The mantra and the avatar (the Word made flesh) is always and everywhere present

Re: On the Alliance of Being and the One Word (Derrida, Dzogs-chen, and Helen Keller) by Richard Carlson
by Debashish on Thu 10 May 2007 11:59 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

A truly inspired and creatively powerful thesis. Some related notes: Differance in Derrida asserts the irreducible infinity of the spatial and temporal language-world (world of language and world as language) birthed through the irreducible duality of absence-presence of Being in Becoming. It is this irreducible singularity of the Each which makes it also the Only in its non-dual co-dependent Existence. Along with Dzogs-chen it may be useful to include other formulations of the same or similar which have not had such eloquent votaries as Herbert Guenther - eg.

• the dristi-sristi phenomenology of the Yoga-Vasistha,
• achitya bhedabheda (unthinkable co-existence of differende and non-difference) of Chaitanya and
• purnadvaita vedanta (integral non-dualism) of Sri Aurobindo.

The One is One, the One is All, the One is in Each and the One is Each - this is the basis of the Isha Upanishad and the only adequate formulation for the co-existent radical Unity and radical infinity of Being-Becoming. Process phenomenology acknowledges the temporal play of inequality in the equal House of Being. Helen Keller's example is a modern day secular instance of the millenial practice of diksha in the Indic tradition - the initiation through mantra.

If in Derrida, Such is the question: the alliance of speech and Being in the unique word, in the finally proper name. And such is the question inscribed in the simulated affirmation of différance. It bears (on) each member of this sentence: "Being / speaks / always and everywhere / throughout / language." (Derrida 1982) - each member of the sentence and of all sentences can equally house Being and equally reveal Being. For any word to be the Word then is only possible in a world of process and in a specific instance of temporal spatiality as a play of the Mystery. Such a temporality may be that of a social convention (doxa), of an epistemic age or regime, of a species consciousness or of a tapas of Being.

The paradox of process-status is coevally inseparable and irreducible with that of the Original Word and the Inexpressible Author. The mantra and the avatar (the Word made flesh) is always and everywhere present, appears anew at each horizon of becoming (individual or universal) and will never absolutely appear. DB