[Advaita-l] Logic and shastra

[praveen.r.bhat at exgate.tek.com]

praNAm,

Mahesh-ji wrote:
While you cannot effectively describe how a gulabjamun tastes, the idea is
that one can infer from science that the certain chemical constituents of
the sweet cause the sweet taste. In fact, one could, in a laboratory,
breakdown the 'taste' portion of the sweet only and give it to a person and
say that due to this chemical, you get the said taste. 

praveen:
I may be digressing here, sorry if so. I would say that although one can
infer "the how and what" of the sweetness, one definitely doesn't know "the
depth" of sweetness or if I may, "the sweetness of the sweet". Its like
seeing the green leaf, but what I may be seeing is a different greenness
than you see. So, the logic in science also goes thus far. Then, you have to
take the scientist's words for the instrument that can measure the hue of
the greenness of the leaf.


Mahesh-ji wrote:
My whole point in relation to science and shastras is that can we infer that
consciousness is the reality that talked of in the shastras through a
scientific approach. We might now realize it but can it be inferred?

praveen:
The other day I was reading advaita bodha deepika and what I understood in
the course of it is something that I'll *try* to express with a basic (read
"stupid") example: Consider yourself in a pitch-dark, huge, empty room. You
can't see a thing, feel a thing, etc. None of your senses tell you there's
anything out there, except for empty space. Now, one has to conclude it to
be a *void*. When this void is experienced, similar to what may be
experienced in many a spiritual paths, one might err to conclude that its a
big void. But if the focus is clear that one who's experiencing the empty
room out there is the one and only *consciousness*, then its like inferring
that, at this stage. One may call that by any other name, but in common
parlance also when one says s/he is aware of things, eg, when coming out of
fever, shock or coma, the inference is one's *consciousness*. All words have
this basic limitation when in comes to expressing any experience. While many
a things in shastra-s are beyond even experience, how can words describe it
or logic infer it?

shivam shaantam advaitam,
--praveen