Anthropomorphism of Vedic Philosophy

Re: The Post-human, Evolution and the Avatar by Vladimir on Wed 22 Nov 2006 09:39 PM PST Profile Permanent Link Dear Debashish, your interest and concern about the latest development of language and its metaphysical and linguistic crises generated some thoughts on metaphysics and its approach to knowledge, which i would like to share. It looks to me like a wakeup call. What is striking from the first glance, comparing the Western and Eastern Metaphysics, especially Vedic, is that they considerably differ in their approach to knowledge. If Western metaphysics from Plato onwards can be described as logocentric (Derrida), the Vedic approach can be described as anthropo-morpho-centric (centered on man himself).

The Vedic Philosophy was never purely logocentric. It was always open to the synthetic experience of all the members of consciousness of man. The knowledge itself was only a means to reach to a higher state of consciousness and not a thing in itself. In the West the approach to knowledge and cognition was defined by the mind, which eventually reduced and excluded everyone else from the possibility of influencing its own pure process of knowing; and, having become the sovereign lord, it created its own logocentric reality, the reality based on thoughts, worshipping thoughts and ideas, trusting them more than reality itself. In India it was founded on all the faculties of consciousness including senses, mind, life and even body, etc., and how they constitute one conscious being. Man was the center of research, and not only his mind. Such anthropomorphism of Vedic Philosophy saved it from falling into purely mental approach to reality.