Vedic texts divide experience into the seer, the seen, and the seeing. We can also call these the knower, the known, and the knowing. What we commonly call ‘consciousness’ is the process of seeing or knowing. This seeing or knowing is a property of the soul—the seer or the knower—but it operates under the knower’s control. Thus, the knower is distinct from consciousness, by which it knows. Then, the knower is called the ‘enjoyer’, the known is called the ‘enjoyed’, and knowing is called ‘enjoying’. Based on this, we can understand the technical nomenclature of sat, chit, and ānanda. The ānanda is the enjoyer, the chit is the enjoyed, and the sat is the enjoying, or consciousness.

The following is a somewhat extended version of a reply to some questions that I sent today to an interested reader. I thought this description would be relevant and useful even to others, and hence I decided to post it.

I’m currently translating the original text of Sāñkhya Sūtras composed by Sage Kapila, and it discusses the doctrine of Satkāryavāda, and its distinctions with other philosophies. This discussion is important for those interested in understanding Sāñkhya. While the full translation and commentary on the text will take some more time, I thought it might be useful to reproduce some of it here.

All students of epistemology cite many categories of experience that are not knowledge, in order to distinguish them from knowledge. These categories are different in Western and Vedic systems of philosophy. In particular, in the latter, dreams are not considered false, although there are other categories that are false. This post discusses the difference between the various categories that are considered “not knowledge”.

In an earlier post (which now seems ages ago), I had described the meaning of “flat earth”. The simple idea was that the flatness was an artifact of the model rather than our observation. This point has oft been repeated in my book Mystic Universe as well. I will use this post to further elaborate what is “round earth”, which is again not based on observation, although it leads to the observation.

In practically every religion of the world God is said to be the creator of the universe. And this leads atheistic people to say: “No, the universe came from the Big Bang; no God was involved”. But Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-Gita (10.8), that He is not just the creator; rather, He creates from Himself. If “God is the creator” is religion, then “God creates from Himself” is the science.

The question of beauty has been incessantly debated since Greek times in Western philosophy, but it has some simple answers, if we adopt the view that the world is idea-like. When we look at a rose, and we cognize it as a rose, then we might also say, that the rose is beautiful. The cognition of a rose involves the application of a prior idea in our minds, and therefore, ‘rose’ is a concept. Likewise, if the ‘rose’ is also beautiful, then, the beauty is applied to the knowledge—i.e. the concept ‘rose’. The simple conclusion is that beauty is a property of knowledge, and if we understand the properties of knowledge, then we can also define what we mean by beauty. This post discusses this definition.

Much has been said about Prabhupāda’s visionary leadership and scholarship in bringing India’s authentic culture, civilization, philosophy, and practice to the Western world. But very little is said about his vision for the future of the world as seen through the lens of science. In this post, I will try to capture his three big ideas (as I understand them), in the reverse order of greatness (from my perspective).

The following is a response to some questions that have arisen regarding the 7th chapter in the book Mystic Universe. The central problems pertain to the following key issues: I have shown Jambudvīpa as a stepped structure, while others take it as flat I have shown that the mountains are stepped, rather than off a common ground As a result, the mountains have depths in addition to the heights   There are two kinds of response to this question—a general conceptual basis, and the other based on a systematic analysis of scriptures.

In the previous post, we discussed how matter is also consciousness, although a different type of consciousness. We identified three types of consciousness—God, soul, and matter—and discussed their natures. This post extends that discussion and identifies three genders associated with the three types of consciousness—masculine, feminine, and neutral. God has a dominantly masculine gender; His Sakti has a dominantly feminine gender; and the soul has a dominantly neutral gender. These genders arise due to the differences in their desires. However, when the soul becomes subordinate to God, then it also develops a masculine desire and gender, and when the soul becomes subordinate to God’s Sakti, then it also develops a feminine desire and gender. These genders are ulimately understood in terms of the differences in their desires. Generically, the soul can alternately be called he, she, or it.

The modern scientific study of matter arose out of the mind-body duality created by Descartes, who wanted to separate the endeavors of the Church (i.e. religion) from those of a rational-empirical inquiry (i.e. science). Similar kinds of dualities have existed in Vedic philosophy too. For example, in Advaita philosophy, Brahman is conscious but matter or māyā is jada or inert. Many Vaishnava philosophical systems also distinguish between soul and matter as chit and achit or conscious and non-conscious. However, these doctrines go contrary to the timeless traditions of treating matter as Sakti, Durga, Devi, etc. In light of these contradictions, we must reconsider the idea that matter is non-conscious.

Imagine that a moving billiard ball collides with a static one, and transfers its energy, which causes the static billiard ball to start moving. The cause of the change is energy, and due to conservation, once energy is transferred to the new ball, the cause ceases to exist, and the effect becomes the new cause. Now extend this idea to causation by God. God created the universe, and therefore He was all the energy in the beginning. But since energy gets transferred, therefore, God must cease to exist. Or even if He exists, He is like that static ball that has lost its energy because it was converted into the world. This post discusses how this idea about causation is modified in theistic versions of Vedic philosophy.