Introduction
In this article I like to make the case that Theosophy has not been
sufficiently exposed to one of the West's most fruitful philosophical
movement, phenomenology, as founded by the German philosopher Edmund
Husserl and further developed and/or radicalized by philosophers like
Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Eugen Fink, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas and many more.[1] As complex
both schools of thought are, the more complex their possible interactions.
Following are six reasons why I think interaction is important, the
linchpin being point IV, in which I try to bring out a few of phenomenology's
crucial findings and their possible applications in theosophy.
I. Appropriating Phenomenological Philosophy
The subtitle of H.P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine makes the quite
extraordinary claim by proclaiming the book in its subtitle The Synthesis
of Science, Religion, and Philosophy. These fields of endeavour are
continuously changing, creating ever-new hypotheses, laws, insights,
even going through radical transformations like paradigm-shifts. In
order to stay contemporary and dynamic, it behooves Theosophy to understand,
compare, elucidate and incorporate these many advances into its synthesis.
So far in the fields of transpersonal psychology, psycho-therapy, parapsychology,
religious studies, physics, biology, ecology, Asian thought, history
of esotericism, cross-cultural understanding and many other fields,
Theosophy has either contributed significantly or functioned as an understanding
and sympathetic clearing-house. What seems to be missing is a critical
evaluation and appropriation of post-Blavatskyan Western thought especially
phenomenology in its many variations.[2] With its rich and fruitful
insights and methods phenomenology can be important for the deeper understanding
of relevant theosophical themes as:
a) Consciousness in general in its structures and dynamics
b) Religious, mystic and occult experiences [3]
c) The hidden power of 'categorial intuition' (see point IV)
II. Updating Theosophy by Phenomenological Philosophy
Besides appropriating phenomenology into Theosophy from a theosophical
point of view, the tables could be turned by giving phenomenological
philosophy a chance to bring Theosophy to a deeper philosophical self-understanding.
Phenomenology could elucidate, for example, the essential demarcation
between, and interactive complementarity of, science, religion and philosophy,
and thereby lay out an internal dynamic of Theosophy. One idea that
could be explored is the way science, religion and philosophy can work
as a system of checks and balances upon each other, thereby evading
materialism in science, dogmatism in theology, post-modern relativism
in philosophy and other aberrations. Another Theosophical subject phenomenology
can contribute to is the question of the seven constituent principles
of man. Can these principles be phenomenologically understood in their
essential differences and unity as different ontological regions, or
ways of being? As far as I have tried, I think that is the case. More
importantly is the possibility that phenomenology can help theosophy
in understanding and re-experiencing its own roots and origin of its
meaning, thereby countering the tendency of its self-interpretation
into superficiality, self-alienation and self-forgetfulness.[4]
III. The Spiritualization of Phenomenology
In one of the Mahatma Letters an appeal went out that is eminently
applicable to phenomenology: "The crest wave of intellectual advancement
must be taken hold of and guided into spirituality." [5] As phenomenology
is a fruitful open-ended research-program with 'infinite tasks,' it
tends to be molded and appropriated by many different anti-spiritual,
if not, anti-esoteric tendencies like Marxism, fascism, absurdism, relativism,
nihilism, Catholicism, Protestantism, etc. Theosophy should enter the
fray of the ongoing discussions by presenting its own spiritualized
interpretation of phenomenology and, with the tools of phenomenology,
present more precise refutations of its alternatives. Too many young
people are sucked into the quagmire of scientistic, fundamentalist or
post-modern relativistic worldviews, which doesn't need to be so.
An intriguing field of research would be a theosophical investigation
of Heidegger's philosophical development. This development can be understood
as a phenomenological self-interpretation of Heidegger's own underlying
theological and spiritual development in his grand quest for the meaning
of Being. This latter development can then be understood within a theosophical
framework as steps on the initiatic path, with a troubling slip-up.
Theosophy, in its capacity of interpreting history along esoteric lines,
can also help illuminate this troubling aspect, i.e. the very thorny
issue of Heidegger's mistaken vision of Hitler and his occult-political
sect the Nazis as some new revelation of Being.[6] Overlooked aspects
feeding at a sub-conscious level into Heidegger's complex motivations
in his aim at becoming Germany's philosophical Führer, would be
the collective conscious and sub-conscious messiah expectations unleashed
worldwide by theosophy's World Teacher Project with Krishnamurti. And
connected with that, theosophy can help in understanding the occult
mind manipulations by Hitler and the Nazis--who projected themselves
as such saviors into the vacuum left by the abrogation of fore-mentioned
project--not the least by the fact that the Nazis appropriated many
theosophical ideas, which by itself still needs a thorough critique.
Here theosophy finds itself in the same boat as Heidegger for different
groups see both as leading to fascism.
IV. The Latent Power of Categorial Intuition and Essence Intuition
The third object of the TS asks for an exploration of latent powers
within the mind. Phenomenology does explicate, develop and apply such
a special power. It is the power of having philosophical insights or
intuiting essences, but now in a way in which 'having an insight' has
come, within western philosophy, to an unprecedented level of self-evident
self-understanding.[7] Phenomenology's founding father Husserl called
these philosophical acts 'essence-intuitions' (Wesenschau) and
through such acts he also made some penetrating investigations into
the necessary conditions to make such acts possible. This claim can
become really intelligible only on the basis of understanding a) the
intentional structure of consciousness, b) a peculiar perceptive capacity
called categorial intuition, c) a philosophical technique called eidetic
reduction and d) the specific subject-matter phenomenology is interested
in, i.e. the essential structures of consciousness.
a) Intentionality
Intentionality in phenomenology means that consciousness is always
consciousness of something. In all psychological acts like seeing, remembering,
counting, discussing, etc., we are directed or focused on a certain
seen, remembered, counted or discussed object and not on the act itself
or the 'I' enacting the act. Consciousness is not a container of some
sorts within the brain, duplicating what is outside itself with the
senses acting as intermediaries. Who would be then conscious, and in
what way, of what is contained in the container? Another container?
Properly speaking consciousness is always already outside itself, directly,
through its senses, in the world of its cares, whether practical, social
or theoretical.[8] An important part of intentionality is the phenomenon
that we can emptily intend an object and also experience different grades
of fulfillment of the intention, through which then a temporal self-sameness
of the object can be experienced. Examples of empty intentions are:
looking for a lost object, trying to remember a forgotten phone number,
the content of any statement before it is personally verified, not understanding
a self-evident statement like A=A, or not seeing yet that intentionality
is a basic feature of consciousness. This dynamic of intentionality
is important for a deeper phenomenological understanding of issues like
knowledge and evidence, mistakes and misunderstandings, and the philosophical
trio of necessity, possibility and actuality.
b) Categorial intuition
The really important issue here is what Husserl calls categorial intuition
(kategoriale Anschauung), a term Heidegger also uses.[9] Categorial
intuition organizes and structures, on a pre-theoretical, pre-thematic
level, our simple perceptions into complex 'states of affair.' This
happens for example when we go from seeing just a house to seeing that
the house is white, or that it is bigger than its neighbor or any other
specific feature or relation it might have. On a more complex level
we can use the example of seeing a row of trees or hearing a melody.
The peculiarity is the following. The trees and notes are sensuously
given, but the row and the melody, though they are experienced, they
are not sensuously given. The pattern and melody are items that are
not part of the raw data entering our senses, and because of that they
might even not be experienced at all. You might just see some trees
and not perceive the row pattern, and you might just hear a sequence
of musical notes without experiencing the melody. At the same time,
when these patterns are experienced, it is obvious that they are not
merely subjective in the sense of an arbitrary processing of information,
or some form imposed upon the data by consciousness. Once perceived,
the pattern and melody are really out there and have their own kind
of objectivity, which can be pointed out to others, and shared with
them. To come back to the example of the house, one could ask where
or how in the sensuous experience the 'is' or 'bigger' is when the perception
is articulated in the statement 'the house is white' or 'the house is
bigger than its neighbor.' We can see the house, the white color, its
neighbor, but where and how do we see the feature and the relation?
It is these kinds of structuring of our experiences that find their
way, when expressed in language, in the non-sensuous parts of language,
in words like 'being,' 'this,' 'and,' 'or,' 'unity,' 'plurality,' etc.
These items of experience are not merely subjective forms imposed upon
sensuous experience, nor are they to be found in sense perception. These
items are given to consciousness with and founded upon sensuous experience,
through a non-sensory kind of perception, i.e. categorial intuition.[10]
c) Eidetic reduction
Eidetic reduction is a technique by which one gradually comes to understand
the essence or univocal meaning of an issue through imaginative variation.
If the issue is understanding the essence of the practical object 'coffee-cup,'
one would take its various features and relational aspects and change
them in imagination until it becomes obvious that one couldn't speak
of a coffee-cup anymore. For example, imagine changing the opening at
the top to being gradually more tilted and ending up on the side, at
which point it can not contain any fluids anymore and therefore hardly
qualifies as a cup. Or gradually change it weight, size, or material.
What one ends up with are those features without which a coffee-cup
wouldn't be a coffee-cup, that is, its structural essence. These features
could then be gathered into an extended definition of the item, like
'a small non-porous, heat-resistant delivery device, weight- and size-wise
proportionate to a human body, for intake of warm water-solved caffeine.'
In the previous example the issue was the essence of a specific practical
object, an issue phenomenology is hardly interested in. What it is interested
in--among many issues--is the essential complex structures of the experience
of using any practical object whatsoever, though it could proceed or
abstract from the example of a coffee-cup, or a hammer as Heidegger
does, to uncover these essential ideal forms. In this way Heidegger
developed a phenomenological description of tool, here compressed in
the following 'definition': A tool is something non-thematically, non-theoretically
understood as ready-at-hand; belonging to a totality of equipment within
an assignment context; circumspectively used in a series of involvements
'in-order-to' produce a work, which is its 'towards-which;' used in
the end 'for-the-sake-of' a possibility of human being; constituted
by serviceabilty, conduciveness, usability and manipulability; revealing
a public world of co-producers and co-users and the natural world as
resource.[11] This 'definition' might strike one as a strange hybrid
of obvious and obscure ideas about the essential structure of a practical
object in general. But reading the chapter from which the fore going
was abstracted, with an understanding of phenomenological method in
the background of one's mind, the whole exercise becomes quite rigorous
and revealing. And the insights thus obtained can be retained and put
to fruitful use in subsequent deeper phenomenological investigations.[12]
d) Phenomenology's subject-matter
Phenomenology is the philosophical study of consciousness and as consciousness
is intentional in its structure, it is the investigation of the essential
structures of intentional experiences. It studies a) the essence of
the experiencer or that identity that stays self-same throughout all
experiences, or the unity of consciousness; b) the essential features
of the many different modes of experiencing like perception, imagination,
thinking, remembering, reflection, coping, moods, relating, etc. and
their interconnections; c) the essential features of the many kinds
of 'objects' as connected with, or constituted through, the different
modes of experience, like the essence of perceptual objects, imaginings,
thoughts, memories, tools, cultural objects, intersubjectivity, etc.;
and d) the unity of these structures in the context of one's life and
world. Mostly the structures of consciousness would be 'read off' the
object of experience, because the form of the experience comes necessarily
with the experienced object, though it is not explicitly given, for
the experience focuses on the object itself and not on the form of the
experience. Through different moves--like bracketing (resisting the
temptation to explain the phenomenon in naturalistic causal terms) and
applying eidetic reduction--these forms can be brought to evidence.
Wesenschau
Next step is to show that when we make statements about the essential
structures of consciousness itself we are dependent on categorial intuition.
For example, when Husserl makes the case that consciousness is always
intentional, he could not do so by merely reflecting upon his own consciousness.
He had to structure that peculiar investigative reflective experience
and have it confirmed and refined through varying repetitions, i.e.
eidetic reduction. He saw that when one wills, something is willed;
when one thinks, something is thought; when one sees, something is seen,
etc., etc. He saw that every act of consciousness has its own peculiar
correlative 'object' to which it is directed. Consciousness is always
consciousness of. The importance here is not this structure of intentionality
itself, but the idea that once you see this structure for yourself
it is because of categorial intuition, which means that you are categorially
intuiting a non-sensuous item with its own claim to objectivity.
Moreover it is a philosophical act. It is not a scientific hypothesis
to be tested in a psychological laboratory. It is categorial intuition
in the first place that makes science possible by ongoingly and in ever
more refined ways structuring its subject matter. Science even doesn't
need to know about this possibility condition to proceed successfully.
And it is not a religious experience either. Phenomenology can uncover
things about ourselves, and these revealings can be experienced as a
revelation of some sort, but phenomenology's subject matter does not
reach farther than the necessary possibility conditions, or ideal forms,
of our experiences and can't say anything about its content qua content.
It is by an act of faith that faith's specific content is constituted,
which will provide a content only for theology to investigate, while
phenomenology can only investigate the essential structure of the act
of faith and the correlative kind of being of its intended object, regardless
of its content.[13] Husserl called these philosophical acts 'essence-intuitions'
(Wesenschau), which only bring out what comprises the structuring
ingredients implicitly within any experience whatsoever and make them
therefore more intelligible. Heidegger refines this notion of phenomenological
explication of the structures of experience with his idea of 'formal
indication' (Formalanzeichnung), of which Dasein (Being-there)
and Being-in-the-world are his most well known. These peculiar Heideggerian
concepts, here emptily intended (formally indicated), will find their
own appropriate fulfillment in acts of understanding, which can only
be called acts of transcendental self-knowledge, because the concepts
indicate the essential dynamic structurization of our very own being.
In short, categorial intuition is an important 'power' inhering in
the dynamic structure of consciousness. This 'hidden' ability can be
explicated and refined with the help of eidetic reduction into a philosophical
attitude along the lines phenomenologists have investigated, and applied
in any intellectual endeavour whatsoever, including Theosophy.[14] The
main subject coming into view for investigation would be the interconnected
questions about a) the how of theosophical insight and knowledge, b)
the originary experiences underlying its intellectual super-structure,
c) the role of inter-subjective factors, d) its concept formation, e)
the interaction between theosophical understanding and psychological
transformation, and much more.
V. Phenomenology and Krishnamurti
There are different reasons why Phenomenology and Krishnamurti are
relevant to each other, and in their relationship are relevant to Theosophy.
1) First of all there are already two book-length studies by Indian
philosophers comparing Krishnamurti with phenomenology. One compares
Krishnamurti with the existential phenomenologist Sartre and another
one compares him with phenomenology's founding father Husserl.[15] Sartre
is also the focus of an article by one of Krishnamurti's friends, René
Fouéré.[16] And the important theosophical study of Krishnamurti's
esoteric life by Aryel Sanat makes numerous appreciative references
to phenomenology in comparison to Krishnamurti's approach.[17] Meanwhile,
not all studies with 'Krishnamurti' and 'phenomenology' in the title
are to be considered phenomenological in the philosophical sense.[18]
2) Secondly, phenomenology is important as a device to study and clarify
the way Krishnamurti proceeds in his own proto-phenomenological investigations.
It can help clarify statements like 'the observer is the observed' and
'you are the world.' The leading question here is if Krishnamurti really
shows at every turn of his monologues the matter or issue itself, or
is he sometimes making short cuts and introduces speculative elements?
For example his statement that 'thought is matter' might be up for a
good phenomenological critique.[19]
3) Thirdly, phenomenology, in tandem with Theosophy, can help clarify
the nature, structure and development of Krishnamurti's own long list
of mystical and occult experiences and their inter-connections.[20]
4) Out of point 3 can come a more philosophically balanced theosophical
appreciation and critique of Krishnamurti's experiences and teachings
and thereby help the Theosophy-Krishnamurti dialogue in a new and promising
vein.
5) Krishnamurti's proto-phenomenological investigations into such existential
themes like fear, desire, death and conflict can contribute to the existential-phenomenological
understanding of the same. For example the interaction between Heidegger's
analysis of fear and anxiety and Krishnamurti's analysis of fear might
get to something bigger than the sum of their separate parts. In an
experimental vein I recently stated the following: "Being non-fearful
doesn't exclude anxiety, which might well be the mood accompanying the
act of detachment when one slips from a fear of something into the anxiety
of nothing, which then might slip into bliss of Being, when the nothing
is seen as the veil of Being, and anxiety turns inside out as bliss."
VI. Phenomenology and Eastern Thought
There are numerous studies by both western and Asian scholars that
point out or fruitfully use phenomenology as a tool for a deeper understanding
of Asian philosophy and religious experiences and/or see striking parallels
between the two. One of the most amazing events in this regard is the
Heidegger reception by Japanese philosophy.[21] They apparently can't
get enough of Being and Time and have translated that masterpiece
at least six times now. At the same time some scholars are making headway
in uncovering the Asian, especially Zen and Daoist, influences on Heidegger
himself.[22] Indian philosophy seem to gravitate more towards Husserl
with his stratification of different levels of consciousness and their
accompanying egos.[23] As far as Husserl's and Heidegger's responses
are concerned regarding Asian thought, we find Husserl writing, after
reading some original Bhuddist texts, the following enthusiastic assessment:
"For to any sympathetic reader it soon must become
clear that Buddhism, as it speaks to us out of its pure original sources,
is concerned with a religious and ethical method of the highest dignity
for spiritual purification and pacification, a method thought through
and carried out with an internal consistency, an energy and a nobility
of mind that are almost unmatched. Buddhism can be paralleled only with
the highest formations of the philosophical and religious spirit of
our European culture. From now on it will be our destiny to blend that
Indian way of thinking which is completely new for us, with the one
which for us is old, but which in this confrontation becomes alive again
and strengthened."[24]
Heidegger is several times on record to the effect that what Zen Buddhism
expresses is something he tried to say throughout his writings.[25]
In order to further an East-West dialogue it has been pointed out that
the work on the nature of interpretation and dialogue by hermeneutic
phenomenologists like Heidegger and especially Gadamer can be very productive.[26]
As Theosophy intends to make the rich heritage of eastern thought available
to the West, phenomenology can be of great help in facilitating that
agenda.
Conclusion
Many more reasons could be brought forward to make my case, but I think
these six, sometimes somewhat overlapping reasons, are enough to establish
The Relevance of Phenomenology for Theosophy, while also touching upon
its reversal.
Endnotes
1.For a quick overview of phenomenology see:
a) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2003 Edition), s.v.
"Phenomenology" by David Woodruff Smith at <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2003/entries/phenomenology/.>
b) Lester Embree, "What is Phenomenology?" at the web site
of the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology at <http://www.phenomenologycenter.org/phenom.htm>..
2.In a 1961 lecture philosopher and theosophist J.J. Poortman presented
an overview of the philosophical interests of prominent Theosophists
and an assessment of the interaction of Theosophy and philosophy. According
to Poortman there used to be a quite active scene of philosophizing
Theosophists and theosophizing philosophers in Holland, with the latter
category not necessarily sympathetic to Theosophy as presented by the
Theosophical Society, but anyway doing interesting 'theosophical' investigations
along Hegelian lines. Poortman himself made it to the University of
Leyden occupying the chair of "Metaphysics in the Spirit of Theosophy"
and it was due to a theosophical couple that the International School
for Philosophy in Amersfoort was founded, which recently had to close
its doors. See J.J. Poortman, "The two Sophia's or the Relationship
of Theosophy and Philosophy" in Philosophy, Theosophy, Parapsychology:
Some Essays on Diverse Subjects (Leyden: Sythoff, 1965). Poortman
did study some of Husserl's philosophy and actually dedicated a whole
chapter to phenomenology in his four-volume Vehicles of Consciousness,
4 vols. (Adyar, Madras, India: T.P.H., 1978), in which he also stated
that some of its sections were "entirely phenomenological in their
plan and intention." (IV:16)
3. Poortman refers to the work of the "well-known parapsychologist"
Gerda Walther, who to others is more known as a student of Husserl.
She presented a study, combining the two fields, titled "A Plea
for the Introduction of Edmund Husserl's Phenomenological method into
Parapsychology." Report no. 44, Proceedings of the International
Conference of Parapsychology, Utrecht, 1953.
4.See for example Christopher Richardson's appeal countering that
direction in his article "Radical Theosophy" in Theosophy
World, no. 100, October, 2004. <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos-world/>
5. C. Jinarajadasa (ed.) Letters from the Masters of Wisdom,
First Series (Adyar, Madras, India: T.P.H., 1988, 6th ed. [1919]), p.
123. "The last Letter," no. 59 from K.H. to Annie Besant,
received in 1900.
6. For a concise overview of the issue see Thomas Sheehan's "Heidegger
and the Nazis," review essay of Victor Farias' Heidegger and
Nazism in The New York Review of Books 35/10 (June 16, 1988), pp.
38-47. <http://www.stanford.edu/dept/relstud/faculty/sheehan/pdf/88-nazi.PDF>
7. One venue of research, with probably fruitful results, would be
the comparison of Husserl's faculty of 'essence-intuition' with Henri
Bergson's notion of intuition and Theosophy's faculty of spiritual intuition
residing in the Buddhic principle. For a start see J.J. Poortman 's
"The two Sophia's …," pp. 52-53.
8. The ever so interesting Rupert Sheldrake has recently developed
a scientific hypothesis about visual (and extrasensory) perception that
comes closer to this phenomenological datum that consciousness is really
'out' there. He presented his theory and supporting experimental evidence
in The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Aspects of the Extended
Mind (New York: Crown, 2003). He combines the 'intromission' theory
if sight--which became the dominant theory in the 17th century after
Kepler's theory of the retinal image--with the 'extramission' theory
with its roots in Pythagoras' school, Plato and Euclid. Sheldrake proposes
that "vision involves a two-way process, an inward movement of
light, and an outward projection of images," (207) done through
the mind, which is "extended in space, and stretches out into the
world around you. It reaches out to touch what you see," (12) and
in that way "the subjective world of experience is projected outward
into the external world through fields of perception and intention."
(284). This latter notion of 'mental fields' is an extension of his
earlier theory of formative causation through 'morphogenetic fields'
and 'morphic resonance,' as presented in A New Science of Life: The
Hypothesis of Formative Causation (London: Paladin, 1987[1981],
2nd ed.) and The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and The
Habits of Nature (Rochester, VT, Park Street Press, 1988). Besides
being fascinating in itself, Sheldrake's researches are exceedingly
relevant for both philosophy and theosophy, and I see the possibility
of a fruitful dialogue between Sheldrake and phenomenology with the
latter providing some conceptual refinements of such notions as perception,
intentions, images and projection. Meanwhile he does err is in his assessment
that the "materialist-dualist debate has stayed stuck within the
narrow limits of an outmoded way of thinking about matter." (208)
Most phenomenologists would heartily disagree. For Sheldrake's relevance
for theosophy see "Rupert Sheldrake: A Theosophical Appraisal"
by David Pratt at <http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/science/prat-shl.htm>.
9. The important foundational text about categorial intuition is Edmund
Husserl, Investigation VI, "Elements of a Phenomenological Elucidation
of Knowledge," Second Section, "Sense and Understanding"
in Logical Investigations, Vol. II (New York: Routledge, 2001
[1970]), pp. 269-320. For Heidegger's appropriation of the term see
Martin Heidegger, §6 "Categorial Intuition" in his History
of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena (Bloomington, IN: Indiana U.P.,
1992), pp.47-71. See also Theodore Kisiel, "Heidegger (1907-1927):
The Transformation of the Categorial" in his Heidegger's Way
of Thought (New York: Continuum, 2002), pp. 84-100. For an effective
introduction see: Robert Sokolowski Introduction to Phenomenology
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U.P., 2000), pp. 88-112 or his more thorough
Husserlian Meditations: How Words Represent Things (Evanston,
IL: Northwestern U.P., 1974), pp. 31-42.
10.Because it is non-sensory, categorial intuition should not be confused
with something like clairvoyance, which, as a special kind of sensory
experience (extrasensory), is also dependent, in its complex modes,
on the structuration enabled by categorial intuition. The extent to
which phenomenological insights and methods found their way into the
clairvoyant investigations by Rudolph Steiner is an interesting and
open question. Based on a communication with a Husserl scholar and anthroposophist
I can relay that Steiner studied in Vienna under Husserl's teacher Franz
Brentano, in whose philosophy intentionality was a prominent theme,
and that Steiner was on speaking terms with Max Scheler, a prominent
phenomenologist, to whom Steiner even dedicated one of his books. In
this connection it is also interesting to read Husserl stating: "Other
beings may gaze upon other 'worlds', they may also be endowed with 'faculties'
other than ours, but, if they are minded creatures at all, possessing
some sort of intentional experiences, with the relevant differences
between perception and imagination, straightforward and categorial intuition,
meaning and intuition, adequate and inadequate knowledge--then such
creatures have both sensibility and understanding, and are 'subject'
to the pertinent laws." Logical Investigations, Vol. II,
p. 315.
11. Extracted from Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (San Francisco:
HarperCollins, 1962, trsl. by Macquarrie and Robinson), pp. 96 ff.
12. An important aspect of Being and Time is the careful differentiation
between the kind of being of things present-at-hand, ready-at-hand and
human being (Dasein). He does so in order to show that the philosophical
tradition, at least since Plato, has tried to understand the being of
Dasein with the predicates belonging to the kind of being of things
present-at-hand and ready-at-hand, that is, things we are most familiar
with. In this way human beings are seen as some kind of object like
a clockwork, a machine, a process or a computer, etc. Also, other way
around and maybe less objectionable, we might predicate objects with
characteristics specifically belonging to Dasein, like when we say 'the
table touches the wall.' What Heidegger tries to do is to liberate Dasein
from inappropriate categories and develop a set of new categories, which
he calls existentialia, which better bring out the unique kind of being
Dasein is. This problematic of inappropriate predication is identical
with the Advaita Vedantic idea of Adyhasa or superimposition,
"when a person superimposes on his self attributes external to
his own self…," as Shankara states, though Heidegger would
disagree with the predicates Shankara used in his examples. See Eliot
Deutsch Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1969), p. 33.
13. See here for example the investigations of Paul Tillich in his Dynamics
of Faith (New York: Harper and Row, 1957). Summary at http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/tillich.html
14. A first trial in that direction was executed during a class at
the Theosophical Society in America in the fall of 2004. I gave a presentation
titled "The Ascension as Ultimate Transcendence," in which
I aimed at a phenomenological understanding of transcendence in order
to get a deeper theological understanding of the idea of ascension.
15.See: M.M. Agrawal, Consciousness and the Integrated Being: Sartre
and Krishnamurti (Shimla, India: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies,
1991) and V. Gunturu's Jiddu Krishnamurti's Gedanken auser der Phaenomenologischen
Perspective Edmund Husserl's [Krishnamurti's Thought from the Phenomenological
Perspective of Edmund Husserl] (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1998. Ph.D. thesis).
16. René Fouéré, "Krishnamurti et l'Existentialisme,"
Appendix 2 in Robert Linssen, Krishnamurti et la Pensée Occidentale
(Brussels: Editions "Etre Libre," n.d.), pp. 156-176.
17. Aryel Sanat, The Inner Life of Krishnamurti: Private Passion
and Perennial Wisdom (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House,
1999). On page 144 Sanat states that Krishnamurti's "approach was
akin to those of existentialism and phenomenology." See also pp.
101 and 246.
18. Most of these studies do not clarify or justify the use of this
term. They seem to take the term phenomenology to be equivalent to descriptive
psychology and find that both Krishnamurti and their own study of Krishnamurti
are studies in descriptive psychology. Though illuminating and interesting
in their own way these studies are, strictly phenomenologically speaking,
'naïve' and at best proto-phenomenological, which is meant here
in a technical sense, not a moral one. In this category belong the following
studies: Peter Butcher, "The Phenomenological Psychology of J.
Krishnamurti" Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 18/1,
1986, 35-50; Veronica Boutte, The Phenomenology of Compassion in
the Teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) (Lewiston: Edwin
Mellen Press, 2002, Studies in Asian Thought and Religion, Vol. 24);
Lawrence K. Holden, "The Structure of Krishnamurti's Phenomenological
Observations and its Psychological Implications" (Ph.D. dissertation,
United States International University, 1971).
19.See for example the following reductionist account by Krishnamurti
in which the essence of thought gets reduced to a totally different
essence, the one of matter and energy. What he overlooks is that thought
is peculiar to consciousness and has meaning, something that can not
be predicated of matter. "Those who think a great deal are very
materialistic because thought is matter. Thought is matter as much as
the floor, the wall, the telephone, are matter. Energy functioning in
a pattern becomes matter. There is energy and there is matter. That
is all life is. We may think thought is not matter but it is. Thought
is matter as an ideology. Where there is energy it becomes matter. Matter
and energy are interrelated." J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from
the Known (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1969), pp. 101-102.
20. In a recent post on the Theosophy and Krishnamurti Yahoo-group
(<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theos_and_k/>) I posted a preliminary
stratification of K's experiences and their connectedness. Though the
facts come from K's own writings and the terminology is predominantly
Theosophical, the working out of this idea of stratification was very
much helped by my own phenomenological insights into the structure of
consciousness. See "Higher Self - K versus Blavatsky," message
of March 14, 2005 at . See also the 'flip-side' of this in message of
March 19, 2005, "K's states of consciousness."
21.See Parkes' introduction to Graham Parkes (Ed.) Heidegger and
Asian Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990 [1978]).
22. See Reinhard May, Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences
on His Work (New York: Routledge, 1996). Translated, with a complementary
essay, by Graham Parkes.
23. See for example A.N. Balsev "Analysis of I-Consciousness
in the Transcendental Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy" in D.P.
Chattopadhyaya, Lester Embree, Jitendranath Mohanty (Eds.) Phenomenology
and Indian Philosophy (Delhi, India: Motolal Banarsidass, 1992),
pp. 133-140. The stratification of Krishnamurti's experiences in Indian
concepts as referred to in note 11 is here of significance.
24. Edmund Husserl, "Ueber die Reden Gotama Buddhos," review
of some original Bhuddist texts in Der Piperbote, spring 1925.
Quoted in Karl Schuhman, "Husserl and Indian Thought" in Phenomenology
and Indian Philosophy, p. 26.
25.Heidegger's Hidden Sources, p. 3.
26. See Wilhelm Halbfass' comments on Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer
in his India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (New York:
SUNY, 1988), pp. 160-170.
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