Up-pravartak
Shri Amar Muni |
Question: If you say that "chaitanya or consciousness
is not the nature of the body and that it is of a different object", it is
like saying that "a pot's redness does not belong to the pot, but it is of
a different object". Does not this kind of belief seem a contradiction of
the true concrete reality? Does it not seem quite contrary to the visible?
(Contrary to the pratyaksha.)
Answer: What is the use of believing in only pratyaksha
evidence? The sprout that comes from the earth seems to be of the earth,
but it is not of the earth. Can it be believed to be the nature of the
earth even to a little extent? Not at all. It is the nature of the seed.
Otherwise, without the seed why is it not seen coming out of the earth?
Hence, it shows that a sprout is the nature of the seed, but not of the
earth.
(1) In the same manner, since in the absence of the
soul, there is no consciousness seen in any body, we must believe that the
nature of consciousness belongs not to the body but to the soul. Where we
find an Anumana (inference) that contradicts the Pratyaksha, the visible
contradiction becomes negligible. Suppose a man has not eaten food today
since morning and in the afternoon he experiences stomach-ache; this
stomach-ache is not caused by his remaining hungry today but the ache has
occurred due to the excessive quantity of food eaten on the previous day.
Where we get an inference (anumana pramana) of the existence of the soul,
it makes the pratyaksha-virodh', viz., the contradiction of the 'visible'
evidence negligible ).
Evidences: Soul is different from Senses:
Now these are the evidences of the existence of the
soul as different from the senses:
That which even after the ending of the activities of
senses, can retain the capacity for memory is different from them. For
instance, after seeing through the five windows of a house, even after the
windows are closed, the man can remember what he has seen, and he is
different from the windows. Just as the person is seer, but the windows
are not seers, so also the soul is the seer and senses are not seers;
because:
Sometimes even though the senses themselves are engaged
in the activity towards a particular object, if the mind is elsewhere or
has become blank, that object is not perceived. This implies that the
senses are not seers.
Even after the activites of the senses have ceased, the
person experienced has memory of perceived things. This means that the
seer was not the senses but the soul of that person.
Even after perceiving through the senses, one who
experiences remembrance or carries out such sensations as contemplations,
aberration, anxiety, or rejection etc., is someone else residing within
the body.
From this, it is evident that the senses which are made
of basic elments, 'bhutas' are not the soul but are merely windows, and
that the soul is a separate entity different from the senses, and he makes
use of all these means, these instrumental objects like senses.
For instance, just as someone looks out through a
window and sees some person, and calls him through another window. These
two windows do not have the power of unification of conceptual experience.
Therefore, the one that unifies these conceptual experience of two windows
is different from the windows. In the same manner, when one sees somebody
eating a raw and sour mango, his tongue waters or his teeth grow sour. In
such a case the one that experiences these two mixed sense-responses,
these two combined sensations must be different from them, (viz. the
senses), and must be of one soul.
For instance out of five people each may have knowledge
of five different objects but each knowing a separate object, what one
knows, the other may not know.
There is the sixth one who has the knowledge of all
these five objects; then this sixth one is different from all the five. In
the same manner, the soul that remembers the experience of all the five
objects perceived by all these five senses must be a different entity from
them. The senses of their own accord cannot do anything. Knowledge arises
only by the interaction of the mind with the soul. Here a question may
arise: "Does the senses have the quality of knowledge?"
It is a rule that knowledge is preceded by knowledge.
According to this rule the first knowledge occurring in this body should
have been preceded by knowledge. Who is the possessor of this previous
knowledge? Say, it is the soul. Similarly, it is in desire, it is in the
body. A desire is always preceded by desire. A body is always preceded by
fear and anguish. The inference is 'any desire, body, passions, sorrows
and joys are preceded by desire, body, sorrows and joys'. The entity that
experiences those preceding desire etc., is the soul itself.
Like the relationship between the seed and sprout, the
chain of relationships between body and karma has been flowing like a
flood from times immemorial. This cannot go on without the creator i.e. 'karta'
the doer (the soul that is different from the body).
When a pot is made with the help of a wooden stick, the
stick is not the doer; it is only an instrument. In the same manner, the
body itself is not the doer of the activities of the body. It is only an
instrument, a means. Just as the potter is the doer in the case of a pot,
here the doer of bodily activities is the soul.
As it is said in the section relating to the first
Ganadhar (a) Just as a house, similarly the body must have its creator
which has a particular shape, or doer who is different from the body. (b)Just
as we wash and clean our dirty clothes and dye them and feel pleased with
them, there is one who washes and cleans the body and beautifies it to
make it beautiful and splendid: moreover enjoys and develops attachment
for it and experiences those pleasures is not the body itself The
experiencer must be a separate entity different from the body. (Here for
that entity the body is like a dress). (c)Who is that which loves and
desires the safety of the hands, the legs, the head etc. like the safety
of pillars, windows, doors of the house? The lover of the safety is not
the body, because the body like a house is merely an aggregation, a
combination of limbs and organs like parts of a building. (d) Just as
there is a relationship of the receiver and the received between metal and
forceps, there is a similar relationship between the senses and their
objects. This relationship between the senses and objects is that of a
capturer and captured. For the existence of this kind of relationship
between the senses and the sensual objects there is the need of a soul,
comparable to a blacksmith, who has a volition of his own for capturing
objects and knowing them. (e) That entity which can remember the
experiences of another place and another time is imperishable. In the same
manner, this is one argument that because one cannot remember the
experiences of another, even though the body of the previous birth
perishes, still that entity called soul that can remember those
experiences in the new body, viz., bodily existence is surely different
from the body.
The Theory of Momentary existence is not proper,
how?
Question: Can we not remember the past experiences due
to the impressions continued in the series of previous moments? We can
remember. When that is so, where is the need for an imperishable soul of
non-momentary existence?
Answer: Even in the momentary tradition of existence,
there is the need for an individual who is interwoven in the series of
moments and who is blessed and is imbued with memories and who retains
impression of knowledge and experiences. Otherwise, after knowledge and
experience perish, there cannot occur remembrances similar to them.
Without one individual who has visualized all the
things of the world as momentary who can say whichever is existent is
momentary? Such a sayer passing through the series of all moments must be
himself imperishable. Otherwise how can he himself if momentary, know that
'Things are momentary?' Without visualizing them as to their momentary
natures, it is impossible for him to say so. In the same manner, if one
himself existing momentarily perishes afterwards, then since he has no
connection, no contact, no relationship with the past or the future, how
can he know what happened in the past and what will happen in the future?
The point is that there is the need for an imperishable
soul who sees and knows the whole series of the past and future.
Question: "All are like us" means "all being existent
like us are momentary". In this manner, can't we know all as momentary in
their existence?
Answer: Even to know this, first we must know and
realise and visualize the realness in all. As the realness is visualized,
as present in us so realness must be visualized as present in all worldly
things. Then only can we say emphatically that all real things are
momentary. If there is no capacity in us to know all the real things, how
can we deduce that whatever is real is momentary?
Otherwise even an unreal thing will be proved to be
momentary, (meaning perishable in a moment). Here you can't say 'oh, let
it be so', because 'momentary' means that which stays, exists only one
moment and is destroyed in the next moment. Now when an unreal thing does
not exist at all, how can it be called existing (staying) one moment and
perishing in the next moment? It means, destruction happens only of a real
thing.
Now you see, no one can propound this theory that 'In
the world all the real things are momentary'. First, because when he has
no knowledge of all the past, present and future things, how can he
establish a truth pertaining to all? Secondly, because when the propounder
himself being momentary perishes in the next moment even before he is in a
position to realise the momentariness of anything, how can he propound
that theory without realising it?
The purport is, according to this theory, if there is
no one staying on the second moment, then the trouble is, in the first
moment he shall have to realise all reals, and in the second moment he
shall have to realise their destruction. Then only in the third moment he
can say "all reals are momentary". But at that time he himself, being
momentary, is not existing How can he realise the universal momentariness'
Question:: Cannot one who has w with him the previous
impressions (samskars) of momentariness, realise and propound the truth of
universal momentariness?
Answer: Even then you shall have to believe that the
previous impressions and the possessor of them who co-existed, are not
momentary, not perished in one moment, and hence only they remained intact
to be inherited and to inherit on the successive moments. Here the theory
of universal momentariness comes to end. If you say that the impressions (samskars)
are also momentary, then no effect can be produced in the successive
moments on the basis of lost impressions. But we experience the
remembrances of past occurrances. This is only possible with the existence
of past impressions and their owner. It means that the theory of universal
and eternal momentariness is refuted.
The fruits of benevolence etc., mentioned in the Vedas
can be possible to occur and to be experienced only if there exists the
soul different from the body. The question may arise "If the soul enters
the body and leaves the body, then why is it not visible?" The answer to
this question is that as already mentioned on account of such thing as a
subtle object though it is an entity it is not visible.
In this manner, there is no rule that the activities
like the Yoga and Upayoga and the sensations like desire, iccha, raga
attachments, passions etc., already explained and the innate joys and
sorrows keep decreasing and increasing in consonance with the regeneration
or degeneration of the body. From this we can understand that these
qualities and nature are not of the body but are of the soul, which is an
independent entity different from the body.
There are other proofs also in support of the soul: The
remembrance of the previous birth;
The existence of the other words for the "soul" being
separate than those of the body;
The fact that if an occasion arises, even the body is
sacrificed for our most beloved, and that is our soul. These prove the
existence of the soul as different from the body. (If the body was our
most beloved, we would not dare sacrifice it. Hence, for whom is the body
sacrificed? It is our most beloved soul. )
This logical exposition of the Bhagavan wiped out the
doubt of Vayubhuti and he also, along with his five hundred disciples
accepted the charitra diksa at the pious feet of Bhagavan Mahavir.