“Patanjali’s yoga sutra no.7 says that direct perception, inference and competent evidence can be considered as proofs. The knowledge “borrowed” from classical Yoga texts is considered as “aptavakya” i.e. direct evidence of the yogis.”
Anand,
Again, you are quoting Patanjali and other sources. I was not commenting about the content of your message, in fact I agree with much of what Patanjali and others have said in other scriptures. But we are not discussing whether what they have said or not said is true or false. We are discussing whether one is speaking out of ones own direct experience, or whether one is just repeating whatever knowledge has entered into ones mind - whether one has just information, or whether one has come to a transformation. Fundamentally - it comes down to your state of being.
“Logical proof of existence of atman is available from the proper understanding of the Doctrine of Karma.”
If your true nature is beyond logic, then how can you supply logical proof for it ? If Truth could be proved, then you can write a thesis about it or conduct an experiment in a laboratory for it. But it does not work like that.
Yes, there are some people who have claimed to have found logical proof which is irrefutable for Atman. There are people who also claim to have found irrefutable logical proof for God, as well as people who claim irrefutable proof for the existence of no-God. And there are Buddhists, who like those dogmatic Hindus, have stated that they have irrefutable evidence for Anatman (no-self), and the only way to come to this is through study of the Buddhist dharma.
Of course, any tradition will claim that their philosophy is right - because otherwise their very existence comes under threat. Traditions need followers, otherwise they will simply disappear. The same has happened with all of the world religions.
