Tattva Viveka by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura

Hi all, came across this wonderful small book called Tattva Viveka by Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura. Anyone who is interested in serious philosophy should read this book.

Who am I, the person who perceives this world? What is this world? What relations have I with this world?

Please know that there are a great variety of answers, and there is also one true answer. First we will consider the great variety of answers, and then we will consider the one true answer.

• Some philosophers say that matter is everything, matter is self-manifest, matter is eternal, and any conception of God is a senseless lie.
• They say no one has ever proved God's existence, God is created by men, and talk of a spiritual world is a lie imagined by rascals.
• They say the inert material elements combine to create conscious life. In this way conscious life is manifest in inert matter.
• They say that when it dies, conscious life ceases to exist, and of this they have no doubt. They say there is no soul that can be reborn in this world or liberated from it by attaining spiritual knowledge.

Commentary by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura

Among the great variety of philosophies, materialism (jada-väda) is very widespread. Materialism is of two kinds: 1. the philosophy of attaining material pleasures (jadänanda-väda), and 2. the philosophy of extinguishing (nirväna) material existence altogether (jada-nirväna-väda). Now we will consider these two materialistic philosophies. First we will look at materialism in a general way.

All varieties of materialism say this: Inert matter exists, conscious life exists, and everything is created from inert matter. Conscious life does not exist before inert matter. Philosophies that teach about God are a useless waste of time. Inert matter is eternal. If someone talks about God", he is talking about a being who exists only in his imagination. If any God exists one should search to find a higher God" that controls that God. God's existence has never been proved. In every country and province are religious books describing God and describing the soul's residence in a spiritual world. These books are the wild imaginations of various rascals. They do not describe anything that truly exists. Therefore the words self (ätmä) and consciousness (caitanya) refer only to certain aspects of matter.

Self and consciousness are created only by a variety of forward (anuloma) or backward (viloma) interactions (samyoga) of material elements (jada-tattva). When the interactions are forward, there is creation of self and consciousness. When the interactions are backward, self and consciousness are again merged into matter. A self's taking birth again and again in different forms, or reincarnation, is not possible. Attaining liberation from matter by learning the truth about Brahman is not possible either.

Because the self is not different from matter, the self cannot become liberated from matter. Therefore matter is the ultimate reality. All existence is only a variety of aspects of matter. All atheists accept these ideas. One group of atheists claims that each person's attainment of material pleasure is for him the goal of life. Another group of atheists, understanding that material pleasure is temporary and pathetic, searches after the happiness of nirväna (cessation of material existence).

Now we will consider the philosophy of attaining material pleasures (jadänanda-väda). The philosophy of attaining material pleasures is of two kinds: 1. the philosophy of selfish material pleasures (svärtha-jadänanda-vädé), and 2. the philosophy of unselfish material pleasures (niùsvärtha-jadänanda-vädé).

They who follow the philosophy of selfish material pleasures think: Neither God, nor soul, nor afterlife, nor karmic reactions exist. Therefore, concerned only for results visible in this world, let us spend our time in sense pleasures. We don't need to waste our time performing useless religious activities." Because of bad association and sinful deeds, this atheistic philosophy has existed in human society from ancient times. However, this philosophy has never become prominent among faithful, respectable people.

Still, in different countries some people have taken shelter of this idea and even written books propounding it. In India the brähmaëa Cärväka, in China the atheist Yangchoo, in Greece the atheist Leucippus, in Central Asia Sardana plus, in, Rome Lucretious, and many others in many countries all wrote books propounding these ideas. Von Holback says that one should perform philanthropic deeds to increase one's personal happiness. By working to make others happy, one increases one's own happiness, and that is good.

Trying to persuade the people in general, the authors of modern books propounding the philosophy of material pleasure often talk about unselfish material pleasure, or doing good, materially, to others. In India atheism existed even in ancient days. With great erudition, one philosopher wrote a great distortion of the Vedic teaching, a distortion called the Mémäàsä-sütras, which begin with the words codanä-lakñaëo dharmaù", which replace God with an abstract origin before which nothing existed" (apürva).

In Greece a philosopher named Democritus preached this philosophy also. He said that matter and void exist eternally. When these two meet, there is creation, and when they are separated, there is destruction. Material elements are different only because their atoms are of different sizes. Otherwise the elements are not different. Knowledge is a sensation that comes when something within touches something without. His philosophy holds that all existence is composed of atoms.

In out country also Kaëäda in his vaiçeñika philosophy also taught that the material elements are composed of eternal atoms. However, the vaiçeñika philosophy is different from Democritus' atomic theory, for the vaiçeñika philosophy accepts the eternal existence of both God and soul. In Greece Plato and Aristotle refused to accept an eternal God as the only creator of the material world. Kanäda's errors are also seen in their views. Gassendi accepted the existence of atoms, but concluded that God created the atoms. In France Diderot and Lamettrie preached the theory of unselfish material pleasure.

The theory of unselfish material pleasure reached its high point in France's philosopher Compte, who was born in 1795 and died in 1857. His impure philosophy is called Positivism. It is inappropriately named, for it accepts the existence of matter only, and nothing else. It claims: Aside from sense knowledge there is no true knowledge. The mind is only a special arrangement of material elements. In the final conclusion, no origin of all existence can be described. Furthermore, there is no need to discover any origin of the material world. There is no sign that any conscious creator of the material world exists. The thinking mind should categorize things according to their relationships, results, similarities, and dissimilarities.

One should not accept the existence of anything beyond matter. Belief in God is for children. Adults know God is a myth. Discriminating between good and evil, one should act righteously. One should try to do good to all human beings. That is the philosophy of unselfish material pleasure. Thinking in this way one should act for the benefit of all human beings. One should imagine a female form and worship it. That form is, of course, unreal. Still, by worshiping it one attains good character. The earth, or the totality of material existence, is called the Supreme Fetich", the land is called the Supreme Medium", and the primordial human nature is called the Supreme Being". A female form with an infant in her hands should be worshiped morning, noon, and night. This imaginary female form, who is an amalgam of one's mother, wife, and daughter, should be meditated and worshiped in the past, present, and future. One should not seek any selfish benefit from these actions.

In England a philosopher named Mill taught a philosophy of sentimentalism that is largely like Compte's philosophy of unselfish material pleasure. In this way atheism, or secularism, attracted the minds of many youths in England. Mill, Lewis, Paine, Carlyle, Bentham, Combe, and other philosophers preached these ideas. This philosophy is of two kinds. One kind was taught by Holyoake, who kindly accepted God existence to some extent. The other kind was taught by Bradlaugh, who was a thorough atheist.

The philosophy of selfish material pleasure and the philosophy of unselfish material pleasure, although different in some ways, are both materialistic. When one deeply thinks about the ideas of all these materialistic philosophers, one will see that materialism is useless and untenable. When one simply glances at them with the eyes of pure spiritual logic, one will reject these ideas as pathetic and untenable. Even ordinary material logic will show these ideas are untenable and should be rejected.

This is seen in the following ways:

1. The philosophy of materialism searches for a single principle that is the root of all existence. This is a great folly. If one thinks the material atoms are eternal, the void is eternal, the relation between the void and the material elements is inconceivable, and the powers, qualities, and actions of the material atoms are also eternal, and all these things are eternal and beginningless, then he cannot accept that the material world was ever created. A person who accepts these ideas cannot reduce the material world to a single underlying principle. He must accept the simultaneous existence of many principles. What is time? That he has no power to say. In this way their attempt to find a single underlying principle that governs the material world is only the wild babbling of a child.

2. The philosophy of Materialism is unnatural and unscientific. It is unnatural because every nature has a cause. To assume that matter is eternal and is the cause of consciousness, which appears only as a by-product of matter, is very illogical. The presence of causes and effects is natural in the world of gross matter. Without causes and effects the material world would not be as it is. The philosophy of Materialism is unscientific because consciousness has the power to manipulate and control inert matter. Therefore the idea that consciousness is merely a by-product of matter is fiercely opposed to true scientific thinking.

3. Consciousness is naturally superior to inert matter. Only fools say consciousness is a by-product of matter. Professor Ferris has clearly explained all this.

4. Can anyone prove that matter is eternal? If someone claims that he has looked eternally into the past and eternally into the future and he has seen that matter is eternal, no one should believe him.

5. Buchner and Molescott claim that matter is eternal. That is an imagination that exists only in their heads. If in the course of time matter ceases to exist, their ideas will become lies.

6. Comte writes: We should not try to discover the origin or the conclusion of the material world. That attempt is only childish curiosity." However, because the living entity is by nature conscious, he naturally curious to know these things. The living entity cannot perform a funeral rite to celebrate the death of his own natural curiosity. The search for causes and effects is the mother of all true knowledge. If Compte's idea is accepted, human intelligence will be destroyed in a few days. Of that there is no doubt. Then human beings will all become stunted, numbed, and unthinking.

7. No one has ever seen human consciousness created from dull material elements. Only fools believe this will ever happen. In the book I hold in my hand, a history book describing three thousand years of human history, no one has ever seen a human being spontaneously manifested from inert matter. If human life is manifest from the spontaneous interactions of material elements, then in the course of all those years at least one human being would have been spontaneously manifested from inert matter.

8. The graceful and harmonious arrangement of human beings, animals, trees, and other living entities in this world points to a creator and controller. In this way it is seen that there must be a conscious supreme creator.

In these many ways the philosophy of Materialism is refuted even by ordinary logic. Only very unfortunate people accept the ideas of Materialism. They have no idea of spiritual happiness. Their desires are very petty. 

(Further review of the book...

The fundamental mysteries of the Vedic philosophical conclusions are unlocked for the first time in this English rendition of Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur's concise treatise on the Absolute Truth, Tattva-viveka. It consists of two chapters. In the book, he points out that the conditioned soul espouses and is subjected to a great variety of speculative explanations concerning the ontological truths of existence. All of these are flawed, and the Thakur points out just how they are so. However, this Tattva-viveka gives us real hope that the Absolute Truth can indeed be realized by any sincere and serious person in this lifetime. As a representative of that Supreme Reality, Thakur Bhaktivinode, a fully self-realized and God-realized soul, briefly touches upon the philosophies of the West. He starts with the prominent Greek thinkers, and includes the Roman poet-philosopher, Lucretius. He then skips to the Age of Enlightenment and discusses Hume and Von Holbach, along with others. He culminates this review with an analysis of modern-day philosophers and philosophies, such as Huxley, Schopenhauer, Mill, and Auguste Comte. He goes into special detail in relation to Positivism. In Tattva-viveka, Bhaktivinode Thakur also discusses, sometimes in detail, Eastern philosophies such as Sankhya, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Karma-mimamsa, and Patanjala-Yoga. There are expositions on Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity, as well. Finally, the Monist philosophy is considered. In the second chapter, Srila Bhaktivinode Thakur's sums up everything by explaining the Absolute Truth from the perspective of the realized souls, who, wherever they are living in time and space-either on this planet, this universe, or in the spiritual world itself-are always in complete and perfect agreement.)