Part 1 - Perception - Art of seeing things as we are and not as they are !

" If we are what we think ! then we are shallow beings, since many of us who don't think deep enough.

If we are what we eat ! then we are empty beings, since majority of us are below the poverty line and invaribaly starve.

The lowest common denominator seems to be, we are what we perceive!

For Perception is the art of seeing things as we are
and not as they are ! "

Many of us think that we are in brighter times as men have turned "Rationalists" in the last few decades / centuries and is coming out of the dark ages of superstition and have understood the power of thinking and invented a new system of thought process.

Can you believe that our forefathers did not only have logical and rational thinking as a science but also showed us a path of extending that science to realize ourselves and its a pity that many of us are ignorant of this. The gem of a topic i am going to share with you and finally link up with the first few lines of this blog is essentially about Nyaya (aka Tarka Sastra) - a system of philosophy propounded by Gotama concerns with the achieving valid knowledge through science of logic and reasoning.

The goal of Nyaya philosophy is to attain the liberation of soul through logical thinking and attain valid knowledge. Valid Knowledge eradicates ignorance and hence paves way for realization. One of the important aspects i want to stress upon is there were many schools of thought in Indian Philosophy like Nyaya, Yoga, Samkhya & even Mimamsa (to a lesser degree) which were roads to realization of ourselves but did not follow idol worship. Even this aspect is not known to many of us for we choose to live in "bliss".

So what does Nyaya system deal with? I shall try to be as concise as possible and as always i would ask you to refer further details from our global guru for self learning - google.com.

All Indian philosophies are divided into 1. study of nonmanifested reality and 2. study of manifested reality. Nyaya system deals with both but mainly explains that from 2 broad topics (or atleast iam going to deal it that way) under 16 different categories. The broad topics are:

1. The object of knowledge (Prameya) - What is knowable.

2. Sources of valid Knowledge (Pramana) - Means to attain Valid knowledge

Etymologically, Prama means Budhi (Cognition) hence object of knowledge is prameya and sources through which we receive this knowledge is Pramana.

But before i "drink deeper" let me ask you few questions for you to think:

1. What do you think is knowable as you can list and can you categorize it?

2. What do you think are the sources of knowledge?

3. Can you define perception, Inference?

4. Can you tell me the difference between perception & Inference?

Now during my MBA program i had read some definition of perception in one of the management books followed up by multiple definitions of perception by various philosophers. Infact I can say that there is no philosophy / philosopher which (who) has not touched upon perception. Nyaya also deals with perception in a significant way (but i should say) & most comprehensive way in approach i have ever read...

There are few books in life that are difficult to understand in one go and few books that teach us something new when ever we read it repeatedly. Nyaya and Tarka related books fall under both categories for me.

Let me stop here and continue this in the next blog....

Yours logically

Happy reading !