________________
102
PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
could all of them err? None of them thought of stating truth? Only that brain stupefied with materialism would be audacious to consider all these authors of the shastras as false.
Simple reasoning also justifies the possibility of omniscience. A lamp covered with thick cloth sheds dim light and when covered with thin cloth sheds more light but when completely uncovered, sheds still more light, still when completely uncovered sheds full light. Similarly when soul is completely uncovered of the envelope of karmas it acquires omniscience. If karmas form a layer covering the soul then soul must attain omniscience, no sooner that layer is destroyed. Moreover if little can be known more also can be known, and perfect knowledge or omniscience also can be acquired. If one can master the knowledge of alphabets one can also master the language. Thus soul can know more from little and can know even perfectly from more knowledge.
Even with our limited knowledge we can infer past and future happenings. One can infer the passage of a creature from its footprints and one can infer the possibility of rain from the clouds and the wind. These are inferences of the past and future respectively. Very often these inferences come true then why the people with extraordinary knowledge would not be able to see past and future accurately?
One might argue that we have means, matters and indications and so we can infer the past and future happenings, but without any matter and indication how such perception is possible? But one should remember that different phases of a matter are destroyed but matter itself remains undestroyed. Matter in the whole universe is converted from one form to the other and exists for ever, in some form or the other and from such form of matter past or future can be inferred. If a diamond having passed through many hands falls in the hand of a man knowing psychometry, he would be able to say all the past history of the diamond as to how it was excavated from the mine, who brought it over there etc. Now some of the traits indicated by psychometry might have been there, still they are indicated and described correctly. Ravana was a righteous king. He had only attachment for Seeta. Excepting her he never entertained longing for any other woman. Once he called in his Court an astrologer and asked him: "When shall I die and how shall I die?". The astrologer having considered the positions
