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THE ENLIGHTENED VISION OF THE SELF
breast of his mother. This desire would be unexplainable in the absence of his recognition of the breast as milk-secreting organ. The recognition again presupposes memory and memory is based on past experience in a previous life. There are also instances of . .. gifted persons remembering their past lives.
Vidyananda, the Jaina philosopher, asks: “What is the source of the knowledge of this peculiar nature of reality?" He answers that question by stating that “The ultimate nature of things can be known by experience alone.” If someone asks: “What is the ground for our belief that consciousness is existent and is also the proof of the existence of other things?” The answer must be that it is felt to be so. Moreover,
Consciousness is its own guarantor and proof of its own reality. As regards unconscious matter, its existence is established by means of consciousness. It cannot be asked why consciousness should be self-evidenced and matter be dependent upon consciousness for the proof of its existence. The question is a question of fact, and not of reason. The nature of thing is inalienable and must be accepted to be what it is. Can anybody answer why fire should be hot and water cold, and not vice versa? No, because it is a question of fact. Similarly the nature of reality is to be deduced from the testimony of experience. The existence of things which are experienced is obvious and self-evident."
If one argues that everything has a separate real existence, one must accept the separate existence of knowledge and the various objects, that are cognised or known. This implies that both would become non-existent, for how can there be knowledge if something is not there as the thing known? There can be either an internal or external object of knowledge. But all such objects would become non-existent, if there be no knowledge. Again, if knowledge be nonexistent, the objects of knowledge would also become non-existent as the objects of knowledge depend on knowledge. $ The existence of the soul continues from the infinite past to an infimite future. It'is without any beginning or end (anachantah). It is
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