Glossary F

An error in reasoning. An argument is called fallacious if it does not follow the formal structures and rules of logic. It is also fallacious if it is not adequately supported and/or does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the proponent of the argument wants to establish. An example is begging the question (petitio principi). This is also known as circular reasoning, by which one arrives at a conclusion from statements that are themselves questionable and have to be proved. For instanceMajor premise: Genuine yogīs live in the forest and only eat fruit. Minor premise: This monkey lives in the forest and only eats fruit. Conclusion: This monkey is a genuine yogī. See Circulus vitiosus, Infinite regress, Logic.

the conception that “I am this material body, mind or intelligence.”; False ego In Sanskrit, it is termed ahaṅkāra. False ego is a soul’s wrong identification with matter in two ways: I (as, for instance, I am this body) and mine (this land is mine). The primal stage of the false ego is tāmasa-buddhi, intelligence in ignorance. This occurs when the original consciousness of the spirit soul comes into contact with the mahad-brahman, the unmanifest prakṛti. From out of tāmasa-buddhi, the three modes make their appearance. These take shape as the mind (mode of goodness), the senses (mode of passion) and the sense objects (mode of ignorance). The ahaṅkāra identifies the self with these, according to the predominance of one mode over another (the three modes constantly compete with one another to control the living entity). Thus a person in goodness identifies with the mind. A person in passion identifies with the senses. A person in ignorance identifies with the sense objects. But all these are the result of the intelligence being absorbed in primal ignorance: ignorance of Kṛṣṇa. In the Eleventh Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Kṛṣṇa says to Uddhava that the false ego is cid-acin-mayaḥ, that which encompasses both spirit and matter, because it binds the cid (conscious soul) to the acid (unconscious matter). The cultivation of the innate goodness of the mind is the essence of the Vedic method of yoga, summarized by Kṛṣṇa as follows. The mind can be controlled when it is fixed on the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Having achieved a stable situation, the mind becomes free from polluted desires to execute material activities; thus as the mode of goodness increases in strength, one can completely give up the modes of passion and ignorance, and gradually one transcends even the material mode of goodness. When the mind is freed from the fuel of the modes of nature, the fire of material existence is extinguished. Then one achieves the transcendental platform of direct relationship with the object of his meditation, the Supreme Lord. (SB 11.9.12) See Buddhi, Consciousness, Intellect, Mind, Modes of nature, Soul, Subtle body, Supersoul.

The promotion of the rights of females in human society.

Austrian-born American philosopher of science who is a self-professed intellectual anarchist (1924-1994). According to him, the mark of creativity in science is the proliferation of theories.

There are four Vaiṣṇava schools (sampradāyas) of Vedānta. These are 1) the Śrī Sampradāya, whose ācārya is Rāmānuja; 2) the Brahmā Sampradāya, whose ācārya is Madhva; 3) the Rudra Sampradāya, whose ācārya is Viṣṇusvāmī, and 4) the Kumāra Sampradāya, whose ācārya is Nimbārka. Opposed to these is the non-Vaiṣṇava Vedāntist school of Śaṅkarācārya. Every Vedāntist school is known for its siddhānta or essential conclusion about the relationships between God and the soul, the soul and matter, matter and matter, matter and God, and the soul and souls. Śaṅkarācārya’s siddhānta is Advaita, nondifference (i.e. everything is one, therefore these five relationships are unreal). All the other siddhāntas support the reality of these relationships from various points of view. Rāmānuja’s siddhānta is Viśiṣṭādvaita, qualified nondifference. Madhva’s siddhānta is Dvaita, difference. Viṣṇusvāmī’s siddhānta is Śuddhādvaita, purified nondifference. And Nimbārka’s siddhānta is Dvaita-advaita, difference-and-identity. The Bengali branch of Madhva’s sampradāya is known as the Brahmā-Madhva-Gauḍīya Sampradāya, or the Caitanya Sampradāya. In the 1700’s this school presented Indian philosophers with a commentary on Vedānta-sūtra written by Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa that argued yet another siddhānta. It is called acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, which means simultaneous inconceivable oneness and difference. In recent years this siddhānta has become known to people from all over the world due to the popularity of the books of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Acintya-bhedābheda philosophy maintains the same standpoint of difference as Madhva’s siddhānta on the five-fold relationship of God to soul, soul to matter, matter to matter, matter to God and soul to soul. But acintya-bhedābheda-tattva further teaches the doctrine of śakti-pariṇāma-vāda (the transformation of the Lord’s śakti), in which the origin of this five-fold differentiation is traced to the Lord’s play with His śakti or energy. Because the souls and matter emanate from the Lord, they are one in Him as His energy yet simultaneously distinct from Him and one another. The oneness and difference of this five-fold relationship is termed acintya or inconceivable because, as Śrīla Prabhupāda writes in his purport to Bg 18.78, Nothing is different from the Supreme, but the Supreme is always different from everything. As the transcendental origin and coordinator of His energies, God is ever the inconceivable factor. See Advaita, Dvaita, Māyāvādī philosophy, Six systems, Vedānta, Vedānta-sūtra.