Logic

Man likes to think logic­ally, although it is immensely hard to stay con­sist­ent while think­ing. If we fail to stay con­sist­ent in the intel­lec­tu­al sphere, how can we expect to be so on the moral plane? Almost impossible…

In Indi­an cul­ture the begin­nings of logic reach back to myth­ic­al times. Well before Buddha appeared, advanced schools of logic already exis­ted, and, inter­est­ingly, they did not merely ana­lyse meth­od­ic­al think­ing or the tech­nique of argu­ment, but sought to har­ness man's intel­lec­tu­al fac­ulties for the attain­ment of his spir­itu­al goals. Put plainly, ancient logic­al thought may have had spir­itu­al-meta­phys­ic­al aims.

One of the earli­est sources is known to us only from allu­sions; The Rule­book of Logic­al Think­ing has not sur­vived. All we know is that the great hero­ic epic, the Mahabharata, men­tions a refor­mu­la­tion of it. The polit­ic­al sci­ent­ist Chana­kya, act­ive around 300 BC, names logic among the schools of thought of his age.

From the ref­er­ences we know what sub­jects The Rule­book of Logic­al Think­ing dealt with. Among other things, with the ques­tion of mat­ter and spir­it, the pur­pose­ful­ness of nature, the mul­ti­tude of souls, their rela­tions and their inactiv­ity, and the unfold­ing of the cat­egor­ies.

The rule­book declared that false know­ledge and con­tent­ment are ser­i­ous obstacles to spir­itu­al pro­gress. The former is self-evid­ent, but how does con­tent­ment become an obstacle? Logic­ally, we might think that con­tent­ment is one of the prac­tices of yoga, one of the pleas­ing res­ults of the spir­itu­al pro­cess…

Of the five kinds of faulty, false know­ledge, i) simple ignor­ance is the first, and it is like dark­ness. ii) The ego­ist­ic sense of self may be iden­ti­fied with illu­sion, but iii) the attach­ment that springs from it is com­par­able to a pro­found mirage. Where there is attach­ment, iv) aver­sion or loath­ing is inev­it­able, a truly hellish state of con­scious­ness, and only v) mis­con­ceived self-love is more fatal, likened to the deep­est circle of hell. No doubt these errors and fail­ings hinder enlight­en­ment. But con­tent­ment?

If the aim of human life in gen­er­al, and of the sci­ence of logic in par­tic­u­lar, is the attain­ment of sal­va­tion, then the fol­low­ing kinds of con­tent­ment may be real obstacles.

i) Some claim there is no need for effort, because nature brings sal­va­tion auto­mat­ic­ally, and yet it is held that a cart does not move on one wheel: divine grace and human effort are both needed. Oth­ers say ii) there is no need for med­it­a­tion, that renoun­cing fam­ily life is enough. Med­it­a­tion would be pre­cisely one of the her­mits' chief prac­tices, for, as opposed to the prag­mat­ic prac­tices of fam­ily exist­ence, they can offer sac­ri­fice on the men­tal plane. Accord­ing to the pro­cras­tin­at­ors, iii) there is no need to hurry, for sal­va­tion will come in its own time, while the fatal­ists claim that iv) sal­va­tion is a mat­ter of fate.

The man entangled in mater­i­al exist­ence is also held back by cares that grow into kinds of lazi­ness, for example i) the ener­va­tion that springs from the cares of mak­ing a liv­ing. The answer to this is that God becomes action in man… Lazi­ness may also spring from ii) guard­ing wealth already amassed, or from iii) the nat­ur­al wear­ing out of things, the former rather in the form of con­tent­ment, the lat­ter as a kind of des­pond­ency. The reflect­ive man real­ises that iv) desires, forever arising anew, lead only to dis­con­tent, and so he does not act. The cure for this would be self­less action, while the mor­ally con­tem­plat­ive man sees that v) one per­son's gain is won at anoth­er's loss, and so he does not act. In the world of give and take such a lev­el­ling out can indeed be found, but the actions of the self­less and duti­ful spir­itu­al man serve the uni­ver­sal good.

Thoughts thou­sands of years old still seem valid today…