Psychological vs. ontological facts

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> What does pramana mean? If it means scriptural authority, are you saying
> that the truthfulness of Advaita Vedanta *cannot* be established without
> recourse to it?

pramANa means 'valid source of knowledge.' Six such sources are accepted
in vedAnta and mImAm.sA schools. These are pratyaksha - perception,
upamAna - analogy, anumAna - inference, anupalabdhi - non-cognition
(sometimes substituted with abhAva - non-being), arthApatti - postulation,
and Sabda - word (pre-eminently Sruti, in the vedAnta traditions). The
nyAya school holds that anupalabdhi and arthApatti are only special cases
of anumAna, and among the vedAnta schools, only the dvaita school agress
with them.

It is not that advaita cannot be established without Sruti, but to be true
to the vedAnta tradition, one has to recognize that it is considered a
valid source of knowledge, especially for those issues where the other
sources of knowledge fail to provide any information.

>
> >>........................................  Must we assume that energy
> >> itself is conscious when we assert that consciousness is the substratum of
> >> the apparent universe or do we just ignore science completely?
> >
> >Does your question about the consciousness of energy entail that energy is
> >conscious of itself, or of other things? If so, the problem with this is
> >that where there is only one entity, call it the Atman or energy, there is
> >no point in talking of such consciousness. It is only where one can admit
> >a subject-object duality that one can talk of any entity being conscious
> >of itself or of other things. Now, when advaita says that Atman is pure
> >consciousness, and that Atman is the substratum of the illusory world,
> >it is also quick to point out that this Atman cannot be said to be
> >conscious of itself or of external things. At this stage, there is only
> >the Atman, which is na antarprajna:, na bahishprajna: (not inwardly aware,
> >not outwardly aware). It just IS, and even saying that it is pure
> >consciousness is only because one has to deny that the nature of the Atman
> >is opposed to consciousness.
> >
>
> I was referring to consciousness-without-an-object. Are we assuming that
> the energy studied by physics is an illusion or are we assuming that the
> energy studied by physics is itself (at its most fundamental level)
> Brahman (ie. consciousness-without-an-object)?

I am not very conversant with deep-level interpretations of quantum
mechanics, so I hesitate to venture an answer. But I do know that many
scientists nowadays are saying that one has to postulate a 'consciousness'
at a fundamental level. Now, whether this consciousness is itself
identical to energy or otherwise, I don't know.

> Sorry, but could you tell me what apaurusheya means?
>

apaurusheya = not of paurusheya origin; paurusheya derives from purusha =
person. The vedas are held to be not of human origin. Most lay listeners
are content to think that this means that the vedas are of divine origin.
However, the term 'apaurusheya' also strictly denies that the vedas were
composed by a God.

For the mImAm.sA school, this property of the veda gives it an exalted
status as a pramANa, over the other five pramANas. The apaurusheya nature
of the vedas is accepted by all teachers of vedAnta, although Sankara and
the advaitins are prepared to accept that the vedas were 'breathed out' of
brahman, just as the entire universe was 'breathed out' of brahman.

Vidyasankar