Samayasara OR Nature of Self

SR No.: 011119
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 406
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 148

INTRODUCTION
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is not altogether wiped off, the treatment was continued for some time, the patient was given the post-hypnotic suggestion that he would remember all the past experiences which he vaguely recognised as dreams in the hypnotic trance. When the patient woke up to normal consciousness from the hypnotic sleep, to his great joy, he remembered the whole of his past experience which was temporarily wiped out and became his former self once again. Such cases were numerous during the last war, when men in the front through shellshock suffered such mental aberation. All such cases were treated by the psychologist and restored to normal life to the joy of the patient.
It is clear that verdict of modern psychology is that the human personality is distinct from the material body with it is associated and that it survives even after death.
SANKARA AND KUNDA KUNDA Sankara’s introduction to his Bashya is a philosophical masterpiece by itself. There he gives his own personal opinion without being constrained to follow the text of the sutras. Hence he freely expresses his views on life and things. First he maintains that the Self and the non-Self are two entirely distinct entities. He begins his introduction with the following words:
“It is a matter not requiring any proof that the object and the subject whose respective spheres are the notion of the 'Thou' (the Non-Ego) and the 'Ego' and which are opposed to each other as much as darkness and light are, cannot be identified. All the less can their respective attributes be identified. Hence it follows that it is wrong to superimpose upon the subject—whose Self is intelligence, and which has for its sphere the notion of the Ego--the object whose sphere is the notion of the Non-Ego and the attributes of the object and vice versa to superimpose the subject and the attributes of the subject on the object.”
From this it is clear that these two distinct entities the Self and the Non-Self, have no common nature and no common attributes. One is Chetana and the other Achetana . The attributes of the one cannot be superimposed upon the other. Such a confusion is a distinct philosophical error and correct knowledge