[Advaita-l] Causal Body

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

[moderators note:  Jay, your mail was rejected by the list server because
of the attachment.  This is a precaution against spam and viruses.  You
should have drawn an ascii elephant :-)]


From: Jay Nelamangala <jay at r-c-i.com>
To: ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 13:59:03 -0400

Dear sadAnanda,

>validation criteria to say real or unreal - independent of any
>particular saakshee-s. Am I right? Which saakshii establishes those
>norms and on what basis? What is the criteria of acceptance of those
>norms? Faith - beliefs - then how can one say that is a valid knoweldge
>non-negatable by all saakshees?

There is a single answer to all these questions, it is called "internal
consistency". That is the norm for sAkshee to accept or reject.

We know an elephant has 4 legs?.  How do we know it?.  Because of the
"internal consistency"  that everytime we have seen a real elephant at any
place and time, we have seen an elephant as having four legs.

But someone can draw a picture of an elephant ( I have attached a picture
to make it more fun) so as to confuse us.  Our "pratyaksha" from this
picture is inconsistent with our other "pratyaksha" knowledge of 4-legged
elephants How does sAkshee-D handle it?  Because this new "knowledge"
contradicts the other already established pratyaksha pramANa, sAkshee-D
simply rejects it.

Therefore, sAkshee-D rejects what is given in this picture as a 5-legged
elephant, irrespective of how much we respect the artist who drew that
picture because, the "internal consistentcy" is lost in that knowledge.
This is how sAkshee-D establishes validity of knowledge.  What is grasped
by sAkshee-D is always correct, because of this "internal consistency".

Similarly, if "pratyaksha", "anumAna" and "Agama" become inconsistent,
where as "pratyaksha" tells sAkshee-D that "I am not Brahman" but Agama is
interpreted to tell sAkshee-D that "I am Brahman", it rejects it because
of this "internal inconsistency" between Agama and pratyaksha.

But then there will always be some fans of the artist, who will insist
that even though it is inconsistent with real-life, an elephant can have 5
legs because their favourite artist drew it that way. It simply means
their "faith" has overpowered and killed their sAkshee-D. sAkshee-D is the
thinking principle, chEtana-swaroopa. upanishat calls such people "yE kE
chAtmahanO janAha"