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ACTIVITY AND ITS CONTROL
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activity is not contradicted by the subsequent mental activities, it is safe to hold it to be true. To put it in a different manner, there is no ultimate criterion of truth other than our own experience. A false mental activity is diametrically opposed to a true one. It is nothing but a mental operation that does not correspond to the object of thought. Consequently it is contradicted afterwards. These two are the most common forms of thought. The third type of mental activity is a mixture of the two. It is neither completely true nor totally false, i.e., it is partly true and partly false. We think of a garden that has a plenty of mango-trees like this: 'It is a mango-garden'. This kind of our thought is an instance of the third type. As a matter of fact, the garden is not exclusively a garden of mango-trees. It has other varieties of trees as well. Because of the majority of mango-trees we are apt to think in the said manner. Thus, this kind of our thinking is a mixture of truth and falsity. It corresponds to the object of thought partly, and not wholly. The corresponding portion thereof is true and the noncorresponding one is false. The nature of a thought which is neither true nor false is like this: Sometimes we think of something which has no direct reference either to truth or to falsity. Such modes of our thought are not directly associated with the concept of truth and falsity. They simply express our desires, purposes, inclinations, and the like. 'Come here, go there, bring the ball, give me the chair' are some of the instances of this kind of thinking. It is also restricted like the first three types to the province of thought only. VOCAL ACTIVITY
The manifestation of vocal activity is in the shape of speech. Let us, before dealing with the various types of the activity of speech, have an estimate of the nature of speech itself. Speech is nothing but a particular form of sound emerging on the rise of the physique-making (nāman) karma. It is mentioned in the first Karmagrantha1 that sweet voice, suggestive speech, ill-sounding voice, unsuggestive speech, etc., are some of the types of the physiquemaking karma. In the Tattvärtha-sūtra the function of sound is ascribed to matter.2 This is already known to us that physical karma
1 Susarā mahurasuhajhuni......
Karma-grantha, I, 50.
2 Tattvärtha sutra, V, 24.
