INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

COMPLETE WORKS OF DR K.C.VARADACHARI – VOL10
misery is to attain a state of nirvana (freedom from all
vana or movement of the desires which have become
centralised around the focus of the ego). Again and
again this call to the renunciation of the ego, empirical
ego being the only concrete ego that we know of, has
been delivered. Whilst the Upanishads, a profound
sense went deeper psychologically and postulated a
super ego, an ego that is metaphysically known rather
than known by the apparatus of the sensory-empirical
psychology. Buddhism regulated all psychology by its
sensate knowledge. Thus its dhyana or jhana was also
tied up with the empirical sensory. No wonder it never
had to acknowledge the self of the Upanishads which is
known not by any amount of sensory empirical even
when such an empirical becomes profoundly meditative
and contemplative. This restriction of the psychology of
meditation and dhyana or jhana to the sensory resulted
in what was well apprehended, a scepticism in respect
of the transcendental self. The sensory intuition of
jhana never went beyond the super sensory or more
subtle sensory but tied up to desire elements central to
persistence in the sensory empirical reality. Once this
limitation on man’s knowledge was imposed it was clear
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