Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- FOREWORD
- PUBLISHER'S NOTE
- SEEK FOR THE ROAD
- I Metaphysics in general
- II A cheerless balance-sheet
- III Philosophical wonder
- IV The problem
- V The Vedantic vision
- VI An exoteric introduction to scientific thought
- VII More about non-plurality
- VIII Consciousness, organic, inorganic, mneme
- IX On becoming conscious
- X The moral law
- WHAT IS REAL?
V - The Vedantic vision
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- FOREWORD
- PUBLISHER'S NOTE
- SEEK FOR THE ROAD
- I Metaphysics in general
- II A cheerless balance-sheet
- III Philosophical wonder
- IV The problem
- V The Vedantic vision
- VI An exoteric introduction to scientific thought
- VII More about non-plurality
- VIII Consciousness, organic, inorganic, mneme
- IX On becoming conscious
- X The moral law
- WHAT IS REAL?
Summary
And thy spirit's highest fiery flight Is satisfied with likeness and with image.
GOETHEFor philosophy, then, the real difficulty lies in the spatial and temporal multiplicity of observing and thinking individuals. If all events took place in one consciousness, the whole situation would be extremely simple. There would then be something given, a simple datum, and this, however otherwise constituted, could scarcely present us with a difficulty of such magnitude as the one we do in fact have on our hands.
I do not think that this difficulty can be logically resolved, by consistent thought, within our intellects. But it is quite easy to express the solution in words, thus: the plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real. Vedantic philosophy, in which this is a fundamental dogma, has sought to clarify it by a number of analogies, one of the most attractive being the many-faceted crystal which, while showing hundreds of little pictures of what is in reality a single existent object, does not really multiply that object. We intellectuals of today are not accustomed to admit a pictorial analogy as a philosophical insight; we insist on logical deduction.
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- Chapter
- Information
- My View of the World , pp. 18 - 22Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1951