FREE online courses on Concepts of Ayurveda - The Subject and the Object
The science of Ayurveda is primarily
concerned with life, life process and living states. Its approach to all
phenomena is with reference to and from the point of view of living beings. In
his approach to this environment, the subject employs the instrumentality of his
mind, and senses which are five in number. The former is known as the
Anthahkarana or the inner instrument, and the latter as Indriyas, the external
instruments through which the former, under ordinary circumstances, views the
universe. It is the samyoga or correlation of the mid with the objects of its
interest through the senses that completes the process of perception. This view,
which is an ancient one has endured the test of time and is being restated
to-day by modern science. Says P. Ouspensky, the leading mathematician
philosopher of Russia, "Cognition of space and time (it may be noted here that
Kala and Dik or time and space, are considered as Dravyas or substances by the
Vaiseshikas), arise in our intellect, during its touch with external world by
means of the organs of sense and do not exist in the external world apart from
our contact with it."
This would bring us to the consideration of
Charaka's conception of; a (a) Phenomenon and Noumenon; (b) Universe and the
Man; (c) Life or Ayus; (d) the Tripod that constitutes Man; (e) the Subject or
Purusha; (f) Mind of Manas - it structure and function; (g) Objects of these
senses; (h) the correlation of the Subject with the Object, and (i) the
limitations of sense-perception.
-
Phenomenon or Vyakta: "Whatever is perceptible being apprehensible by the
senses is the manifest or Vyakta."
Noumenon or Avyakta: "What is perceptible
and yet is beyond the senses and can be known only by interference - the
unmanifest - is Avyakta.
- The
Universe and the Man: "Man is the epitome of the universe. There is in him as
much diversity as in the universe outside him and there is in the universe as
much diversity as in man."
- Life of
Ayus: "The life is spoken of by such synonyms as the union of body, the senses,
the mind and spirit; the support, animation, the flux, and the line (between
the past and the future)."
- The
Tripod that constitutes Man: "The Mind, the Atma and the Body together as it
were, are the Tripod; the universe endures by reason of cohesion and all things
are established therein."
- "The
Subject or Man is stated to the sum of six elements viz., the Akasa and the
four elemental substances, the sixth being the element of consciousness. Some
hold that the element of consciousness alone constitutes Man."
"Again as a consequence of the elemental
modifications man is said to be composed of twenty-four elements viz.,
the mind, the ten organs (the five Jnana or
cognitive and five conative)."
- Manas or
Mind: "The presence of cognition as well as the absence of cognition
constitutes the indication of mind. Thus, if Atma (Spirit), the senses and the
sense-objects are opposite and the mine is elsewhere, there is no cognition.
But with the mind present, there is cognition. The mind is stated to have two
properties - atomic dimension and an indivisible unity."
The functions of the Mind: "The functions of
the Mind are the direction of the senses, control of itself,
reasoning and deliberation. Beyond this is
the field of the intellect."
- The
Artha or objects of the senses: "Whatever admits of being thought about,
considered, speculated, meditated upon, imagined, in fact whatever can be known
by the mind, all goes by the name objects."
- Methods
of correlation of the Subject with the Object: "The sense object is cognised
the sense which is in contact with the mind. Thereafter, the object is
interpreted or understood the mind with reference to its merits and demerits.
Guided by whatever conclusive judgement thus formed regarding the matter in
hand, one endeavours to speak or act, fully aware of the nature of one's
action."
The Visible & the Invisible: (i) "The
visible is limited, while there exists a vast unlimited world of which we are
made aware by the evidence of authoritative Agamas, inference and reason. In
fact, even the very senses by whose agency direct observations are obtained are
themselves outside the range of observation."
The limitation of perception: "Further, even
perceivable objects escapes observation under the following conditions:-
When it is either too close or too distant
from the observer; when it is obstructed by other objects; when there is some
defect in the perceiving sense-organ, when the observer's attention is focused
elsewhere; when the object is merged in the mass; when it is overshadowed by
some thing else or lastly when it is microscopic."
In the context of more recent trends in
physical biological and psychological sciences, the views of Charaka extracted
above assume considerable importance. In certain aspects, the former appears to
generally confirm the latter, particularly where it seeks to relate the object
to the subject to complete the process of perception and the role of the mind in
the fruition of this process. The fact that the physical world is the world of
the senses, the sense data are the foundations of physics: and so the physical
world is the world reported to the human mind by the senses and inferred from
the data contacted by the senses, and the fact that beyond these lie an
invisible and imperceptible state of things which cannot be contacted by the
mind through the senses has been affirmed. The following points have also
likewise been affirmed:
- The five
senses are so constructed as to enable them to function within fixed and well
defined ranges. This would apply to our perception of light which is the object
of the eyes, as to sound which is the object of the ear and the same applies to
smell, taste and touch also.
- Ranges
above and below to what are normal to these sense-organs are beyond the purview
of sense-perception or cognition. Even the employment of external-aids to
extend the range of the senses - both ways - does not take us very fat.
- Senses,
either by themselves or supplemented with external aids can, at best, connect
the Object to the Subject and they are not the interpreters of the objective
phenomena.
- It is
the mind, in the final analysis, which has to work on the data presented to it
by the senses, and from out of them reconstruct the phenomenon.
- The
phenomenon thus reconstructed cannot but be incomplete and defective.
- The
nervous system in its different aspects through which the mind operates is
designated as the "near-mind."
- The mind
itself, according to modern psychology, is of an imponderable structure. In the
view of one school of psychologists, it is compared to an ice-berg with 6/7 of
it submerged in the unconscious, and the remaining 1/7 functioning as the
conscious part. The 1/7 part of the mind corresponds to the conscious. It
functions actively in wakeful states, when it operates through the senses and
contacts environment. Its relations to such contacts are governed by the laws
of Time and Space. As such, the knowledge gained by the mind under such
conditions cannot but be limited.
- It has
been noted by modern workers that the mind frees itself from its association
with the senses in certain special states, when it is stated to be above
considerations of time and space. According to the psycho-analyst Dr. Godwin
Baynes, "The unconscious is merely a term which comprises every thing which
exists, that has existed or that could exist beyond the range of this
individual consciousness." Another modern authority, William James, referring
to an examination he had made of nitrous-oxide intoxication says, "one
conclusion was forced upon my mind (at that time) and my impression of its
truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking
consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of
consciousness, whilst all about it, parted by it by flimsiest of screens, there
lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life
without suspecting their existence; but, apply the requisite stimulus, and at a
touch, they are there, in all their complete-stimulus, definite types of
mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application. No account
of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves the other forms of
consciousness quite disregarded; yet, I repeat once more, the existence of
mystical states absolutely overthrows the pretension of non-mystical states to
be the sole and ultimate dictators of what we may believe."
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