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PREKSĀ MEDITATION AND THE TRAINING
OF THE MIND
The practice of prèkşā meditation has opened a new chapter in philosophical thinking. I have been a student of philosophy and as such I know what is living and what is dead in philosophy. I have a great admiration for philosophy but at the same time I am conscious of its shortcomings. Originally philosophical thinking was based on a direct perception of reality. Today it is mere reasoning based on logical consistency. Darśana means direct perception of reality. Today philosophy is no longer concerned with the direct perception of truth. It has become dependent on the rules of logical thinking. It has become estranged from experience and comprises wholly of argumentation. It borrows ideas and applies logic to test whether they are coherent. It has nothing to do with self-experience and relies on objective experience only. It is not direct but indirect experience which it values. That is why medieval philosophy took inference to be the only means of knowledge because it was not supported by experience. Can we comprehend truth indirectly and by means of consistency in thinking only? Can arguments lead to the knowledge of subtle truth? No, never Ancient philosophers attempted to comprehend subtle truth with the help of subtle consciousness. They were correct. Refined or subtle consciousness is capable of comprehending both gross and subtle truths. Gross or emperical consciousness is, however, unable to comprehend subtle truth. Modern scientists have, to a very large extent, engaged themselves in discovering subtle truths with the help of delicate instruments. Crude instruments can not reveal subtle truth. They have split the atom and perceived the tiny particles of which it is
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