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Question Numbers: 11-14
Read the following passage and answer the question that follow passage. Your answer to these question should be based on the passage only.
In Indian philosophical tradition, questioning is regarded as method of philosophical enquiry. In the Chandogya Upanishad, there is a questioning that illustrates this direct search for a return to truth
Uddalaka: Shvetaketu, fixed as you are, in great regard for what you have learned. Did you ask for that teaching by which the unheard gets to be heard, the unknown gets to be known ?
Shvetaketu: Sir, how indeed is that teaching ?
Shvetaketu has been trained in the names, forms and qualities of conventional learning. But now he is being asked how he can get to know what he has not already learned. How can he find out things for himself, beyond the mere conventions that he has learned so far ? And here he is at a loss. He has not learned to question things directly, beyond his acquired learning. For he has never asked about knowledge itself, beneath the trappings of learning that he has so proudly acquired. He realizes that something is missing, and asks his father to teach him. As the story goes on, Shvetaketu is taught through a number of illustrations. For one of these, he is taken to a large tree, whose fruits have fallen on the ground. He is asked to pick up a fruit and break it open. It has tiny seed in it. He is asked to break a seed and say what he finds here:
He has to reply: Nothing Sir, the seeds are far too small.
So now his father says: And yet, within each tiny seed, there is a subtle something which your eyes do not see, something unseen from which this spreading tree has grown and now stands manifested here. This subtle something is that this itselfness, which is this entire world. That is the truth. That is yourself. That is what you really are.
In this illustration, the tree symbolically represents the entire universe. To be more accurate, it represents the big picture that we have of the whole universe, with all its vast size and mind-boggling complexity, Compared with this huge picture, our little personalities are very small and insignificant, like tiny little seeds. But there are some huge trees which grow from the unseen essence of life within a tiny seed. So also, our big pictures of the world all rise from knowledge. This knowledge is the unseen essence of our lives, in each of our little personalities. We cannot see it without outward looking eyes; but it is always present here, within each person's body and mind. When knowledge is seen like this, as our inner essence, it is called consciousness. It is the truth which Shvetaketu’s father shows. That, he says, is what you really are.
Read the following passage and answer the question that follow passage. Your answer to these question should be based on the passage only.
In Indian philosophical tradition, questioning is regarded as method of philosophical enquiry. In the Chandogya Upanishad, there is a questioning that illustrates this direct search for a return to truth
Uddalaka: Shvetaketu, fixed as you are, in great regard for what you have learned. Did you ask for that teaching by which the unheard gets to be heard, the unknown gets to be known ?
Shvetaketu: Sir, how indeed is that teaching ?
Shvetaketu has been trained in the names, forms and qualities of conventional learning. But now he is being asked how he can get to know what he has not already learned. How can he find out things for himself, beyond the mere conventions that he has learned so far ? And here he is at a loss. He has not learned to question things directly, beyond his acquired learning. For he has never asked about knowledge itself, beneath the trappings of learning that he has so proudly acquired. He realizes that something is missing, and asks his father to teach him. As the story goes on, Shvetaketu is taught through a number of illustrations. For one of these, he is taken to a large tree, whose fruits have fallen on the ground. He is asked to pick up a fruit and break it open. It has tiny seed in it. He is asked to break a seed and say what he finds here:
He has to reply: Nothing Sir, the seeds are far too small.
So now his father says: And yet, within each tiny seed, there is a subtle something which your eyes do not see, something unseen from which this spreading tree has grown and now stands manifested here. This subtle something is that this itselfness, which is this entire world. That is the truth. That is yourself. That is what you really are.
In this illustration, the tree symbolically represents the entire universe. To be more accurate, it represents the big picture that we have of the whole universe, with all its vast size and mind-boggling complexity, Compared with this huge picture, our little personalities are very small and insignificant, like tiny little seeds. But there are some huge trees which grow from the unseen essence of life within a tiny seed. So also, our big pictures of the world all rise from knowledge. This knowledge is the unseen essence of our lives, in each of our little personalities. We cannot see it without outward looking eyes; but it is always present here, within each person's body and mind. When knowledge is seen like this, as our inner essence, it is called consciousness. It is the truth which Shvetaketu’s father shows. That, he says, is what you really are.
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