Practical Path

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

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be overrated. In respect of right belief also it is evident that it is essential to the utility of knowledge, since belief signifies a cessation of doubt, and also since people only live up to their beliefs. Right conduct also is a necessary condition to the attainment of final emancipation, for no desired results are possible without the doing of the right thing at the right moment.
THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY.
and arrive at all sorts of fanciful and fantastic results. Many even fail to perceive the connection between the terms of a causal syllogism, or are unable to express it for want of correct information. Such, for instance, is the case with the Sankhya School of philosophy, which, as has been pointed out by European critics, makes the final emancipation dependent on knowledge, but is unable to show the causal connection between it and prakriti (matter), the cause of the bondage of the soul. The Advaita school of Vedanta is also on the horns of a dilemma in respect of the doctrine of transmigration of souls, as will be evident from the following from Paul Deussen's 'Religion and Philosophies of India', p. 315:
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Although therefore the doctrine of the soul's migration is not absolute philosophical truth, it is nevertheless a myth which represents a truth for ever inconceivable for us, and is accordingly a valuable substitute for the latter. Could we abstract from it the mental frame work of space, time and causality, we should have the complete truth. We should then discern that the unceasing return of the soul is realized not in the future and in other regions, but here already, and in the present, but that this here' is every where, and this 'present' is eternal. These views agree essentially with those of the later Vedanta, which clings to belief in transmigration. This belief, however, is valid only for the exoteric apará vidya; for the esoteric parâ vidya, the reality of the soul's migration falls to the ground with the reality of the universe."
We shall not comment upon this wonderful passage after the statement that the doctrine of transmigration is not an absolute philosophical truth, but only a myth which represents a truth for ever inconceivable for us! We do not know what the author of the Vedic text-rite Jñânan na mukti-would have said to the possibility of abstracting away the mental framework of space, time and