Nyaya Science of Thought

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 41

THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT,
35
The destruction of the four kinds of ghatiya there can be no differences of quality or quantity in respect of the potentiality of knowledge among them. This conclusion is fully supported by the facts or phenomena of clairvoyance and telepathy of the very existence of which men are almost wholly ignorant in this age, but which have been fully proved to be the natural functions of the soul (see the Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society).
The nature of the soul being pure intelligence, thought (knowledge) or consciousness, the differences in the degree of its manifestation, among the different kinds of beings, as well as among members of the same species, must be due to the influence of some outside force, or agent, whose association or union with the conscious substance (soul) has the effect of depriving it of its pure clarity of knowledge. Unconscious matter is just such an agent, which as described in • The Practical Path' enters into union with the soulsubstance and thereby cripples its knowing powers, more or less, according to the type of bondage (the state of fusion of matter and soul). Thus, the differing types of consciousness depend on the operation of the knowledge-obstructing energies of karma, so that where they are actually in full play the manifestation of the knowing faculty of the soul may be reduced to the sense of touch, as in the case of onesensed beings (metals and the like), while in the converse case, that is where they are totally eliminated, the full blaze of omniscience must be the reward of the conquering jiva (ego). All the intermediate degrees of manifestation of consciousness between these two extremes, it can be seen in a general way, also owe their existence to the destruction or quiescence, or partial destruction and partial quiescence of these energies of knowledge-obstructing karmas, for knowledge being the very nature of the soul may be covered over by the veil of ignorance and uncovered' as often as it may, but it cannot be acquired or developed anew, or engrafted