Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
These and similar texts teach that it is through beginningless Maya that to Brahman which truly is pure non-differenced intelligence its own nature hides itself, and that it sees diversity within itself.
Well, our adversary resumes, let it then be said that the meaning of the declaration that through the cognition of one thing everything is to be known is that only non-differenced Being is real, while everything else is unreal.
On the theory, on the other hand, of a Brahman that is nothing but distinctionless intelligence even the witnessing function of consciousness would be unreal. Further, on the theory of Brahman being mere non-differenced light it would be difficult to prove that Brahman is self-luminous.
Brahman which is nothing but pure non-differenced Being, rests exclusively on the empirical assumption of Egoity and so on, and is false; while reality belongs to the causal Brahman which is mere Being. It follows that there is no such thing as an effect apart from its cause; the effect in fact is identical with the cause.
We have so far shown that in the case of a conflict between Scripture and Perception and the other instruments of knowledge, Scripture is of greater force. The fact, however, is that no such conflict is observed to exist, since Perception itself gives rise to the apprehension of a non-differenced Brahman whose nature is pure Being.
According to the view of our opponent, this entire world, with all its endless distinctions of Ruler, creatures ruled, and so on, is, owing to a certain defect, fictitiously superimposed upon the non-differenced, self-luminous Reality; and what constitutes that defect is beginningless Nescience, which invests the Reality, gives rise to manifold illusions, and cannot be denned either as being or non-being.
Brahman, which is one and without a second, is not seen to be sublated by any ulterior cognition, Brahman, i.e. pure non-differenced Consciousness, remains as the sole Reality. But here too you are wrong, since we must decide that something which rests on a defect is unreal, although it may remain unrefuted. We will illustrate this point by an analogous instance.
The doctrine that Brahman, which in itself is pure, non-differenced self- illuminedness, has its own true nature hidden by avidya and hence sees plurality within itself, is in conflict with all the valid means of right knowledge; for as Brahman is without parts, obscuration, i.e. cessation, of the light of Brahman, would mean complete destruction of Brahman; so that the hypothesis of obscuration is altogether excluded.
The mere ordinary instruments of knowledge, viz. perception and inference assisted by reasoning, may suggest to the Sudra the theory that there is an inward Reality constituted by non-differenced self- luminous intelligence, that this inward principle witnesses Nescience, and that owing to Nescience the entire apparent world, with its manifold distinctions of knowing subjects and objects of knowledge, is superimposed upon the inner Reality.
Nor does Brahman, constituted by pure non-differenced intelligence, shine forth by itself, so as not to need for its cognition other means of knowledge.
Word Of The Day