[Advaita-l] How is an object perceived.

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste Subbuji
I remember one      explanation/interpretation for this idea of the mind
spatially extending to reach and unite with the form of the object as
mentioned in Advaita epistemology. It holds good for atleast sight and
sound perception.

The idea of extension of the mind/subject to the place where the object is
present, is to be understood from an experiential (phenomenological) point
of view rather than as something happening at the sthUla physical level.

We never experience an object as existing *inside* our head or in our body.
It is known that the senses gather sensory data and present it for our
experience. And *yet* we experience/perceive the object as existing
*externally* at a distance, when we see the object. This is the projection
being mentioned in Advaita.

Even for sounds the same holds good. The sound is no doubt heard by the
ears which are in the body. Yet there is a "projection" which happens, or
an "extension" into space, which makes us experience the sound as being
heard from a distance and as originating from a point which is far away,
rather than us experiencing the sound as originating from within our body
or inside our ears where the sounds in fact are detected by our ears.

The physiological aspect of perception of sights and sounds through nerve
signals activating the visual cortex etc., is not in conflict with Advaita
epistemology. Because Advaita through VP etc,  is only explaining the
phenomenological ("experiential") dimension of sensory experience. It's
telling us how the nerve signals are not experienced by us at all, rather
the antahkarana projects a 3D world of sights and sounds for us by riding
on the physiology of brain and nerves etc., which merely provide the
film/template for projecting this 3D World for our experience.

The case of the other senses is slightly different, no doubt. (Although
even for touch, we take for granted the fact that we are able to feel a
"spatial extension" into every part of our body and experience touch in
different spatially extended parts of the body.)

Another thing is - In the VP idea of the mind or the MS idea of the self
traveling to unite with the object, we may need to restrict the meaning of
the word "object" to only refer to the frontal or directly visible part of
a perceived object. Otherwise a question can be asked - why don't we get
full comprehensive visual information of the *entire* object? The fact is,
we get only partial visual information about the object of the face
presented to us. This undeniable fact has to be accommodated and accounted
for in any meaningful scheme of the mind/subject traveling and uniting with
the *object* in order to present the vRtti for our experience. One way,
like I said, is to restrict the word object to only that aspect of it
available for perception or not necessarily the entire the object in all
its aspect.

Om

On Tue, 14 Apr, 2020, 6:05 PM V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l, <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Sada ji,
>
> //The mind going out applies only for a sense of sight and hearing. //
> Is hearing also in this category? I think I have read that sound, through
> the method of expanding consecutive waves, reaches the ear.
> 'veechi-taranga-nyaya'.
>
> I am open to correction, though.
>
> regards
> subbu
>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 1:55 PM Kuntimaddi Sadananda via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
> >  Chandramouliji - PraNAms
> > Just some thoughts.
> > I think that the idea of mind going out with thesenses and envelope the
> > object comes from puurva meemamsa which Advaita alsoadopted it. The mind
> > going out applies only for a sense of sight and hearing. For the sense of
> > touch, taste, and smell, the object comes in contact with the
> > sensesdirectly. The senses are part of anthaH karana and hence direct
> input
> > to themind contributes to its vRitti.
> >
> >
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