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Re: Lots of hogwash!NOT!!!!!!
In article <ghenDr9H1z.IwH@netcom.com> shrao@nyx.net (Shrisha Rao) writes:
>> Under Hinduism it is well known that this so called real world that we
>> experience is totally an illusion.
>
>Really? Who pray tell told you this? Are you at all
>familiar with most of the philosophical and religious
>works of Hinduism, which most emphatically declare
>that the world is real?
In addition to that, how is it known that the world of experience is
an illusion? Illusion is known only with reference to a higher
reality. But once experience itself is denigrated wholesale, where is
the higher reality that can show it to be illusion? Thus, experience
does not prove illusion.
The answer to the definition behind the world illusion lies in your
own statement. That it is the "world of experience." The term
illusion should not be taken to mean that it is unimportant, it means
that the perceived world is relative to the experience of an
individual's consciousness. Experience does indeed prove the illusory
charactersitics of the world, as limits of perception, and of reason
all prove the relative nature of the percieved universe.
Can illusion be inferred? All inference is of the form "if A, then B."
Now, no illusion-proving inference can exist that considers its
antecedent itself to be illusory. If we have "if A, then the world is
illusory," then A cannot itself be a statement of illusion (because
such is being proved and is not yet known) and must be a statement of
reality -- which means that the illusion-inference itself needs an a
priori acceptance of reality. Besides, how is the inference rule
itself known? The rule itself cannot be from illusory
experience. Thus, illusion is not known from inference either.
Let's not get into something as silly as inference to prove anything.
I think you should keep your inference tookit in your toolbox before
we start to chip away at your tool and prove inference to be relative
to experience.
For a last alternative, suppose you have a scripture that declares the
world to be an illusion. Now, is that scripture real or not? If it is
thought to be not real, i.e., as illusory, its interpretation strikes
at the roots of its own validity. If the scripture itself is real, as
it must be for it to be meaningful, then the interpretation cannot be
right, and the world cannot be illusory.
The scripture is indeed illusory as it is subject to interpretation.
However, the scripture states that it is possible to go beyond the
realm of illusion and perceive the reality. So, it makes the illusory
nature of the scripture irrelevant. Whether you choose to believe or
not believe in the scripture or its declaration is irrelevant, as
neither disallows the possibility of the possibility of achieving the
absolute (the Brahman) through the relative (scripture). You have to
use the sense of discrimination to attain to the Brahman by ruling out
all that is relative until you reach the absolute. That indeed seems
like the way to go.
It is for reasons such as these that Madhva emphatically declares that
the universe is not illusory: `tatra pramaaNaabhaavaat.h' -- because
there isn't, and cannot be, any proof of illusion. All three types of
pramaaNa -- `pratyaksha' (experience), `anumaana' (inference) and
aagama (scripture) fail to show illusion because of the inherent
self-contradictions in any attempt at so showing. To accept something
that cannot be upheld by any evidence plays hell with the very
concepts of reality and illusion, and one might as well accept that
such non-entities as a rabbit's horn, a childless-woman's-son, etc.,
are also real.
The "perceived universe" is indeed illusory. That is not to say that
there are no absolute principles within the universe, but they cannot
be perceived by the senses. And it can indeed be proven, even by
something as fallible as reason, that perception is relative.
Illusory means relativity. And that is indeed supported by
conflicting experience of the same phenomenon.
