[Advaita-l] The nature of spiritual realisation

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- "V. Krishnamurthy" <profvk at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Five reasons why Consciousness is different from body:
> 
>  
> 
>    We are conscious of our dream, without the help of the body.

This particular reason would not convince the opponent, since the
opponent would claim that dreams themselves are due to "neurons firing"
in the brain.

>    We are conscious of our body, so we are different from the body.

In other words, if one says "I am conscious of X", then the X itself
cannot be a consciousness different from the 'I'. Why? Because one
cannot be conscious of another consciousness (is it clear?). So either
we have to make an equation between the body and the Self or we have to
take the body to be unconscious. 

But this does not prove that consciousness does not "emanate" from the
unconscious body, just as a property (e.g. color) does from a physical
object (e.g. tree). 

>    We are conscious of every change, so we are different from every
> changing system, that is the body.

This is an interesting observation, but is not very clear...

>    Consciousness has left the body in a coma stage, so Consciousness
> cannot be a quality of the body.

One might claim that although there is no consciousness in the comatose
body, unconsciousness has occurred due to a change in the body, and
hence the attribute of consciousness (say the firing of specific
neurons) has disappeared.

> 5.Without light we cannot see. But that does not mean that the light
> is the seer. So also it appears as if  only with the body we are
> conscious.  It is not so.
>  
> PraNAms to all seekers of truth
> profvk
>  
>  
> 
> 
> 
> Prof. V. Krishnamurthy
> My website on Science and Spirituality is
> http://www.geocities.com/profvk/
> You can  access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought
> Vision and Practice,  and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's
> manuscripts from the site.
> _______________________________________________
> want to unsubscribe or change your options? See:
> http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l
> Need assistance? Contact:
> listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com