Snake in the rope

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, nanda chandran wrote:

> I don't agree with Jaladhar that the absolute is something to be
> "known", as one knows empirical objects. It's nothing but YOU in the
> truest sense. Ofcourse, if what Jaladhar means is intuitive knowledge of
> oneself, I concur. And this knowledge cannot be obtained from any book,
> but only by personal experience.

Why is reading a book not a personal experience?  (or more likely hearing
the teacher explain the book.)

I'm not arguing that the "head" is superior to the "heart" I'm saying the
heart doesn't exist!  What you are calling intuition is when rational
thought "clicks."  We experience this in mundane life too.  For instance,
yesterday I was asked to debug a program that someon else had written.
For a long time I just couldn't figure out what he had done.  Then all of
a sudden (well after several hours of concentration :-)  it all suddenly
made sense.  Jnana is the same thing on a much vaster scale.

Ten years ago you could have put a whole pile of Sanskrit books in front
of me and it would have made a difference.  Undoubtedly it was years of
silently listening and absorbing nformation which has put me in the
position where I can give my opinions out to others but this experience
was all earned rationally.

There has been a good deal of discussion between the various darshanas
about how exactly we acquire knowledge of meanings from words and what I'm
describing is just one of the theories.

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>

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