Advaita Vedanta

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

Page 32

CHAPTER II
THE ABSOLUTE AS PURE CONSCIOUSNESS (Contd.)
Introspection, we have held till now, is pure subjectvity, subjectivity proper. But there is something wrong about it, even as distinguished. It is still introspection of a mental state. It is still compelled, as it were, to refer to a state that is an object, and so far, therefore, as not fully dissociate or free. It is not fully free for another reason also. Introspection, even of the spiritual type, is after all a temporary affair and, however prolonged, relapses every time into unreflective work-aday life. The final essence of an individual, as completely dissociate from all that is accident, should, on the other hand, be a never-lapsing introspection that is under no compulsion to refer to a mental state.
Introspection could be prolonged, as much as one liked, through concentration on a particular state of mind, usually a cognitive one, and the chances of lapse into unreflective life could be eliminated through continuous culture of detachment, love of truth and freedom, etc. which all tend to paralyse distracting factors. But though introspection could be made permanent that way it would still remain introspection of a mental state, of the state, viz. which has been concentrated on. How can it get away from the need of referring and realize its pure essential being as subjectivity untarnished ? . The whole question, however, is in a way illegitimate. One who asks this question has understood introspection as only psychological. Spiritual introspection does not concentrate on a mental state as an object. It rather is intent on withdrawing