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Oracle OCA Certification Exam 1Z0-202
07 January, 2009
But what is Cit? There is no word in the English language which adequately describes it. It is not mind: for mind is a limited instrument through which Cit is manifested. It is that which is behind the mind and by which the mind itself is thought, that is created. The Brahman is mindless (Amanah). I f we exclude mind we also exclude all forms of mental process, conception, perception, ORACLE 1Z0-241 thought, reason, will, memory, particular sensation and the like. We are then left with three available words, namely, Consciousness, Feeling, Experience. To the first term there are several objections. For if we use an English word, we must understand it according to its generally received meaning. Generally by "Consciousness" is meant self-consciousness, or at least something particular, having direction and form, which is concrete and conditioned; an evolved product marking the higher stages of Evolution. According to some, it is a mere function of experience, an epiphenomenon, a mere accident of mental process. In this sense it belongs only to the highly developed organism and involves a subject attending to an object of' which, as of itself, it is conscious. We are thus said to have most consciousness when we are awake (Jagrat avastha) and have full experience of all objects presented to us; less so when dreaming (Svapna avastha) and deep anesthesia in true dreamless sleep (Sushupti). I may here observe that recent researches show that this last state is not so common as is generally supposed. That is complete dreamlessness is rare; there being generally some trace of dream. In the last state it is commonly said that consciousness has disappeared, and so of course it has, if we first define consciousness in terms of the waking state and of knowledge of objects. According to Indian notions there is a form of conscious experience in the deepest sleep expressed in the well-known phrase "Happily I slept, I knew nothing". The sleeper recollects on waking that his state has been one of happiness. And he cannot recollect unless there has been a previous experience (Anubhava) which is the subject-matter of memory. In ordinary parlance we do not regard some low animal forms, plants or mineral as "conscious". It is true that now in the West there is (due to the spread of ideas long current in India) growing up a wider use of the term "consciousness" in connection not only with animal but vegetable and mineral life, but it cannot be said the term "consciousness" has yet generally acquired this wide signification. If then we use (as for convenience we do) the term "Consciousness" for Cit, we must give it a content different from that which is attributed to the term in ordinary English parlance. Nextly, it is to be remembered that what in either view we understand by consciousness is something manifested, and therefore limited, and derived from our finite experience. The Brahman as Cit is the infinite substratum of that. Cit in itself (Svarupa) is not particular nor conditioned and concrete. Particularity is that aspect in which it manifests as, and through, Maya-Shakti. Cit manifests as Jñana-Shakti which, when used otherwise than as a loose synonym for Cit, means knowledge of objects. Cit-Svarupa is neither knowledge of objects nor self-consciousness in the phenomenal sense. Waking, dreaming and dreamless slumber are all phenomenal states in which experience varies; such variance being due not to Cit but to the operation or cessation of particular operation of the vehicles of mind (Antahkarana) and sense (Indriya). But Cit never disappears nor varies in either of the three states, but ORACLE 1Z0-202 remains one and the same through all. Though Cit-Svarupa is not a knowledge of objects in the phenomenal sense, it is not, according to Shaiva-Shakta views (I refer always to Advaita Shaiva-darshana), a mere abstract knowing (Jñana) wholly devoid of content. It contains within itself the Vimarsha-Shakti which is the cause of phenomenal objects, then existing in the form of Cit (Cidrupini). The Self then knows the Self. Still less can we speak of mere 'awareness" as the equivalent of Cit. A worm or meaner form of animal may be said to be vaguely aware. In fact mere "awareness" (as we understand that term) is a state of Cit in which it is seemingly overwhelmed by obscuring Maya-Shakti in the form of Tamoguna. Unless therefore we give to "awareness," as also to consciousness, a content, other than that with which our experience furnishes us, both terms are unsuitable. In some respects Cit can be more closely described by Feeling, which seems to have been the most ancient meaning of the term Cit. Feeling is more primary, in that it is only after we have been first affected by something that we become conscious of it. Feeling has thus been said to be the raw material of thought, the essential element in the Self, what we call personality being a particular form of feeling. Thus in Samkhya, the Gunas are said to be in the nature of happiness (Sukha), sorrow (Dukha) and illusion (Moha) as they are experienced by the Purusha-Consciousness. And in Vedanta, Cit and Ananda or Bliss or Love are one. For Consciousness then is not consciousness of being (Sat) but Being-Consciousness (Sat-Cit); nor a Being which is conscious of Bliss (Ananda) but Being-Consciousness-Bliss (Sacchidananda). Further, "feeling" has this advantage that it is associated with all forms of organic existence even according to popular usage, and may scientifically be aptly applied to inorganic matter. Thus whilst most consider it to be an unusual and strained use of language, to speak of the consciousness of a plant or stone, we can and do speak of the feeling or sentiency of a plant. Further the response which inorganic matter makes to stimuli is evidence of the existence therein of that vital germ of life and sentiency (and therefore Cit) which expands into the sentiency of plants, and the feelings and emotions of animals and men. It is possible for any form of unintelligent being to feel, however obscurely. And it must do so, if its ORACLE 1Z0-271 ultimate basis is Cit and Ananda, however veiled by Maya-Shakti these may be. The response which inorganic matter makes to stimuli is the manifestation of Cit through the Sattvaguna of Maya-Shakti, or Shakti in its form as Prakriti-Shakti. The manifestation is slight and apparently mechanical because of the extreme predominance of the Tamoguna in the same Prakriti-Shakti.
Posted by aman890 04:31 | General | Comment(0) | Permalink

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