Reality------Time, Space & Causation.

Being drunk the wine of ignorance we forget ourselves !

The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant declared that whatever we perceive, either in the outside world or within ourselves, we know in terms of time space and causation, the categories of our intellect. Just as when we put on coloured glasses we see everything tinted by the colour, and not as it is , so we can never know the thing-in-itself within ourselves or within the phenomena of the external world. From the Indian Vedantic point of view we say that kant's intellect led him into a sort of philosophical agnosticism, which holds that there is the Absolute but it can never be experienced as it is.

     A thousand years before Kant, in India in the eighth century, there lived a non dualistic mystic and philosopher, Shankaracharya. He too, sooke of desa (space), kala (time), & nimita (causality) ---- through which the Supreme Spirit manifests itself, but which can never reveal the nature of the Absolute, the Reality beyond time,space and causation. But there are many points of difference between these two great thinkers, To kant, time ,space and causation, the categories of the mind, are real. According to Shankara they have only empirical value. They hold good for all the practical purposes of our phenomenal life, but they have no absolute reality because they are products of ignorance. So we find that Shankara's Vedant is more critical than Kant's critical philosophy !

Cosmic Ignorance and Creation of Phenomena

 (Each Individual understand the world through time,space & causation.)

ABSOLUTE SPIRIT (Self)

TIME SPACE CAUSATION

WORLD

 

   

Kant held that it is individual who creates the world of name and form. Shankara declarers that the universe of name and form is a cosmic phenomenon which the individual perceives in a certain manner. Each individual understands the world in his own way. An initial mistake is made, owing to our ignorance and then each one of us makes further mistake about the true nature of cosmic phenomenon. the individual Spirit appears to be differential as individuals. Forgetting its real nature, the individual Spirit identifies Itself with the phenomenal world. It falls to recognize the Ultimate Reality lying behind Itself and behind the world.

A story is told of a certain military officer with many decorations who was fond of showing off his medals. A young visitor asked him," How did you ever win so many medals?" The man replied,"Do you see this big one? First I got that by mistake,and then the others followed as a matter of course." Being drunk with the wine of ignorance we forget ourselves. we make a big mistake, and then make smaller errors one after one.

We are all bound by our limitations,for which ignorance is responsible. So, owing to this drink of cosmic ignorance that has made us mad, the Individual Spirit appears to be differentiated into individuals. The individual soul, forgetting its true nature, identifies itself with various elements, puts on different bodies, perceives and understands things wrongly, and consequently suffers.

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