I, You and We

Darshana  means philosophy. And it is through which one sees the Truth. This darshana is a Pramana “means of right knowledge” for knowing the Truth.

 Any darshana deals with the basic three things, I, You and We.

I, you and we differs acoording to the different interpretation of the philosophy.

--- I in may be jiva (individual self), you the ishwara (God) and we the Jagat (universe).

--- I may be jiva, you the atoms and we bonded atoms.

So, the way one sees the I, you and we changes from system to system of philosophy.

If there are so many interpretations then are there so many truths. As some fancy saying, the truth of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Whenever, they change their standpoint or the view on a particular thing. If truth be manifold then there is no necessity in understanding the truth, because try as you may one will never be able to understand all the truths.

And if the darshana be the Pramana, are all the darshanas right or are they not Pramana. All darshana understand the truth from different standpoint. By this we don’t support the infamous statement “there are many paths to reality”. What we say is, for example, when we travel from Chennai to Delhi, first we cross Andrapradesh, then Madyapradesh, and finally after crossing Uttarpradesh we arrive at Delhi. Now, in this example the destination of Andra or Madya or even Uttar Pradesh cannot be called wrong, but they fall short of the final destination. In the same way, these different darshanas interpret the truth.  Remember the story of the blind men explaining the elephant.

Which is the right darshana if be asked, without any doubt one should understand the Advaita Vedanta to be the right and final pramanic darshana. How so, for any darshana to be right or wrong, it should be in sync with the three Pramanas, Shruti – Scriptures, Yukthi – Logic and Anubhava – Expereince.

In the case of the other darshanas there is conflict with the Shruthi, the Ultimate Pramana. The Shruti declares “ekam eva advitiyam” – one only non-dual. With these three words, it negates all the three types of duality, sajatiya – existing in the same class of objects, vijatiya – existing in different class of objects and swagata – existing in itself.

Understanding of the Pramana becomes important, because, in the scheme of I, You and We. The knower I does not change, Me nor the object of knowledge – Self / Self-knowledge. But, only the means changes. Proper the means proper will be the knowedge.