Author: Swami Satprakashanda
Publisher: Advaita Ashram
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 366
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8175050659
Description
This book deals with an exposition of the six means of valid knowledge leading to self-realization.
The simple question, How we know? is one of the toughest problems that have confronted the human mind. This work presents to modern thinkers the Vedantic approach to this universal problem. It dwells on different types of knowledge from sensory experience, which man shares with the lowest living beings, up to the transcendental perception of ultimate Reality claimed by great mystics and seers of the world.
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Preface
Note on the pronunciation of Transliterated Sanskrit alphabet
Abbreviations
Synopses of Chapters
PART ONE
Perception, Three means of Non-Perceptual Knowledge, and the way of Apprehending Non-Existence
CHAPTER I
Perception; its Scope and Means
CHAPTER II
The Metaphysical Background of the Sensible Universe
CHAPTER III
Perceptual Knowledge; its Distinctive Character and Process
CHAPTER IV
The Validity of Knowledge
CHAPTER V
Illusion; its Nature and Cause
CHAPTER VI
Three Means of Non-perceptual Knowledge: Inference, Comparison, and Postulation
CHAPTER VII
Non-Apprehension : the way of Apprehending Non-Existence
PART TWO
Verbal testimony
(A Means of Valid Knowledge, Sensuous and Suprasensuous)
CHAPTER VIII
Verbal Testimony, a Unique Method of Valid Knowledge
CHAPTER IX
Verbal Testimony as the Means of Suprasensuous Knowledge; the Speciality of the Vedic Testimony
CHAPTER X
Sense-Perception, Reason, and the Vedic Testimony
CHAPTER XI
'Thou art That', the Truth of truths
CHAPTER XII
'The Knower of Brahman Attains the Highest'
Appendix A : A Short Account of the Vedic Texts
Appendix B : The Six Vedic Schools of Philosophy and their Notable
Sanskrit Works (with available English Translations)
Appendix C : The Yogic Dualism and the Vedantic Non-Dualism
Appendix D : The Yogic Method of Meditation leading to Self-realization
Bibliography I (English works quoted from in this book)
Bibliography II (Sanskrit works quoted from in this book)
Index