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The Absolute as...
is taken as of the nature of spiritual introspection because, known as illusory or having been illusory, it is not so far known retrospectively as having been an object like other independent objects—and so far, one may say, though not correctly, as having been subjective--though its erstwhile experienced objectivity is not also explicitly denied. The retrospective reflective awareness of the illusory snake as having been illusory is to be called spiritual introspection for another reason : like the primary cognition which is normally introspected spiritually, the object here—that illusory spake—is revealed to the sākṣin direct, not through the intervention of any vịtti.
That cognition as a mental state is nearer introspection is clear from another consideration also. It is that one finds is extremely difficult to distinguish between this cognition and introspection so far as their stuff is concerned-a thing we seldom experience in our primary cognition of worldly objects where between that cognition and the objects there is a clear distinction in stuff. Not that there is no stuff-distinction whatsoever between cognition and introspection. What we emphasize here is that there is a bit too much of simi. larity between the two. The Advaitin holds that cognition as a mental state is made, at least predominantly, of sattva which not only makes it phosphorescent but also works as a bridge. way from all that is object to subjectivity proper. If feelings and willings are also phosphorescent, they too are so far made of sattva, but they do not claim as much nearness to introspection as cognition does. While cognition, when intro. spected into, shows itself as dissociate from worldly objects and from relevant bodily states and proves that way its (greater) subjectivity, feelings and willings never show them. selves as dissociate to that degree : if there is any question of dissociation from worldly objects it is oblique of a sort, and from bodily states like organic sensations and general
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