S5E4 What is liberation?
This episode begins the conversation about the nature of awakening. The spirit of the discussion precedes in a way that hopes to shine light on how we might be confused about the subject itself. Without trying to define enlightenment in a propositional way, we look rather at what kind of transformation it is, and investigate the idea that Awakening is a qualitative transformation such that our deepest layer of values and desires is altered. What does it mean to value something? Can we simply decide to value things that currently do not? What is the nature of the agency that we display as we aim toward liberation and act?
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Edited Transcript
Welcome everyone.
In the last several discussions, we've been building on the idea that human beings have an essential nature that expresses itself as a blissful, joyfulness moving in the world in a particular way to try and make sense of it. We have called this orientation toward sense making blessing. This in turn means that we learn most primordially through direct contact and conformity with the world, and that this conformity or well fittedness is also bestowing and simultaneously receiving the value of sacredness. So in another way, we are the liturgical animal that worships as a means of making sense of the world.
In another way, our sense making is a form of yoga: meaning is realized as harmonious Union, or communion. We know that this union is harmonious when it produces insight or realization. In the language of the yoga tradition, we know we’re in communion when wisdom and liberation, or enlightenment are realizable potentials.
Now, one of the things that has come up in our discussions before is that because we are the embodied, liturgical animal driven by love, we have two primary sets of needs: having and being. Having needs speak for themselves: we must have certain material and social goods in order to be stable in life: we need food and water, shelter so that we can be safe, good quality relations, and even a certain social status in those relations, as in we feel that we are needed and trusted.
We also have being-needs, and these are not satisfied by having things. Rather, they're fulfilled by becoming something noble and wise. This helps us drill down into the meaning of enlightenment: as creatures with the need to become, we are self transcending; we can rise above foolishness and break free from delusions. This is something that the yoga tradition takes for granted. In this sense, yoga is the discipline of self transcendence, or enlightenment, and it assumes that developing wisdom and awakening from ignorance is the fundamental goal in life - not just for ascetics, but also for ordinary human beings. So we have to have a discussion about awakening or enlightenment.
Enlightenment: Hazards and Necessity of the Discussion
Now when this topic of enlightenment comes up, one is immediately faced with a unique kind of problem, which makes me think of something that my teacher said several times: “there's nothing sillier than people who are not enlightened sitting around talking about what it's going to be like when they’re enlightened.” And since I'm not enlightened, I am at risk of being silly here, depending on how we approach the topic. But approach we must, because ultimately we’re talking about Yoga.
In this vein, here's something from another of my favorite teachers, Marianna Kaplan, from her book
Halfway Up the Mountain: The Dangers of Premature Claims to Enlightenment: “the main hazard in trying to define enlightenment is that we just add one more idea to the storehouse of concepts about what it, in fact, is. But the principal benefit of attempting to define it is that since enlightenment does exist in the world as a concept, and we don't really have a replacement for that concept as of yet, it's better to clarify it and broaden our perspective about it, rather than leave it in its decrepit state.”
So it's more beneficial to understand how confused we might be about enlightenment, and attempt to clarify our uncertainty, rather than to avoid the situation altogether. It doesn't really seem wise to make simple propositional statements about what enlightenment is: propositional statements are about facts, and facts don't require a deep existential transformation of the individual in order that they be understood. Facts are public; they are available to everyone. Understanding a fact doesn't generally take into account one's existential state, or the fact that this might need to be transcended. Therefore, because enlightenment is some sort of profound existential transformation, it can’t be a fact that is the same for everyone. So I just want to start a discussion to see if we can mark out ways to reason about awakening, or to inquire into its nature - its qualities - and specifically look into what kind of transformation might be involved in this unique event.
Enlightenment: A Transformational Experience
We need to hone in on this idea that understanding enlightenment requires a deep, existential transformation. In this light, we can classify it initially as an authentic transformational experience, something that can't be truly and fully understood until we've gone through it. If we offer an analogy: as a transformational experience, enlightenment is a little bit like motherhood: you can’t know much about motherhood until it happens to you and you are transformed as a result of that; and, when it happens, you can't go back; you'll always be the one who became a mother.
So let’s start with this idea: enlightenment is a transformational experience that needs to be gone through in order to fully understand it. There is a very interesting philosopher named Dr Laurie A. Paul at the University of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who writes about transformative experience. She says, “an experience is transformative if it changes you enough to substantially alter your point of view, thus substantially revising your core preferences, or revising how you experience yourself.” There are several things here: profound transformation of point of view, desire or core preference, all of which are most likely aspects of transformation at the level of identity - a radical revision of how we experience being ourselves.
Now, leaving aside for now the issue of how these experiences might happen - suddenly, or as a result of a long process, or both in some strange way - the change that follows enlightenment is radical. It signals a transformation in kind, rather than degree; one becomes a different kind of thing than before the event. Rather than simply being a greater or lesser expression of what you already were, you are made new. Suffice it to say - this kind of transformation surpasses mere psychological modification. We should also add that in contemplative contexts such as yoga, transformation of this kind is assumed to culminate in moral development in a positive direction, and that means a deeper realization and expression of goodness.
Quantitative and Qualitative Change
Now let's drill down into the nature of the transformative experience by contrasting different kinds of changes that are inherent in human life, of which there are two big categories: one is quantitative, and one is qualitative.
In quantitative change, one obtains more of something, or loses a certain quantity of something. One remains essentially the same throughout. This level of change dovetails with our having needs: one obtains more material, information, or skill - as in becoming better at something one hopes to do, or something one can already do, but one does not transform at the existential level. Increase or decrease at the level of having is fueled by actualizing pre-existing value or desire, or failing to do so. SUccess or failure in this realm is not about acquiring a new value. For instance, desiring more money is not the same as trying to learn the value of money, one assumes one knows the value. Likewise, desiring more skill in any given area is the same: one assumes knowledge of the value of the skill in question and either succeeds or fails in the endeavor.
Qualitative change is different. We could also call it value acquisition, and in that sense, it can be thought of as appreciation. Appreciation is a fascinating word, and very important for our discussion. On the one hand, qualitative change as appreciation means one acquires value that was not present before the transformation; so one literally becomes more valuable in a certain way. On the other hand, in the event of qualitative transformation, one learns to appreciate/enjoy/value things that formerly were not valued. A simple example: moving from the state of hating something or someone, to a state of actually loving that thing or person. As wild as this sounds, it actually does happen. So when we suggest that enlightenment is a qualitative transformation of this kind: it is an example of value acquisition in this sense, perhaps the most profound example.
Aspirational Agency
Now, because enlightenment is a form of qualitative transformation/value acquisition, and because yoga is a discipline that ultimately aims in that direction, we have to talk about practice (sadhana) and effort (yatna). Consequently, we also have to talk about the nature of that effort, and the agency that wields it. Similar to the task of clarifying the nature of enlightenment, this generates problems too.
Dr. Agnes Callard of the University of Chicago is a contemporary philosopher working in the area of deep transformative events. In this vein, she wrote a very interesting book called Aspiration.
When Callard speaks of the transformational nature of value acquisition, and of how effort is involved in its instantiation, she makes a very important point: “people do not seem to be able to [simply] choose or decide to have different values.” Cherished values like one’s stance on capital punishment, or abortion, are deeply held values that go to the core of what we feel ourselves to be, reflecting our ultimate sense of justice and goodness. At these depths, one can't just decide - “on a whim” so to speak - to feel differently. So, the work of self transcendence of value acquisition doesn’t really involve the same kind of action or agency that we normally embody when “decide” something and get moving. It's different. What kind of action/agency are we talking about?
Dr. Callard also says that behavior qualifies as agency if it exhibits the distinctive intelligibility of being a response to reasons. So agency means I'm responding to something, or doing something for a reason. She quotes Saint Anscombe, who said, “I do what happens, but only when what happens happens for some reason.” So my agency is rational and authentic if I'm doing what I'm doing for a reason.
The agency involved in the work of qualitative transformation is also rational, because it is a response to reasons, but there is a catch: reasons that call us toward qualitative transformation are different than those that call us toward having more or less of something, and therefore we have a special relation with these kinds of reasons that we need to flesh out. Here's what Dr Callard says, “the rationality of the agent I seek to describe changes and indeed solidifies over time as the agent becomes increasingly able to actualize the reasons for action associated with her new values.” So this agency is an agency that we don't have full command of when we are initially moving in the area of transformational experience and this is because the reasons that call us forward are not fully understood. As we begin to actualize the reasons that fuel the actions we're taking, our agency in this particular arena gains substance, becoming more real over time. Callard goes on to say, “the name I will give to this rational process by which we work to care about or Love or value or desire something new is aspiration. Aspiration, as I understand it, is the distinct form of agency directed at the acquisition of values.”
And so when we do something like yoga that aims at qualitative transformation or value acquisition, we are acting rationally on our own behalf, even though we may not be certain about what the reasons that compel us mean, and even though we certainly don't know who we will be, or what values we’ll express, until the transformation itself is complete. Aspiration is a unique kind of intuition that I am doing something very, very important, but also a conscious understanding that we don't fully understand what we’re doing, or that for which we are aiming: we have partial knowledge -and that counts.
Shallow and Deep Levels of Valuing: Ambition and Wandering vs. Aspiring
Now we have a pretty rich vocabulary describing what it means to value something. We can desire it, want it, or love it. We can approve of, be attracted to; we can care about, and see as valuable; we can feel compelled. And so valuing happens at a whole bunch of levels in our being.
Dr. Callard proposes that there are both shallow and deep levels of values in humans. At the shallower level, values are expressed as desires or urges, maybe just fleeing attractions. But at the deep level, values run closer to the heart of who we are. Callard says that these deep values are experienced as intense in that they are correlated with our identity. At the deep level, the things we value feel as though they are who we are; whereas, at the shallow level, values are more transient, just urges and wants. Transformative experience changes us at both of these levels. But true aspiration can only emerge from the deepest strata of value.
To understand this, I think we can look at a couple of instances that compel us to act, but don't qualify as aspiration. The first is ambition: even though they can look similar, an aspiration is not equal to an ambition. Dr Callard gives this example: “a medical student whose final target is money or the approval of her parents or social status would not count as an aspirant in the truest sense. This ambitious medical student is not seeking to acquire a value. Instead she takes herself to have full access, even before entering medical school, to the value of having money, or the value of the approval of her parents, or the value of social status. She doesn't hope that medical school and residency will teach her the value of these things. She hopes they will help her satisfy the values that she already has.”
So ambition is filled with a kind of unselfconscious certainty that disqualifies it as an aspiration, because, as you've seen, part of aspiration means we feel compelled to move in a certain direction because of certain values that we Intuit, but at the same time we don't fully understand what we're shooting for, or who we will be once the values have been realized. Thus, ambition is driven by a kind of agency that's not actively engaged in learning about the values toward which it reaches. It's simply actualizing an existing value, urge or desire that one already has.
This is important, because, as Marianna Kaplan points out, we're often ambitious in relation to enlightenment, but this derails the project from the very beginning: if enlightenment is indeed a transformational experience, we can't really know what it's about until we go through it. So if we’re ambitious with respect to awakening, we’re probably assuming that we understand its significance fully. We’re probably over-identifying it with an existing value or desire that we already have, and this the result of the ego’s attempt to become enlightened, to improve itself, which is ultimately a failed project according to the yoga tradition.
Now, conversely, if one can be too certain about the values one is trying to actualize, the opposite can also happen: one can have too little access to those values, or be totally in the dark in relation to the reasons that motivate action. Callard gives the example of a young adult who sets out on an adventure in Europe to “find herself .” It's unlikely that the work involved in traveling around Europe in the attempt to find oneself - just experiencing a whole bunch of things - counts as aspiration, because the object of the journey is not specific enough. It could be called wandering.
Callard says adventures of this kind are not typically aspirational because they rarely feel like work.
So value acquisition, or qualitative transformation, feels like work: there's some difficulty in it; there's some heat that arises as we proceed. Part of this comes from the fact that we know that we don't fully understand, but we have to act anyway. We have to move toward that vague and powerful force by which we're called, which may entail going things to actualize our emerging values that go directly against our egoic sense, and hence the heat. Callard reiterates: “if we are to get aspirational work in view, we must be prepared to encounter its characteristically tortured and disoriented presentation.”
Aspiring is a form of work, an activity to be engaged in, and not merely an experience to be undergone.
So our European adventurer really has too little access to her motivational values. She's not an aspirant because she's not specific enough about what she wants, so she is not burning subtly, and this means that she can’t really get it wrong, or make a mistake; in turn, this means she won’t really know when she’s getting it right: kind of like shooting at the target blindfolded without caring whether or not she hits it.
So again, when we're aspiring to awaken, we recognize or Intuit enough of our goal to have a sense of being successful and a sense of when we're making mistakes, though that sense may indeed be vague, and there is a certain subtly tortured heat generated from the work.
The Heat of Work: Tapas
Here at the Shala, we see yoga practitioners as rational, responsible agents moving aspirationally toward the value of qualitative transformation, or enlightenment. To do yoga in this context is to truly Aspire, or to labor in love to change oneself in some particular dimension of depth.
In the yoga tradition, this kind of disciplined work and the heat it generates is understood as a sacrifice, and in Sanskrit it’s called Tapas. That word comes from the root tap, which means to burn or glow. Tapas is often translated as the voluntary acceptance of frustration and pain, which emerge from not acquiescing to egoic desires and compulsions automatically. It is the fuel that drives the practice in a unique way: in sincere sadhana, frustration and pain are adjacent to our core motivations; they are present, but do not dominate the terrain because they are accepted voluntarily. So in sincere yoga practice, there is a natural discomfort involved because one is burning, and yet, one stays cool nonetheless, because this same burning also produces the light that guides us in the direction toward which we are called. In this light, we can make corrections; we have a sense of when we’re on course, and when we’re straying from the goal, even though we do not have full knowledge or agency.
Summary
Enlightenment is something like a qualitative transformation, or value acquisition, where we're transformed at the deepest layer of our identity and desires. So when we go through it, it’s as if we become a different kind of person: we don't want the same kinds of things any more, and we understand ourselves and the world differently - though we cannot say exactly how.
There is also an interesting paradox involved in this kind of endeavor: on the one hand, we can't simply choose to change our identity or our deepest values, and on the other, such transformations require effort, so the process of qualitative transformation displays a unique form of rational agency called aspiration, and a sense of work and effort that is often tinged with the heat of frustration. In the yoga tradition, this heat is called tapas, or renunciation, or spiritual discipline.
True aspiration arises from the deepest strata of our values, and the actions that constitute it always have the character of attempts to learn and realize as they unfold.
The yoga tradition is universally in agreement that we're in need of transformational experiences in order to transcend the mundane sense of self, and realize the true nature and purpose of our existence. And there are words given to these kinds of experiences: samadhi, or absorption, is one, and samapti is another to name a few. These experiences lead to enlightenment, which is often called moksha or “freedom”. The jivan mukta is the soul that is free in this life, and is an example of one who has undergone the generally tortured process of value acquisition, or qualitative transformation.
So when we practice yoga, what we're really doing is the aspirational work of fertilizing and growing our capacity for self transcendence, such that our love for what is real is realized in communion at all levels of our being. Thank you so much for participating. God bless everyone, and we'll see you next time.
