Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 69

48
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
synonymous with consciousness.
If we remove it from the field, there is nothing left to take its place, or to account for the phenomena of perception, memory and the like which a rigid materialism endeavours in vain to explain on lines of Haeckelian thought.
It is interesting to note that the materialist does not deny* the existence of consciousness altogether, but only its permanence as a separate entity or soul. Taking the ego to be the consciousness of 'I,' he proceeds to show how it cannot be eternal, and declares that it is no longer the object of the inexplicable mystery it used to be in the dark and superstitious ages of medieval civilization; for one now finds it to be the consciousness of an idea
* Should any one be found bold enough to deny the existence of consciousness altogether, he can only be told that in all philosophical search after truth, we have to take the existence of the 'knower' or thinker' for granted; for it is impossible to take even a single step forward without assuming this self-evident truth. If there be no Thinker or Knower, who could think or know?
As Shankara
says:
"The self is not contingent in the case of any person; for it is self-evident. The self is not established by the proofs of the existence of self. Nor is it possible to deny such a reality, for it is the very essence of him who would deny it."
In knowing anything one knows oneself first. As a well-known. philospher maintains:
""
"I think, therefore, I am,' Or, as Max Muller puts it,
"I am, therefore, I think."
One cannot think unless one have some kind of being. The question, do I exist?' does not arise; for it is illogical to require proof of that which has been taken for granted as a postulate, and is a selfevident truth. No one has a right to open his lips to utter this question unless he admit, at the very commencement, that he who puts it is some one that exists.