274 NONMONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONSIf, however, any of these claims is true, it is true about everyone, not just
about oneself; the idea is that if anyone then everyone is identical to
qualityless Brahman or is an indestructible enduring mind or is composed only
of momentary elements. Further, these claims can be true only if various other
things are false. For example, if monotheism is true, God is ultimate and has
qualities (so there is no qualityless Brahman), persons are created and endure
by divine courtesy (they are not indestructible), and God is neither transient
nor composed of transient elements (it is false that everything is
impermanent).
Particular experiences, universal claims
The various doctrines about persons are universal in scope; the experiences
occur to particular individuals. When we ask whether these particular
experiences provide evidence for claims that are universal in their scope, we
get different results depending on the case. Suppose that enlightenment
experience provides evidence that one is identical to qualityless Brahman. Will
this also provide evidence that everyone else is? The question is peculiar in a
way that arises from the doctrine itself. If A is identical to B and C is identical
to B, then A is identical to C. So if you are identical to qualityless Brahman and
I am too, we are identical to one another; so there isn’t “anyone else.” If there
is anyone else, the doctrine is false.
Suppose that enlightenment experience provides evidence that one is an
indestructible mind or is composed of momentary elements. Will this also
provide evidence that everyone else is? It will do so in the presence of a
doctrine to the effect that the subject of the experience is a person and what
makes her a person is the same as what makes everyone else a person,
assuming that one is justified in taking these additional claims to be true.
Discussing these issues in any detail would take us too far away from our basic
concerns here. Thus we simply note that it is widely assumed that these sorts
of additional claim are true.^9
Phenomenologies that fit the claims
The right sort of phenomenology seems to be of this sort: for Advaita
enlightenment experience, appearing or seeming to be identical with
qualityless Brahman; for Jainism, appearing or seeming to be an
indestructible and highly knowledgeable mind; for Buddhism, appearing or
seeming to be only a bundle of transitory states. One might question whether
these are, strictly speaking, possible phenomenological features of an
experience. They seem, like being a Roman coin, to be features something