Knowledge and the Means of Knowledge

[Guest guest]

Namaste All Followers of this Thread,

In a way the object causes the mental vritti by being the mental vritti.

That one can be the other is due to the shared nature i.e. Consciousness,

that they both have. As is said in V.P. pg.16 trans. " the Consciousness

limited by that mental state is not different from the Consciousness

limited by the jar, and hence the knowledge of the jar there is a

perception so far as the jar is concerned " . Not to labour the point, it

is to be noted that there is no talk of attributes of the object being

present in the mind of the subject. I think that the talk of causality

can induce the thought that something out there giving rise to something

in here. If you start with the idea of the irreducible nature of the

object which is a natural assumption you will find yourself backed into

the unknowability of the object as it is. However if the object is an

upadhi of Consciousness then the vritti can be the object because the

substratum is one and the same.

 

That gives rise to the question: where do the organs come in, surely they

make a difference. Again there is an assumption there of the irreducible

object which is denied by Advaita. What Shankara says in his commentary

on Brh.Up.II.iv.11 is this:

" the Sruti considers the organs to be of the same category as the objects,

not of a different category. The organs are but modes of the objects in

order to perceive them, as is the case with a lamp. "

 

My interpretation of this difficult section is that the organs in a sense

make the objects. More needs to be said on this as of course it brings in

the tricky question of error.

[Guest guest]

advaitin , " putranm " <putranm wrote:

> To say an object exists, we must know what we mean

> by existence and how to associate the term to an entity identified

> with attributes. Can a reality which exists become non-existent? Can

> the real become unreal? We say NO.

>

> But then an object becomes a different object or non-object if its

> attributes undergo change, or if under a different lens of perception,

> it appears different. That stable distinguishing name-form of a chair

> that told us to classify it as 'object' is lost if we look at the same

> with an electron-microscope. Then that very thing becomes a group of

> things. The appearance of an object implies existence, not of the

> object but of the constant Brahman that appears objective. In common

> parlance (vyavahaarika), we say that the object exists.

>

 

Some thoughts regarding my statements above:

 

We need to have a standard definition of " object " and what it means to

talk of its existence, knowledge, etc. The name 'chair' should be

taken as referring to a collection of manifest forms/attributes, which

are linked in time-space and of which one will appear to a particular

time-space-senses/mind frame of reference that comes in contact with

'it'. Then given that we perceive one of them, it may be assumed that

such a continuum of forms exists (in Ishvara's consciousness/creation)

independently of the perceiver (jiva). So we say " The chair exists " ;

we may have wrongly interpreted its attributes in our minds, but in

'Ishvara's mind' the continuum has definiteness.

 

 

Regarding Sri Michaelji's latest post 40964, my understanding:

 

The Consciousness may be one and the same, but the upadhis are not one

and the same. The vritti is an upadhi in the jiva's mind causing a

certain knowledge/awareness in the intellect; the chair (as also jiva)

is a 'continuum of upadhis/vrittis' in Ishvara's Consciousness, that

within the manifest universe causes the vritti in the jiva's mind:

they need not be the same. See my last sentence of above paragraph.

(Actually this assertion of yours is confusing since you were strongly

asserting that the attributes of object are not in the subject. This

whole topic is confusing !!)

 

thollmelukaalkizhu

[Guest guest]

advaitin , " putranm " <putranm wrote:

> Some thoughts regarding my statements above:

>

> We need to have a standard definition of " object " and what it means to

> talk of its existence, knowledge, etc. The name 'chair' should be

> taken as referring to a collection of manifest forms/attributes, which

> are linked in time-space and of which one will appear to a particular

> time-space-senses/mind frame of reference that comes in contact with

> 'it'. Then given that we perceive one of them, it may be assumed that

> such a continuum of forms exists (in Ishvara's consciousness/creation)

> independently of the perceiver (jiva). So we say " The chair exists " ;

> we may have wrongly interpreted its attributes in our minds, but in

> 'Ishvara's mind' the continuum has definiteness.

>

 

 

A couple of more thoughts, with some mathematical views. (As usual,

whatever I say is subject to errors (esp regarding advaita) as it also

involves my added intellect to limited scriptural knowledge.)

 

I recall Sadaji saying something like (?) " Existence is known through

knowledge of existence " . I could not find the precise post and stopped

trying. This statement actually makes better sense now. If we consider

perceptual knowledge, the only way to define an object is through the

intellectual knowledge gathered through our senses and processed in

mind. Only to the extent we can define it can we assert its existence,

epistemologically.

__________________

 

 

Here is a mathematical interpretation: so far as the jiva is

concerned, the object can be thought of as a mapping or function from

a domain space whose point dimensions include 'time', space, and our

sensory reference frames. Each point of the range space (bypassing the

mind's own upadhis or including them in domain) is the objective

knowledge; so for every reference frame-point, there corresponds a

particular knowledge. If we separate within that objective knowledge

of duality, a particular combination of name-form and call that

object, we may logically conclude this knowledge of object is actually

extendable continuously to a function over the entire domain (or some

decent part of it). That function is our object and we may claim that

it exists provided we can find one point-knowledge correspondence.

 

This is perhaps the best definition that we can obtain through

perception, and thereby the best knowledge of existence logically

deduce. For, the identification of the external object is possible

only in the context of predefined reference frames, already based on

duality. This is however not what we seek; we want to affirm that the

object exists in the manifest universe as an entity unto itself. Here

we have to invoke (from Sruthi) the existence of an absolute reference

frame of Self/Ishvara/Brahman wherein the perceived object finds its

complete reality and definition " as it really is " . Relativity may be

the epistemological Law within the manifest universe, but we assert

that relativity also belongs to (or is superimposition on) the

absolute Awareness/Reality that is unmanifest and unknowable.

 

(Of course, Advaitins find that this Reality of Self, being our very

nature/Truth, is obvious and ever-known and ever shouting at us.

Scripture serves to dispel the ignorance of superimpositions. But that

knowledge of Self is not quite intellectual, nor can it be used from

only an epistemological standpoint (to judge objects identified

through the error of superimposition, to begin with.))

 

 

thollmelukaalkizhu