Few things are present by their absence. Imagine an earthen
pot, its existence is not eternal. There was a time when it was not a pot but
just clay and there will be a time when it will stop being a pot that is when
it will break or convert into something else. Upanashidik philosophy believes
in three kinds of truth or realities; Parmarthik Satya, Vyaharik Satya and
Pratibhasik Satya. They encompass all kind of realities that we can imagine.
Parmarthik Satya are eternal truths. Something immutable. Let’s
say the universality of 2+2=4 or red rose is red. This is true now and was true
in past and will be true in the future too. Vyaharik satya is something that we
experience in our everyday life. We consider the world and it’s entities around
us to be true and real and this is vyaharik satya. This truth has
spacio-temporal existence and are not eternal or non-mutable. For example our
pot. If I had the earthen pot in front of me now, it would have been a reality
for the time being. Its existence is justified by the sense of perception,
touch and also by the sense of purpose it achieves that is it holds liquid in
it. But the pot will not be a pot forever. If I break it right now it will no
more be a pot but just pieces of baked clay. The existence of the pot as an
entity has ceased to be and so is the credibility of the phrase “This is a pot”.
But the phrase was true at a certain point in time and hence it is a vyaharik
satya. Moreover, since vyaharik satya is mutable and contingent, forms the
object of our knowledge and helps us understand the world. The things that are
not changeable do not inspire purpose and add no new addition to our knowledge.
The western philosophers have termed such unchangeable and non-contingent truth
to be tautologies and nonsensical (nonsensical but not non sense in the way
that they do no good in terms of understanding the dynamics of the world but
they are essential nevertheless)
Now what is pratibhasik satya? Well, this third kind of
reality talks about our perception of the vyaharik satya. Let’s take a popular
example of orientalist philosophies. You walk into a dimly lit room and find a
piece of rope coiled in a corner. In a haste, you assumed it to be a snake and
are startled. Now let me just clip those few seconds from your life and look at
it as if it was an independent truth dissociating it from what we knew before
and what we realize later. For those few seconds you believed that piece of
rope to be a snake but your belief of it did not change the essential nature of
the rope or did not turn it into a snake. It essentially is a rope but you
think it is a snake and for whatever small period of time, it became your truth
or reality. This is the pratibhasik satya. The assumed satya.
On a large scale of time our vyaharik satya aslo becomes the
pratibhasik satya in reference to parmarthik satya. How do I know that what I am
perceiving is actually the truth about the world and that it is the
unchangeable truth in itself? Those 30-40 seconds of assumption of the rope to
be snake if put against an average life of 70 years is a tiny time period but
it still had an impact, for we startled and were afraid. Imagine putting our
70years against the billion years of existence. How do I know that it cant be a
pratibhasik satya? But we should not venture here as our time period here is
limited and walking in this direction will lead to skepticism which is not
conducive for world harmony and human progress. But this understanding of
relativity can be an essential tool in the post-modern subjectivity and
tolerance towards the same. It is a constant tussle between your truth and my
truth and the real truth.
We are all limited by our undertstanding and the capability
of our logics to give us a holistic idea of the world around us. Prejudices, judgments,
past experiences, all contribute to our limitations and we can never approach
anything entirely free of our previous understanding. What we can do is have
faith in what other is trying to believe because eternal truths are not
entirely in capacity of understanding but can be a subject of category of faith.
How nonchalantly we employ faith is understood by the fact that we inch every
moment in our lives clinging to the faith that we will make into the future and
hence we need to act accordingly. I, writing this post has the faith of posting
it online later engrained in it. Life would become so difficult if we did not
put faith in what we understood or perceived in the vyaharik satya. But to deny
any other truth against yours is not a justification for faith.
Change is a sign of existence and purpose. Change is the
only constant is a thought that has walked centuries from the Greek Philosopher
Heraclitus to Gautam Buddha to the present time. Our truths are our truths (an
example of tautology as it added no new understanding about the subject matter “truth”
but the statement in itself is true) but should it be considered as immutable
or Parmarthik? No and yes!
No, because we know that our truths are temporal and they
are true in the present context of time and space leaving a considerable room for doubt. But we should also consider them immutable to avoid the trap of
skepticism which inspires apathy and indifference.
This temporal truth that we wish to consider permanent are
at liberty to do so must be tested on the grounds of logic. We must at our best
try to reach to the vyaharik satya through logic or experience. I do agree that
we are not all similar in the way we employ the faculty of logic or have our
own limitations and hence it begets even more tolerance towards the people who
cannot employ such strong logics and understanding as others can who have been
bestowed upon with the same through either education or culture. But logic
should not be the end of our pursuit but only a means to appreciate the
subjectivity endowed with faith.
Faith, logic, beliefs are all tools to comprehend the type
of reality that we are capable of and the stretch of one form of reality over
the other form gives a purpose to intellect and life. We have around us people
who are perpetually delusional (Pratibhasik satya) about the world and the ones
that are practical (Vyaharik Satya) and finally the ones who have transcended
these two realms into Paramarthik satya. We can accommodate them all with
tolerance and understanding and sensitivity towards their limitations as they
would against ours but to force one’s truth on others as the only truth is to
negate years of cultural knowledge of tolerance that has been so humbly
bequeathed upon us by our ancestry and their repertoire of wisdom. Tolerance
must be the order of the day for harmony.
