Idea that Indian thought is essentially theological is misleading
Cravakas: “eating up” all that is given in perception
Accepted only sense-perception as an independent means of knowledge
Rigorous empirical “seeing is believing”
We have only one life, there is no after-life.
So we should “live for the moment”
A philosophy of pleasure-seeking (kama) as the primary goal of life and an emphasis upon happiness (sukha)
But the carvakas took moral stances such as non-violence (ahimsa)
Not an unsophisticated or unreflective hedonism.
Since kana was the universal goal for all, this meant promoting a lifestyle based upon the avoidance of suffering for oneself and for others.
They also rejected the status of the Vedas as revelation and the authority of Brahmanical priests.
They also rejected the validity of inferential reasoning.
This stance relected anxieties about the ways I which logical inferences could be applied to justify belief in the existence of various metaphysical entities that draw our attention away from the here and now.
There is no spiritual realm, no spiritual self. The self is identical to the material body and dies when the body ceases to function as a living organism.
Our consciousness then is merely a very sophisticated by-product or function of complex material formations.
From my previous post "What is the SOUL?": So far I have only been analysing the idea of the SOUL from a very physio-psychological view point. More importantly, do I believe in the SOUL as an entity that is seperate from our physical body. I will be back later to write about this. I have to consider more about this.
So now I have come across one viewpoint and I will put in the Brahmanical and Buddhist conception of the soul in a while. So it seems that I have come back to this topic afterall, albeit unknowingly. So many thoughts swirling, so many books, so many ideas, so little time.
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