Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies

21 Pages·2017·0.36 MB·English

by  Rajiv Malhotra

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies
Volume 26 Article 6
November 2013
Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-
Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies
Rajiv Malhotra
Infinity Foundation
Follow this and additional works at:http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs
Part of theReligion Commons
Recommended Citation
Malhotra, Rajiv (2013) "Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies,"Journal of Hindu-
Christian Studies: Vol. 26, Article 6.
Available at:https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1545
TheJournal of Hindu-Christian Studiesis a publication of theSociety for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital
Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please [email protected]. For more information about
Digital Commons @ Butler University, please [email protected].
Malhotra: Author’s Response

Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-
Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies
Rajiv Malhotra
Infinity Foundation
I thank all three responders to my books for primarily on two points: the question of the
their careful and detailed consideration of my relationship of science to adhyatma vidya, or
work. I will address the following concerns that the inner meditative practices taught by
they raise: dharmic traditions, and the issue of the
• their challenge to my claim that the coherence and integral unity of Hinduism.
dharmic traditions are more in tune with Rambachan regards the association of
modern cognitive science than the Hinduism with science as spurious and
Abrahamic ones are misleading, a product of the distorting
• their challenge to my claim that history- influence of the West on such Hindu figures as
centrism in the Abrahamic faiths is an Vivekananda and Aurobindo. He also regards
important point of difference any claim to a Hindu unity as largely a
• their claim that I ignore how historical construct of colonialism. In both cases, he
forces influence dharma thinks my views discount the role of the
• their claim against a coherent Hindu exegetical tradition of Vedanta as insisted upon
philosophy and unity by Shankara vis-à-vis direct inner experience.
• Brian Pennington’s tension with the reality In fact, I have asserted that the modern Hindu
that the academy seeks to engage me. thinkers have revitalized and expanded their
tradition in a way that is entirely in line with
I. Response to Rambachan the past, that dharma has never been in tension
Anantanand Rambachan has given the with science, and that in fact dharma and
most thorough and substantive response to my today’s cognitive science come close to
work, and I thank him for it. We disagree converging. I also hold that Hindu dharma has
Rajiv Malhotra is an Indian–American researcher and public intellectual interested in the philosophy
of science, religion, and civilizations. A scientist by training, he is full-time founder-director of Infinity
Foundation (Princeton, NJ), serves as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Center for Indic
Studies (University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth), and is adviser to various organizations. In addition
to BEING DIFFERENT: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism (Harpercollins, 2011), he has co-
authored with Aravindan Neelakandan Breaking India: Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit
Faultlines, (Amaryllis, 2011). His INDRA’S NET: Reclaiming Swami Vivekananda’s Vision will appear with
Harpercollins in 2014. He is finishing up a two-volume work on Buddhist Influences on the Mind
Sciences, under contract with Harpercollins.
Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 26 (2013):28-47
Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2013 1
Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 26 [2013], Art. 6
Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies 29
a valuable and coherent past, present and contemporary scientific thought accords with a
future with highly developed adhyatmic wide range of dharmic views and practices; he
practices and experiences. fails to see that this area of thought itself draws
I agree with Rambachan’s desire to protect directly and extensively on Indian sources. A
Advaita Vedanta’s non-dualism and I share his large part of my work has to do with tracking
position on the utter unknowability of the and repositioning certain Indian sources that
divine by means of ordinary consciousness, are at the heart of the confluence of science
owing to the subject/object split. I also share and spirituality, which is the cutting edge of
his interest in preserving the diversity of the Western thought. By contrast, Rambachan
Hindu dharma vis-à-vis those who would refutes the validity of these ideas in Hindu
reduce it to homogeneity. However, I part dharma. So the West appropriates what
company when he argues for reliance solely on Rambachan considers inauthentic. This
third-person textual authority for knowing disconnect gets my attention.
Brahman. As I shall explain, he is working from Furthermore, his assertion that Hinduism
some wrong assumptions about the nature of lacks coherence is mistaken, as well as
science, the Vedanta-yoga relationship, and the debilitating insofar as it deprives Hinduism of
internal coherence and innate pluralism of the its potential for providing an open architecture
dharma traditions. of faiths that could serve as the basis for a truly
It should be noted that Rambachan and I pluralist framework for humanity.
come from different intellectual backgrounds Rambachan’s sweeping rejection of modern
and therefore adopt different approaches to Hinduism (which he pejoratively calls “neo-
the matter at hand. I speak from a background Hinduism”) cuts this project off at the knees.
in science as well as personal sadhana in His emphasis on the primacy of the exegetical
several dharmic approaches, based on which I tradition of Advaita Vedanta, while in many
have extensively researched the Western ways a valuable corrective to the “anything
appropriation of Indian thought in psychology, goes” kind of Hindu thinking that tends to
cognitive sciences, cosmology, philosophy and prevail, is both extreme and limiting.
religion. Rambachan takes what I believe to be Rambachan could make a great
a more bookish and narrow approach that is contribution to Hindu Studies if he could only
exclusively focused on Advaita Vedanta and recognize the new paradigms emerging in
steeped in hermeneutical and exegetical science and religion and accept a broader
problems that arise from the use of the Judeo- definition of what Hinduism is and how it
Christian paradigm for religious studies. My relates to contemporary Western thought.
most important conversations and debates Were he to open his eyes to the Western
have been in the philosophy of science and the appropriation of Hindu ideas, he might (given
history of the transmission of ideas from India his expertise) be able to shed some much-
to the West. His have been largely in academic needed light on the matter in terms of
religious studies. clarification and correction.
The result is an ironic “disconnect.” Not
only is Rambachan unaware of how closely

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol26/iss1/6 2
DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1545
Malhotra: Author’s Response
30 Rajiv Malhotra
‘New’ paradigms imported from India into Buddhist sources, it became generalized into a
the West broader discourse on “science and religion,”
My book Being Different claims that the one which permeates the academy today
inner sciences of the dharmic traditions are (except ironically in the study of Indian
closer to the spirit and substance of religions).
contemporary scientific inquiry than are the In simple terms, this scientific paradigm
beliefs and practices of the Abrahamic developed from the recognition of the role of
religions. Rambachan’s resistance to this claim the observer in cognition. Newtonian physics
is the basis of much of his critique of my work assumed an objective reality independent of
(and of modern Hinduism in general). In my consciousness. This is now considered
view, his phobic response to the association of reductionist. The recent scientific shift is
science and religion is based on an outdated toward a metaphysics that is closer to the
paradigm of science. What’s more, it reflects a cosmology of the Upanishads than to Christian
narrow reading of the dharmic traditions. He theological constructs (based, as they usually
underestimates, for example, the significance are, on classical Greek models). This new
of direct inner inquiry and first-person insight involves cultivating the ability to
experience in Shankara’s teachings and in experience reality in radically new ways. The
Hinduism and Buddhism in general. new scientists of cognition know Hinduism to
Rambachan insists on denying the be closely related to their field, and adhyatma
connection between dharmic meditative vidya is positioned as an important means of
practices and the methods and metaphysical scientific inquiry. Rambachan’s refusal to
assumptions of cognitive science as they are engage with my work is therefore indicative of
practiced today. He ignores both the empirical a broader dis-connect between academic
nature of the rishis’ experience and the new Hinduism studies and the emerging cognitive
scientific paradigms that are emerging. I wish science.
to stress that Hindus have had no cause to be Rambachan would probably agree with me
afraid of science in the way the Abrahamic that this interrelation between science and
traditions have had cause, and that is because dharma should not be studied (as it often has
the metaphysical and theological assumptions been) by shearing off the cultural, religious and
of dharma are not dependent on the defense of philosophical context in which it was born.
dogmatic historical revelations. Furthermore, This attempt to “sanitize” what is trivialized as
contemporary physics and cognitive science “eastern wisdom” and repackage it in western
challenge precisely the dualistic model of secular scientific terms has been going on for
subject/object split – and they challenge it in too long. A large part of my current work is
terms actually appropriated from the study of aimed at documenting and understanding this
Hinduism and Buddhism. It is first-person process of “digestion” and deracination.
experience and experiment that bind dharma The pattern is a recurring one: an
and cognitive science together. Once this new intellectual entrepreneur “goes east” in much
paradigm of cognitive science became the same way that American frontiersmen
crystallized with the help of Hindu and “went west.” He may feel that the Abrahamic
Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2013 3
Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 26 [2013], Art. 6
Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies 31
religions are too restrictive or oppressive, have, in effect, redrawn the boundaries of what
and/or that they are intellectually bankrupt in is considered science today.
the face of new evidence in physics, psychology The box on the top left lists some of the
and healing sciences. New treasures are main dharmic sources that have been mined,
unearthed during this process of eastern and that continue to be mined in this
exploration, and these are especially prized enterprise. These Indian source traditions
when they can be made to operate outside of include: Buddhism (especially Zen and Indo-
accepted western categories, including the Tibetan), Kashmir Shaivism, Patanjali’s yoga,
category of religion itself. At first, the Indian Tantra, Vedanta (especially Advaita and
aspects of these new bodies of knowledge are Vishitadvaita), Vipassana, and the work of Sri
noted and relished as the basis on which the Aurobindo. This is far from an exhaustive list,
entrepreneur/frontiersman can establish and one could easily add other influences such
himself as an expert before his western peers. as J. Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi,
But as that knowledge gets repackaged for Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda, to
consumption in the West, the original contexts name just a few.
are removed and left behind as “exotica.” The box at the top right lists a few of the
The repackaged knowledge and new many Western organizations involved in this
disciplines supersede the old Western religious large-scale project. The Western disciplines
paradigms. Removing the original Indian digesting this knowledge encompass
contexts leads to forms of perennial philosophy philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, religion,
or secular scientism which are supposedly medicine, and so on. I have been studying
value-free and operate outside of religious several of these groups for a forthcoming series
myths and devotional practices. In my view, of books which will explore how Western
this is a mistake, and if Rambachan believes organizations go about identifying, selecting,
Vedanta is in need of being protected from this validating and repackaging the dharmic
deracination and de-contextualization, then I knowledge, and then claim the status of
entirely agree with him. But it would also be a “original discoverers” by gradually erasing the
great mistake to throw the baby out with the source traditions. (In Being Different, I explain
bathwater, i.e., to deny all relationships how lack of acknowledgment in this
between dharmic traditions and the new appropriation differs from the appropriations
science. that were made from Hellenistic sources, and
The chart below shows the “digestion” why Western scholars do not treat Indian and
process by which dharma gets assimilated into Hellenistic sources on par.)
modern cognitive science. It shows the Indian The Western players cited in the top right
sources of the new scientific paradigm and lists box have criticized the old-school approach
some of the channels by which those sources taken by Western religions, science, psychology
have entered Western consciousness, as well as and philosophy. They find these disciplines to
some ways in which they have constituted and be reductionist and in need of radical reform.
shaped new areas of study (even new They often criticize Western thought by
departments in the academy). These sources turning directly and primarily to Indian

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol26/iss1/6 4
DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1545
Malhotra: Author’s Response
32 Rajiv Malhotra
sources, and they do so to a degree that is not established as pioneers and original
sufficiently recognized. The two lower boxes thinkers for Western audiences.
indicate that this “churning” process in the • Once the Indian sources have been used to
West is crystalizing into well-defined and well- gather knowledge and create credibility for
respected fields that are rapidly becoming themselves, the intermediaries dilute the
accepted into the mainstream academy. This significance of those sources (this often
appropriation from India and tension or involves elaborate cover-ups) and
conflict in the West between old and new sometimes even attack the dharmic sources
models started a century ago, but the as being inferior.
challenges to older paradigms have recently The framework for this “digestion,” as I call
intensified, prompting a dramatic rethinking in it, is partly secular science and partly Judeo-
mainstream circles. The very notions of science Christianity. While many appropriations have
and religion are changing. entered directly into Christianity (such as
Indian gurus both in India and in the West Christian Centering Prayer from T.M., Christian
trained individual American “frontiersmen,” Yoga from Hindu Yoga, to name only two),
who then turned the knowledge gained at the others have arrived via a longer route. This
feet of those teachers into what was at first a latter category includes holistic healing,
fringe movement. Over the past two neurosciences, and cognitive sciences.
generations, these proto-movements have As I have said, much of my disagreement
solidified and advanced from the fringe to the with Rambachan centers around (1) his lack of
mainstream of Western research, all the while awareness of what science is today and (2) the
losing sight of, or repressing, their Indian roots. absorption of Indian thought into this new
The list of mainstream institutions and major science. My approach is different. When I use
intellectual figures participating in this process the term “adhyatma vidya,” for instance, I’m
is indeed impressive. There has often been a relating it to the modes of empirical inquiry as
double role played by the various currently understood in cognitive science. This
intermediaries, individuals as well as method involves first-person experience
institutions. combined with third-person analysis of mind.
• These intermediaries appropriate from Rambachan works from a different model of
dharma what is (or until recently was) what science is and he finds it to be antithetical
novel in the West, and often express harsh to Advaita Vedanta. We also differ on the
criticism of the prevailing Western importance of text and transmission in
religious models. This helps them get dharmic traditions vis-à-vis the West, an issue
to which I will return.
Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2013 5
Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 26 [2013], Art. 6
Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies 33
Main sources of appropriation: Some leading individual &
• Vedanta institutional appropriators
• Zen Buddhism • Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute
• Indo-Tibetan Buddhism • John Templeton Foundation
• Kashmir Shaivism • Mind & Life Institute
• Patanjali Yoga • Consciousness Studies Programs
• Transcendental Meditation • Mindfulness Meditation
• Tantra, Kundalini, Chakras • Center for Compassion & Altruism
• Vipassana Research & Education
• Sri Aurobindo • Neuro-phenomenology

Re-contextualization of Appropriations:
• Emerging New School of Religious Studies
• Cognitive Science and Religion
• Integral Theory of Wilber
• Rejecting Western hermeneutics, philosophy,
psychology

Scientific
  Re-­‐training

Attacking
 Old

Validation
 as
  Jewish
 &

Disciplines

new
 ‘Discovery’
  Christian
 Clergy

Figure 1

New Science of Consciousness without considers the Vedas to be the only way of
dualism/objectification knowing Brahman. Along with this, Rambachan
Rambachan cites Shankara as the great argues that science deals only with dualistic
counter-example to my emphasis on adhyatma objects, i.e., it objectifies whatever object is
vidya. He makes the valid point that Shankara being studied as something that exists

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol26/iss1/6 6
DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1545
Malhotra: Author’s Response
34 Rajiv Malhotra
independently of the subject. It is true that this has mushroomed and now spans many fields,
dualistic method cannot lead one to knowledge including the philosophy of science,
of Brahman, but Rambachan shows an psychology, arts, neuroscience, religion,
awareness only of old-school science when he healing, etc. I shall not attempt here to present
makes this point. a tutorial on this vast terrain. Suffice it to say
Quantum mechanics has radically changed that the term “first-person empiricism” is now
science in this regard. According to QM (as per widely accepted as the means to knowing
many interpretations), consciousness plays a consciousness directly by experiencing non-
role as the observer in “creating” (by collapsing dual states. Although initially marginalized
into) the state of the object that is observed. In upon its arrival in the West, this new paradigm
other words, there is no particular state that has become respectable and is seriously
the object is in until it is observed. Prior to an challenging old reductionist views of science.
object’s being observed, what we have are What is most relevant to our discussion is
probabilities for its existence in various that the pioneers in this science of
possible states. In a sense, the very act of consciousness start off by attacking the
observation “creates” the state of the object in classical Western (Newtonian and Cartesian)
which it is found. models as being reductionist, and precisely for
The link between this new physics and the reasons cited by Rambachan: the models
dharma has been noted since the discovery of are dualistic in their separation of subject and
QM by Heisenberg and Schrodinger (both Nobel object, and assume wrongly that objects have a
Laureates in physics). Each of these pioneers separate self-existence. Rambachan, then,
cited the Upanishads as the only source of cannot very well accuse the new science of
philosophy known to them that was consistent consciousness of the very problem it seeks to
with the paradoxical nature of reality resolve, i.e., the reductionism intrinsic in
according to QM.1 Western philosophical “objectification” as practiced in scientific
frameworks at that time (the 1920s and early enquiry.
'30s) failed to accommodate any such
possibility as QM. This ushered in a new era of Are we all potential rishis?
speculative research into the nature of I call adhyatma vidya “inner science” for a
consciousness and its relationship with the reason, which is to emphasize that after the
physical cosmos. rishis meditated and articulated in the
Most of the early philosophical Upanishads what they “saw,” these first-person
explanations of QM explicitly invoked ideas experiences were systematized and debated in
from Vedanta. There was a frenzied attempt to peer reviews in India. This tradition of purva
replace the separate Western frameworks for paksha and uttara paksha is how major Indian
consciousness and matter with a unified systems were established, i.e., through a
framework based on Vedanta. (In most dharma, combination of empirical observation,
metaphysical systems, consciousness, and argumentation, and peer review which strongly
matter were never separate frameworks.) The resembles the scientific method. This process
research literature on such ideas in the West has never been in tension with the scientific
Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2013 7
Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 26 [2013], Art. 6
Author’s Response: Cognitive Science, History-Centrism and the Future of Hindu Studies 35
method because it is not bound to absolutist inherently incapable of “seeing” as the rishis
claims of history that are non-reproducible and did, then he would be setting himself up for a
hence non-verifiable. It is this conjunction that massive contradiction, with core tenets of the
Vivekananda and other modern Hinduism atman being the same in everyone, rishi or not.
intuited and that is being developed today. I am unaware of any way out of this
Rambachan has not addressed the key problem other than my concluding that each
question: How did the rishis “see” the shruti in the human also has the same potential as the rishis,
first place? Unlike the Abrahamic religions, in and that this potential is realized through
which prophets hear from an external God, in disciplined sadhana (the inner sciences of
the Vedas there is no external voice. There is adhyatma vidya), even though very few of us
no entity equivalent to Yahweh who speaks the are able to realize the ultimate result in one
Vedas to the rishis. Nobody says anything like: human lifetime; most of us will need to be
“I am Brahma, the Creator, and I am giving you reborn many times in order to evolve to the
these covenants . . .” So Rambachan must rishi state.
explain how the Vedas were “seen” by the
rishis. Summarizing my position on meditation
He cannot respond by saying that the • Since the Vedas were “seen” by the rishis,
Vedas were original compositions by the rishis, and we humans have this same capacity,
because Vedas are a-purusheya, i.e., each of us has the potential to achieve the
beginningless and authorless. They existed same experience on his own. In other
before the rishis “saw” them. So if the rishis words, we, too, can know Brahman. This
neither composed them nor heard them spoken knowledge is not achieved by means of
by an external person or entity, how is it that dualistic cognition but by non-dual
they were able to “see” them? To the best of my cognition, which Western science is only
knowledge, Rambachan, in his four decades of beginning to examine.
re-stating his position on the dichotomy • This study of non-dual cognition is
between Vedanta and direct experience, has “scientific” in that it relies on first-person
never dealt with this key question. What I am empiricism which may be replicated, and
doing here, in effect, is sending the problem because the results of that experience are
back to him and asking him for a solution in his examined and correlated by a community
own framework. of interpreters who are free from history-
It is important to note that Hinduism does centric constraints.
not regard the rishis as inherently different in • This brings us head-on to Rambachan’s
substance or essence from the rest of us. problem, namely, that Shankara did not
Therefore, if the rishis had the capability of accept any method of knowing Brahman
“seeing” the shruti without any external God other than the Vedas. But Shankara did
speaking to them, and without any previous develop his own meditation system (called
textual tradition or “revelation” to draw on, “Nidhidhyasana”) that uses specific
why can’t we do so as well? If Rambachan were Upanishadic mantras as the means to attain
to respond to this question by saying we are moksha. Unfortunately Shankara does not

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol26/iss1/6 8
DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1545
Malhotra: Author’s Response
36 Rajiv Malhotra
explain his method in much detail, though Locating Integral Unity in the New
his own practice and development of the Discourse
system do indicate he was not dismissive of Rambachan has devoted his distinguished
direct experience. (Some scholars have career to the study of Advaita Vedanta and so it
argued that his emphasis was on refuting is natural that he would want this philosophy
the opponents of his time and that this did to be the central point of any discussion he
not require that he explain his method of enters. But my notion of integral unity cannot
meditation.) be collapsed into and limited to Advaita
• In my book, I do not recommend any Vedanta per se, and I certainly do not consider
specific method of meditation. I merely ultimate reality to be a homogeneous,
assert that various methods are available to otherworldly realm, as is sometimes claimed.
every human. My only purpose is to My interest in integrality originated as part of
contrast the meditative approach with the my study of the science of consciousness
Abrahamic notion of history-centrism and mentioned above.
in so doing, demonstrate that we can Again, fundamentally, our greatest
achieve what the rishis achieved. The Jew disagreement has to do with the different ways
or Christian or Muslim cannot participate we locate our analyses. I am primarily
in prophecy (i.e., directly receive and then interested in the Western appropriation of
declare the word of God), whereas in Eastern ideas, not in defending a “pure” version
dharma all humans are capable of self- of Hinduism. My project is located in the
enlightenment without having to depend history of ideas, with emphasis on the
on any such historical event. transmission of ideas from India to the West.
• I refer to the methods of achieving higher For example, I have tracked Ken Wilber’s
states of consciousness as a “science,” but appropriation of Sri Aurobindo’s theory of
not in the limited sense that the term has integral unity, as well as Kashmir Shaivism,
been used in the past. Science has taken on Tantra and Madhyamika Buddhism. I want to
a new meaning; it no longer denotes discuss Wilber in some depth, not only because
dualistic reductionism, something that his work and influence are much greater than
bothers Rambachan as much as it bothers most scholars of religion realize but because he
me. exemplifies much in the contemporary
None of Rambachan’s arguments has any Western digestion of Eastern thought.
bearing on my book’s central point, which is Wilber’s early books explicitly translated
that dharmic systems are not history-centric Indian ideas for the benefit of Western
whereas Abrahamic religions are. He simply researchers, especially psychologists and
dodges the issue of history-centrism and thus philosophers. Initially he attacked Judaism and
misunderstands many of my related points. Christianity for the same kinds of problems I
have cited in my book: dependence on
historical and exclusive revelation, dualism,
and so on. In effect, he used Indian ideas to
attack Western religion and psychology and
Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2013 9