Consciousness as self-revealing play in the Advaita of Ramchandra Gandhi

0577968 - OÚ 2024 eng A - Abstract
Madaio, James
Consciousness as self-revealing play in the Advaita of Ramchandra Gandhi.
[Global Philosophy Research Interest Group. University of Toronto, 20.10.2023]
Method of presentation: Přednáška
Event organizer: University of Toronto (Prof. Elisa Freschi)
URL events: https://philosophy.utoronto.ca/event/global-philosophy-research-interest-group-talk-james-madaio-czech-academy-of-sciences/ 
Institutional support: RVO:68378009
Keywords : Ramchandra Gandhi * non-dualism * consciousness * Advaita
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

This paper explores how the philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi (1937-2007) approaches plurality and ‘the other’ from an Advaita-informed philosophical hermeneutics. Broadly, I argue that R. Gandhi’s understanding of the līlā (or play) of communicative relationality parallels his understanding of the līlā of consciousness, which playfully becomes an alterity to itself in order to ‘play the great game’ of seeming self-discovery. More specifically, in the first section of the paper, I explore how R. Gandhi understands communication as an ‘everyday sādhanā’ (or spiritual discipline), which potentially leads to self-awareness and, ultimately, to the understanding that addresser and addressee are fundamentally non-different. The second part of the paper reconstructs R. Gandhi’s distinctive understanding of universal self/consciousness. In doing so, his approach is discussed in relation to both Advaita Vedānta and Śaiva non-dualism. The paper closes by drawing out broader practical and ethical implications of what I call his post sampradāyic (or post scholastic, lineage-based) Advaita.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0347043