GOD MORNing : Nabhava upalabdheh 11.2.28 (199) The non-existence (of eternal things) cannot be maintained; on account of (our) consciousness (of them). Na: not; Abhavah: non-existence; Upalabdheh: because they are perceived, because of perception, because we are conscious of them on account of their being experienced. The doctrine of the Buddhist which affirms the momentary existence of external objects has been refuted. The Sutrakara or the author of the Sutras now proceeds to refute the doctrine of the Buddhistic school which affirms the momentariness of thought, which declares that only ideas exist and nothing else. According to the Buddhistic Idealists (Vijnanavadins), the external world is non-existent. They maintain that every phenomenon resolves itself into consciousness and idea without any reality corresponding to it. This is not correct. The external phenomena are not non-existent as they are actually witnessed by our senses of perception. The external world is an object of experience through the senses. It cannot therefore, be non-existent like the horns of a hare. The Vijnanavadins say: No external object exists apart from consciousness. There is impossibility for the existence of outward things. Because if outward objects are admitted, they must be either atoms or aggregates of atoms such as chairs, pots, etc. But atoms cannot be comprehended under the ideas of chair, etc. It is not possible for cognition to represent things as minute as atoms. There is no recognition of atoms and so the objects could not be atoms. They could not be atomic combinations because we cannot affirm if such combinations are one with atoms or separate therefrom. According to the Vijnanavadins or the Yogachara system the Vijnana Skandha or idea alone is real. An object like pot or chair which is perceived outside is nothing more than ideas. The Vijnana or idea modifies itself into the form of an object. All worldly activities can go on with mere ideas, just as in dream all activities are performed with the thought objects. Ideas only exist. It is useless to assume that the object is something different from the idea. It is possible to have practical thought and intercourse without external objects, just as it is done in dream. All practical purposes are well rendered possible by admitting the reality of ideas only, because no good purpose is served by additional assumption of external objects corresponding to internal ideas. The mind assumes different shapes owing to the different Vasanas or desire-impressions submerged in it. Just as these Vasanas create the dream world, so the external world in the waking state is also the result of Vasanas. The assumption of an external object is unnecessary. We do not see any separation of cognition and object. In dream we cognise without objects. Even so in the waking state there could be cognition without objects. Our manifoldness of Vasanas can account for such cognitions. Perception in the waking state is like a dream. The ideas that are present during a dream appear in the form of subject and object, although there is no external object. Hence, the ideas of chair, pot, which occur in our waking state are likewise independent of external objects, because they also imply ideas. This argument is fallacious. When you see a chair or a pot how can you deny it? When you eat, your hunger is appeased. How can you doubt the hunger or the food? You say that there is no object apart from your cognition on account of your capriciousness. Why do you not see a chair as a pot? If an object is a mere mental creation like a dream why should the mind locate it outside? The Buddhist may say I do not affirm that I have no consciousness of an object. I also feel that the object appears as an external thing, but what I affirm is this that I am always conscious of nothing directly save my own ideas. My idea alone shines as something external. Consequently the appearance of the external things is the result of my own ideas. We reply that the very fact of your consciousness proves that there is an external object giving rise to the idea of externality. That the external object exists apart from consciousness has necessarily to be accepted on the ground of the nature of consciousness itself. No one when perceiving a chair or a pot is conscious of his perception only, but all are conscious of chair or a pot and the like as objects of perception. You (Vijnanavadins) say that the internal consciousness or idea appears as something external. This already indicates that the external world is real. If it were not real, your saying like something external would be meaningless. The word like shows that you admit the reality of the external objects. Otherwise you would not have used this word. Because no one makes a comparison with a thing which is an absolute unreality. No one says that Ramakrishna is like the son of a barren woman. An idea like a lamp requires an ulterior intellectual principle or illuminer to render it manifest. Vijnana has a beginning and an end. It also belongs to the category of the known. The knower is as indispensable of cognitions as of objects. The Buddhist idealist, while contending that there is nothing outside the mind, forgets the fallacy of the argument. If the world, as they argue, were only an outward expression of internal ideas, then the world also would be just mind. But the Buddhists argue that the mind, which is ostensibly in the individual, is also the world outside. Here the question arises: How does the idea of there being nothing outside arise without the mind itself being outside? The consciousness that nothing exists outside cannot arise if there is really nothing outside. Hence the Buddhist Vijnanavada doctrine is defective. The mind referred to here is not the individual mind but the cosmic mind, known as Alaya-Vijnana, which is the repository of all individual minds in a potential form. Here the Buddhist stumbles on the Vedanta doctrine that the world is a manifestation of the Universal Mind.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 03:52:54 +0000
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