[Advaita-l] The nature of spiritual realisation

[Sundaram, Vaidya (MED)]

Namaskaram.
 
> For a moment, let it be accepted that consciousness is an attribute of
the body. 

Your assumption is not accepted. Your problem starts with this wrong
assumption that consciousness is an attribute of the body. Does it mean
that a "larger" body has a larger consciousness? and a smaller one has
lesser ? and your own example of a dead person brings out the absurdity
of the assumption.

 "consciousness in a body" (rephrasing consciousness is an attribute of
the body) - this statement is neither essential, nor accidental. I say
this because we have very loose ideas on what a body is and certainly
loose ideas on what constitutes consciousness. What one traditionally
refers to as ghosts or goblins or pisacas ... do you consider them to
have a "body"? If they are not considered to have a body, are they not
conscious? If body were essential for consciousness, then the puranic
statements of parakaaya pravesam by saints, including Shri Shankara,
become invalid statements. 

bhava shankara desikame sharaNam
Vaidya.

-----Original Message-----
From: Raghavendra N Kalyan [mailto:kalyan7429 at yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 2:25 PM
To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Subject: [Advaita-l] The nature of spiritual realisation


>Before I type Shankara's commentary, any ideas as to how the
>opponent's theory can be refuted?

 
For a moment, let it be accepted that consciousness is an attribute of
the body. 
 
Is consciousness an essential attribute or an accidental attribute of
the body? If it is essential, then even a dead body (with all organs
preserved)must be conscious. If it is accidental, then there is no
reason why bodies alone must be conscious.
 
 


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