Consciousness

Consciousness
IN MODERN SCIENCE AND JAIN PHILOSOPHY
The global relevance and implications of consciousness studies
By Nita Kapadia
ABSTRACT
Just the other day, my brother ambushed me during a normal conversation. He insisted
that whatever I had learned in college, in the latter part of the 20th century, was
obsolete! Was it? I do agree with the fact that scientists need to update knowledge more
often in the 21st century, the era of knowledge. The pandemic has caused a major shift
in the world, and we need to rethink our viewpoints, but the intellectual assault had so
unnerved me, that I lost my equanimity.
Just then, by a happy coincidence, I read the email that called for this paper. It was just
the thing. The research would help me understand whether consciousness studies were
relevant. That included studies of both kinds-modern science and sacred science.
In Tattvajnana Dvatrimshika, Acarya Siddhasena Divakara, writes,
There are several extremely well written texts,
Free from internal contradictions and lacunae
Written by very sound scholars.
But biased, poorly read people reject them.
In fact they are not even willing to glance at them.
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What fire can do, cannot be accomplished by water.
What deed can achieve, cannot be attained by thought alone.
Since dogmatic people read neither their own or others’ texts,
Why not develop a state of non-attachment to all texts?
( How can one be attached to that which is not known to one?)
One must therefore carefully consider the bias (or lack of it ) of one’s opponents.
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Findings & Readings