Transcendental Logic

Ternary logic is a great improvement over Aristotelian two-valued logic. It inspired the Enlightenment and enabled tremendous scientific and technological progress in a comparatively short time. Nevertheless, even ternary logic is inadequate for reasoning about the ultimate questions of self-realization, the spiritual world and the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Unfortunately, most religious thought and theological debate still use Aristotelian logic, despite its serious shortcomings even in elementary material reasoning.

Very little in life is black and white; the more we advance in consciousness and develop in spiritual life, the more this becomes self-evident. The dichotomies of ordinary language do not necessarily represent reality, especially when dealing with the subtleties of the human soul and spiritual life. In fact, a completely new ontological frame of logic and reasoning is required to think accurately about spiritual objects and entities.

Transcendental logic is based on the real nature of the soul and the spiritual world. Since everything in the spiritual world is eternal, there is no influence of time; the effects of temporality, such as causality and karma, are unknown there. Similarly, there are no ignorance or evil there. All the beings in the spiritual world are situated in perfect spiritual knowledge and consciousness. Thus there is no right and wrong because the perfected beings of the spiritual world are incapable of wrong.

atmaramasya tasyasti prakrtya na samagamah

“He is always self-satisfied, involved in His eternal, blissful spiritual activities, but He has nothing to do with these material activities.” [Brahma-samhita 5.6]

If we attempt to apply materialistic ontological conceptions, language and logic to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, other spiritual entities and phenomena, we shall surely reach inappropriate, erroneous and spurious conclusions about spiritual life. The cognitive dissonance between our materialistic mental conditioning and the transcendental spiritual nature is the source of the insanity so often found in religious philosophy and culture. The cure for this insanity is found in accepting the transcendental ontology of the Esoteric Teaching, and the use of transcendental logic based on the real nature of the soul and the spiritual world.

The transcendental ontology of the spiritual world is presented in detail on our site Transontology. Strictly speaking, transcendental entities have no truth states, because they are always situated in perfect Absolute Truth. But they do have states of transcendental consciousness called rasas. There are five primary and seven secondary rasas, which can form hundreds of combinations. Some of these combinations are harmonious, and others are inharmonious. When a living entity expresses a harmonious combination of rasas, he is in spiritual consciousness. An inharmonious combination of rasas leads to the spiritual living entity falling down into material consciousness.

The rasa system as presented in Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, Bharata-natya-sastra and other authentic Vedic works is the core of the Vedic transcendental ontology, and the entire Esoteric Teaching is firmly based upon it. The perfection of yoga is found in restoring the spirit soul to spiritual health by resolving the causes of inharmonious rasa. This process automatically bestows spiritual liberation and elevation to our original home in the spiritual world, and is the greatest benefit of the eternal Esoteric Teaching.