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EXAMINATION OF THE PERSON OF SUPER-NORMAL VISION'. 1499
SCOPE OF WHICH IS NOT RESTRICTED, HOW COULD HE COGNISE TASTE, ETC. THROUGH THE EYE? THIS OBJECTION MIGHT APPLY, IF HE WERE HELD TO KNOW ALL THINGS THROUGH THE Eye ITSELF. AS A MATTER OF FACT HOWEVER, HE DOES COGNISE TASTE AND OTHER THINGS COLLECTIVELY, THROUGH THE Mind.-EVEN IN CASES WHERE SOME SUPERIOR PECULIARITY IS TOUND (IN THE COGNITIONS OF THE OMNISCIENT PERSON), IN REGARD TO THE PERCEPTION OF SUBTLE AND REMOTE THINGS, IT IS ALL WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE SAID MIND AND MENTAL CONCEPTS; AND IT IS NOT DUE TO THE FUNCTIONING OF THE AUDITORY ORGAN ON Colour ; ALL THESE UNDESIRABLE CONTINGENCIES THAT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE URGED AGAINST US ARE NOT APPLICABLE TO US AT ALL; BECAUSE ALL THE SUPERIORITY AND PECULIARITY LIES IN THE mental cognition ITSELF, AND IT DOES NOT LIE BEYOND THE SCOPE OF THIS COGNITION. THUS THEN FOR US, THE THINGS THAT WERE COGNISED IN THE PAST BY CERTAIN MEANS OF COGNITION ARE PRECISELY THE SAME THAT ARE COGNISED NO W BY THE SAME MEANS OF COGNITION.-(3381-3389)
COMMENTARY.
If it had been held (by us) that the Visual and other Sense-perceptions apprehend all things, then there might have been room for the objection that has been urged. As a matter of fact, however, when we postulate the Omniscient Person we do so on the basis of the fact that at one and the same time He knows all things through Mental Cognition,—which apprehends all entities, and which is as good as Perception, on account of its distinctness and its being in agreement with the real state of things,-real Mental Cognition having been brought about by the Practice of Meditation upon the Truth relating to the impermanent and other characters of all things; and we do not hold that He apprehends all things through the Visual or other Senseperceptions.
It cannot be right to assert that-"Mental Cognition is not known to apprehend all things''. Because you have yourself explained that there is Remembrance of Colour, Sound and other things; and Remembrance is certainly & Mental Cognition.--Then again, it is a well-known fact that in dreams, there is cognition of Colour and other things; so that the denial of Mental Cognition is impossible. Consequently, the peculiarities in the cognition of the Omniscient Person falling well within the scope of Mental Cognition, what you have urged does not affect our position at all.-(33813389)
If there is an Idealist who holds the view that the Omniscient Person apprehends all things by Perception through the Eye and other sense-organs themselves, -even, under his view, all notions and impressions of disability having been removed, all cognitions become applicable to all things and consequently all-pervading; as it is only the said Disability that goes to
