Advaita Vedanta

Author(s): Kalidas Bhattacharya, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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The Absolate as... Y
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the thing and cognition, somehow dissociate like image as in memory and idea or meaning as in thought. Even a percept is found half dissociate in the case of illusion detected as illusion. Only, there the percept, not asserted to be there in the world of things, is somehow also not denied to be there. The illusory snake is felt as half dissociate from the real rope. Thus, from the man-centric point of view object everywhere is necessarily to the knower, though in the case of perception it coalesces also with the thing; and while in illusion, detected as illusion, it is only possibly dissociate--half explicitly to the knowing subject and half not-in all non-perceptual cognition it is felt as actually dissociate. In none of the cases, however, it is perfectly dissociate : in each case, from illusion detected as illusion to the highest form of non-perceptual cognition, it is imagined to be perceived and, therefore, imagined, so far. as coalescent with the thing. The thing as distinguished from the object is the independent being. In none of these cases, therefore, is there full freedom from what is non-subjective, viz. the thing. It is only in introspection that one experiences subjectivity in its full perfect freedom.
Whatever is true of mental states and percepts is true mutatis mutandis of body and bodily states.
In every case, then, object as other than the thing has to be understood from the subjective point of view. As so understood in the subjective attitude, its apparent objectivity is only symbolic: it is only symbolized, spoken of, as an object. As, now, there is continuous dissociation, i.e. continuous lack of commitment to the thing and relatively also to objects at lower levels, and as it is introspection alone which represents complete and perfect dissociation, one may say that from the point of view of this purest subjectivity there is not only no genuine thing but no object too, the thing being completely replaced by object and object being understood as only symbolic representation of subjectivity that way.
Thus, starting with the idea that man = individual self is a