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EXTRA-SENSORY PERCEPTION
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OMNISCIENCE
Let us, now, turn our attention towards the nature of omniscience. It is the highest type of perception that comes under the category of extra-sensory perception. It is the perfection of the cognitive faculty of the self. It is the pure-manifestation of the real nature of the conscious principle. “The perfect manifestation of the innate nature of the self, arising on the complete annihilation of all the obstructive veils, is called omniscience." It is transcendental and pure.
The self possesses consciousness as its essence. It is luminous by its very nature. The manifestation of the luminous nature of the conscious principle is nothing but the self as manifested in the act of knowledge. It occurs on the annihilation of the obscuring veils. The annihilation is nothing more than the total destruction of all the veils of the obscuring karmas. The person possessing the super-normal faculty of omniscience perceives all the substances with all their modes.? For him nothing remains unknown. No object or any mode thereof remains unperceived. His knowledge is pure and perfect.
Now, there arises a question: If the self is luminous by its very nature, why should it be subject to obscuration? And if obscuraion is possible, it must be subject to obscuration for all time. This problem, strictly speaking, is metaphysical, inasmuch as it leads us to the discussion of the temporal relation between the self and not-self. We do not enter into a long discussion of the problem at present. It is sufficient for us to remark that though luminous in nature the light of the moon, the sun, and the like is liable to be covered by a veil of dust, by fog, by a patch of cloud, and so on. The case of the self is exactly parallel to these cases when it is found to be obscured by different veils of karma. The removal of the obscuration of the self is possible by the practice of a particular course of meditation and the like in the same way as the veil of the light of the sun, etc., is removed by a blast of wind.
ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF OMNISCIENCE
The Jaina thinkers advance the following logical argument to 1 Pramāņa-mimārsā, I, 1, 15. 2 Tattvārtha-sutra, I, 30.
