to God is by way of recession into the substantial esse of the soul. For that would satisfy the turning away from particular actualizations to a central abiding "act." In the nature of the case I do not think this suggestion goes or can go far enough. It is Thomists with the boldness and padadox of Eckhart who could set these lines in a dimension in which they really arrive where Indian metaphysics are situated. Nevertheless we may note a possibility of transcendence in the very immediacy of God's presence imparting being—esse---to the soul.
>
>Although the images in the passage I have quoted suggest to us a recession into the material principle, there is in the Indian doctrine no transcending of the individual ego by way of passivity: rather by way of act. Not however, act in the sense of action: and not (and this goes a good deal deeper) by way of act understood by the direct analogy of action. None better than the Hindu understands the passivity which is at the heart of action as such. It is by way of esse in actu primo that the supreme Principle in the Upanishad I have quoted is to be approached. That supreme reality transcends distinction.
>
>Pure and self-subsistent Being—esse in the illimitable and absolute sense in which it is applied by St. Thomas to the Divine Essence—transcends distinction, as we know, in that each divine perfection, known to us analogously by the distinct perfections of creatures is, in God, nothing else than the Divine Essence. But with regard to the transcendence of distinction there is this consideration too: difference between things is relative to their being components, if you like, of the same world. Without a common ground in which they participate things cannot be said to differ. All things are intrinsically related to God, but God is not related to his creation. If God then is said to be distinct from the creature this distinction is of another order than any distinction of creatures among themselves. To content oneself with expressions which are admittedly little more than babbling, God's transcendence is infinitely more than any difference and because it is infinitely more it is also in some sense infinitely less.
>
>The creature is distinct from God, yes. But God is not another.

[Anonymous No.18312399]

>>18312387
>in my own experience
You are not the perfect God
His knowing is perfect too

>>18312367
>Advaita denies that Brahman knows Itself as an object, if that were so He would not be non-dual anymore because there would be a division of subject and object.
Does Brahman know itself? If not, he is ignorant.

[Anonymous No.18312419]

I was gonna write a post that I thought none of yo uwould be able to answer meaningfully and then feel smug about it, but then I remembered that it is a teaching in Islam that the height of intellect is not pondering the nature of God so I should probably just fock off and stop being such a pseud desu

[Anonymous No.18312426]

>>18312399
>You are not the perfect God
I am the knower. As are you, and you are me. This is the fact as far as I gather.

[Anonymous No.18312435]

>>18312399
> Does Brahman know itself? If not, he is ignorant
Brahman does not know anything as an object because the subject-object distinction involves duality which inheres in the intellect of living beings but Brahman in his immutability is without mind and intellect, Brahman is pure self-revealing knowledge/awareness. Knowledge or awareness doesn’t need need another knowledge to know it but the first is sufficient, and the lack of a second one doesn’t make the first blind.

[Anonymous No.18312447]

>>18312238
First, thank you for your post.

>With the same logic, we can say that everything that "is X" is reducible to being. "There is a cat, lol there is so being is cat"

The cat is a part of existence (he is a being), not pure Being since he is limited. You can distinguish him from pure Being (ultimate Good, God). But in the case of the Trinity that some imagine, the pure blissfulness (not limited by definition, and also because it is assimilated to the Holy Spirit), can't be distinguished in the same manner. And bliss being "part of" the being, as anything that "is", it can't be distinguished from pure being, since it isn't limited in it's being like the cat.

>But he has internal relations that do not limit him in any way.
Their supposed relations, different from the traditional Trinity, imply the being is aside from consciousness and from bliss, as they are distinct. If they are not distinct, there is no possible relation.

>The whole in a single act, simple and unique, of God: but three distinct relations
If you can't distinguish a glass and a recipe if it is the same thing under different names, there can be no relation since you talk about the same thing.
Also pure actuality is different from an act, God doesn't need to be in relation within himself to consciousness, since he is pure consciousness.

>For there to be bliss, there must be a consciousness that perceives it. And it is necessary that this consciousness is.
This might be true for you, but it isn't for God. In other word you suppose a distinction in God, of bliss, consciousness and being that only apply to imperfect beings. In God these dualities doesn't apply neither the concept of act, that imply a change. God doesn't have to take consciousness, he is consciousness.

Remember I don't reject the traditional understanding of the Trinity. In the traditional one, distinctions are not that of aspects of the essence but of "levels of participation" (i.e. Image of the Father and Image of the Image).

[Anonymous No.18312449]

>>18312419
>it is a teaching in Islam that the height of intellect is not pondering the nature of God
what is then?

[Anonymous No.18312461]

This thread was moved to >>>/his/11191548