Reply to Dr Menas
Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri, Ph.D.
April 1, 2017

Dear Dr Menas,

Namaste. It is good to hear this interpretation of your position which is more aligned with philosophy’s rational idea of consciousness. There is indeed an entire spectrum of interpretations of Vedanta stretching from abstract monism to radical dualism. If these differences are not viewed from a religious perspective [as we typically find in India] but from a purely philosophical/logical framework the whole gamut of ideas that have historically occupied philosophers over the centuries both East and West can be found.

Abstract monism or kevaladvaitavad, represents reductionism in any of its historical forms from the Greek Parmenides (all is Being) and the Eleatics (One only) to the modern day materialistic reductionsits, or eliminativists. Your counterpart [Dr Chopra], if i understand him correctly, makes the case for an absolute consciousness existing abstractly without any object to oppose it. All apparent [“metaphorical”] objects, perceptions, thoughts, ideas, universes or whatever are contents of consciousness, which is like a pot that ultimately absorbs all content into itself, so that in the end all you are left with is the pot – consciousness.

The full article can be downloaded here: