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Anekanta : Philosophy of co-existence
taste, smell and touch. It can be conclusively said that both sentience and insentience are absolute truths and the changes taking place within them are relative truths. Vastavik (actual) truth is that which takes into account both the absolute and the relative truth Definition of the world and co-existence One branch of the neem tree has infinite properties. It is not the fundamental substance. It is the mode of a substance. The root substance is matter and the root substance is also the soul. When soul and pudgal came together, neem was created and so also the branch. In that branch both pudgal and soul exist together. Soul, the sentient and pudgal, the insentient are in mutual conflict. It cannot be a substance if infinite attributes are not in conflict within it. Even within one atom there are infinite pairs of opposing attributes. That is why every substance, according to Jain philosophy is real and yet not real, eternal and yet non-eternal. Shankaracarya said that philosophers should first learn to differentiate between the eternal and non-eternal. The one who has not learnt this definition cannot be a philosopher. Without actually having seen it, truth cannot be defined. Maharishi Patanjali said, “To think of the eternal as the non-eternal and vice versa is ignorance”. Shankaracarya said that Brahma is eternal and the world is non-eternal. He defined both the eternal and the non-eternal. But according to him there is no substance which is both eternal and non-eternal. Brahma is eternal. The world is neither non-eternal, nor eternal. Jain philosophy looks at it
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