Studies in Indian Philosophy

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 32

Attitude of Buddha towards Metapbysics
The extrasensory perception is not a revelation but a causal occurrence. It is a sort of sensory perception with the difference that at a stage the senses become, through the practice of concentration, so fine, sensitive, penetrating that they can perceive the objects of distant past, ordinarily veiled by the time and space and not perceptible through senses. The objects of the extrasensory perceptions are also of phenomenal world and not of the noumenal world. The noumenon is no object (avisaya).
In the extrasensory perceptions, the objects are presented as they are in their real nature. Things in their real nature are conditionally originated and in a state of flux; nothing of them remains static even for two consecutive moments. To perceive things as they are in their real nature is not an attainment of the ultimate truth which is to be realised and not to be perceived or abstracted. The acquisition of extrasensory perceptions is not an end in itself, but just a means to an end, the end being the attainment of Nirvāņa. When one gets insight into the real nature of things, one conducts oneself to eliminate all attachments, even attachment to doing good deeds, even attachment to eliminating all attachments. When one's action remains mere action free from motivating factors, good or bad, the state of Nirvāṇa is realised. The extrasepsory perceptions aquaint us with things in their real nature, but not things in themselves.
Sensory perceptions are the major source of our knowledge, but they are at times elusive. The knowledge so gained is not always of the things as they are in their real nature, unless one has developed an eye to see things as they are in their real nature. When an ordinary person perceives a thing, he perceives it as it appears to him and takes it to be as such. But, when an Arya perceives a things, he perceives it as it is, and therefore does not take it to be as such.6
Through logic and reasons also, some reached the same conclusions which were arrived at on the basis of extrasensory