witness" teaching different from idealism

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sri Krishnamurthy,

 

You wrote:

"Look at the following example. A mango gives different experiences to

different sense-organs – taste for the tongue, smell for the nose, form for

the eyes, touch for the skin. But the mango is the same. Something in our

brain puts all these things together and gives us the holistic image of a

mango. Is it some neural activity in our brain or is it something beyond?

Is it your 'central stage

for adjudication'? Is it the 'Insight? Is it consciousness?"

 

The difficulty arises when one construes the problem as the bringing

together of all these sensations for after all unity of origination is also

an experience. There is also the saturation of each experience with self

awareness not as a separate discovery eg. there is the sensation of eating

a mango and oh yes it is me eating the mango. To carry on this to another

diemension 'there is a memory of eating a mango and oh yes it is my memory.

My knowledge of me eating a mango is something I don't need evidence for

nor do I need to inspect my memory to find some mark of familiarity to know

it was mine. This last was offered by William James in his Principles of

Psychology and it is an idea which still has some currency. Insight into

its incoherance is the beginning of the path towards realisation for those

that are impressed by rational argument. Combine that with living by unity

and one is home and dry!

 

Best Wishes, Michael.