When Soteriology Meets Deontology: Recognition, Autonomy and Care of the Self in a Non-Dual Perspective

Abstract

This article briefly outlines the concepts of recognition (pratyabhijñã) and autonomy (svãtantrya) developed in an integral non-dual (parama advaita) by an Indian philosophical school called Kashmir Shaivism between the century IX until the century XI EC. From this non-Western point of view an attempt is made to show the importance of the study of philosophical concepts outside traditional western patterns of feeling and thinking, but that still dialogue and face very similar problems, attempting to break at the same time that reframes certain discussions ”“ especially insights about the Self, the Other and the deontological implications that come from this. Involved in a soteriology the moral code of this doctrine can be found in the reflections on the manifestation of the absolute consciousness (vimarÅ›a) into reality itself, which comprises the individual, being a perspective that moves between immanence and transcendence. This method goes along an expansion of the limited awareness to an understanding increasingly integral, finding the non-differences in the differences (bhedãbheda). The path to liberation is therefore inevitably a path of constant questioning and reflexion, which encourages both autonomy as a recognition of the Self and the Other.