The līlā of communication and consciousness. Thinking with Ramchandra Gandhi's philosophy of non-dualism

0573048 - OÚ 2024 eng A - Abstract
Madaio, James
The līlā of communication and consciousness. Thinking with Ramchandra Gandhi's philosophy of non-dualism.
[Bangalore, 23.04.2023]
Method of presentation: Zvaná přednáška
Event organizer: National Institute of Advanced Studies
Institutional support: RVO:68378009
Keywords : non-dualism * consciousness * Ramchandra Gandhi
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
https://www.nias.res.in/Events/events-details-info/Past%20Events/The%20l%C4%ABl%C4%81%20of%20communication%20and%20consciousness:%C2%A0Thinking%20with%20Ramchandra%20Gandhi%E2%80%99s%20philosophy%20of%20non-dualism%C2%A0/3509

This paper explores how the philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi (1937-2007) approaches plurality and ‘the other’ from an advaita-informed philosophical hermeneutics. Broadly, it argues that otherness and plurality provide, for RCG, the necessary condition for awakening, and it explores how the multiplicity of the world, the many appearances (or ‘images’) that constitute phenomenality, are understood as an ecstatic expression of the creativity of consciousness. In the first section of the paper, I explore how RCG understands communication as an ‘everyday sādhanā’, which potentially leads to self-consciousness and, ultimately, to the understanding that addresser and addressee are fundamentally non-different. Given RCG’s positioning of the notion of ātman at the crux of not only his philosophy, but as the ‘chief resource for dealing with inter-religious conflict’, the second part of the paper reconstructs his distinctive understanding of self/consciousness. In doing so, his approach is discussed in relation to both Advaita Vedānta and Śaiva non-dualism, and I consider his view of the ceaseless self-imaging of consciousness in relation to resonate positions in the Tripurārahasya. The paper closes by drawing out the practical and ethical implications of his non-dual philosophy, addressing how he understands his non-dual position in relation to asymmetrical power, hegemony, and diversity.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0343575