Vedantham : ( 07/11/2012. )

29/01/2018 10.The Stages of Samadhi-7. Somehow, the fact of the external perception of an object necessitates the operation of a third thing called relation, which can neither be identified with the seer nor with the seen. This situation implies that any perception of an object is not a simple entry of the object into the mind without any transformation taking place at the time of perception. This particular ideational transformation, which takes place in the perception of an object, is a third conditioning factor, which need not necessarily be identical with the independent character of the object in itself. The thing as such cannot be known as long as it remains totally outside the thinking process or is placed outside, external to the senses. Thus, what is one to do in the meditation of an object? What is our purpose in meditation? What do we intend at all in our endeavour called meditation? Our endeavour is simple. We have to know the object as it is, and we wish to iden...

22/01/2018 10.The Stages of Samadhi-6. 6.1 The third feature which Patanjali mentions is the idea that we have about something. The conditioning of the object by the way of thinking is a very central point in philosophical studies. What is the relationship that mind maintains, or thought maintains, or consciousness maintains, in relation to what it thinks or knows? Does the mind determine the object? 6.2 There are thinkers called Idealists who emphasise the conditioning power of the mind of the percipient, which influences the nature of the object of perception when it is perceived. The Idealist doctrine is that nothing can be known as it is, except in terms of the mould into which it is cast by the structure of the mind that thinks. Realism, which is opposed to Idealism, holds that objects are directly perceived by the mind, and the form of the object as known by the mind is not merely a duplicate, a copy, or a conditioned reflection of the object. It is a direct someth...

15/01/2018 10.The Stages of Samadhi-5. The nomenclature is one feature by which we know or think of a particular thing. The utterance of a particular name rouses in our minds the form of that object which is referred to by this particular name or definition. The association of the form of the object with this characterisation or nomenclature is so intense that it is not possible for a person to think anything else at that time, except that particular form which is supposed to be indicated by that definition. When I utter the word ‘tree’, you cannot think of a ‘stone’ or something else. It is impossible for you to think of anything else except that thing which is considered as ‘tree’ by everybody else. No other idea can enter the mind except the idea of that thing, which is to be known as that thing only because of the association of a given form with a particular nomenclature. This is a sort of limitation we impose upon the independent status of the object, and whether ...

06/01/2018 10.The Stages of Samadhi-4. There is a second factor which goes to constitute what we may say is the appearance of the object to thought or consciousness. This second feature is the characterisation or the definition of that object, in terms of which it is known as something, as distinguished from something else. A tree is different from a stone. That which distinguishes the tree from the stone is the conglomeration of characteristics which can be seen only in that thing we call the tree, and cannot be found in anything which is not a tree. When we say that there is ‘something’, we mean that this so-called ‘something’ is possessed of certain characteristics, or qualities, attributes, properties, by which we specify that thing by what is called psychological definition. Unless we have a psychological definition in our minds of any particular thing, that thing cannot be distinguished from something else. This differentia, or visesha, as it is called in Indian p...