An Interesting article - any response?

[Anand Hudli]

>
> Madhava Kumar Turumella has send me a copy of the on going discussion on
> dvaita list between him and Sri Shrisha Rao and others on Maya.  I found
> the article by Sri Guruprasad below interesting. Any response to the
> challenge from the experts.
>
> Hari Om!
> Sadananda
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Copy of the article as I received in mail from Sri Madhava Kumar Turumella.
>
> Dear Devotees,
>    The proponents of "Jeeva-Brahma-Aikya" (identity of Jeeva and
> Brahman) invoke the example of dreams to prove their hypothesis.
> However their proof is all wrong as we shall see.

   First misconception. Jeeva-brahma-aikya is not something that is
   established by logic alone. It has basis in Shruti. Many Shruti
    statements affirm it. Further, whenever there is a conflict between
   logic and what the shruti says, the latter prevails.

>   At the outset let me put forth their views in a nut shell:
>   The dreams objects seen in the dream are unreal. On waking up they
> vanish. Similarly visavis the absolute state of Brahman we are in a
> dream state. The world around us , our sorrow, joys etc are all
> unreal and will vanish once we wake up to the state of being one with
> Brahman. Avidya is responsible for lack of realisation of Jeeva's
> identity with Brahman.
>    The above (advaitic) stand-point suffers from serious logical
> flaws which cannot be remedied inspite of all their mental
> acrobatics. Let us examine their arguments in their own setting
> and see for ourselves the inherent flaws.

   Really?

>    What is the nature of Brahman in Advaita? Brahman is
> attributeless (nirguna), configurationless(nirakara), indivisible
> (akhanda), etc. In short their is nothing like a variety in advaitic
> Brahman.
>    Let us give names to the various states in the advaitic framework
> 1.The Dream-state: This is state of dreams which we experience
> when we sleep ("Svapnaavastha")
> 2. The waking state: The state of the world we experience when we are
> awake, i.e. the world we see around ; the birds, the trees etc.
> 3. Absolute state: the state of the Advaitic Brahman, i.e. the state
>  of the frozen consciousness of the Advaitic Brahman.
>     Dream state is unreal visavis the Waking state and the latter
> unreal visavis the Absolute state-this is the thesis of Advaita.
>    Let us analyse the dream-state. We see several objects in our
> dreams. Granting for a minute they are all unreal, what causes them?
> In the waking state we see several objects and the impressions are
> formed in the mind  and they reappear in the dreams perhaps jumbled
> up arbitrarily. In other words the variety that is there in the
> waking state accounts for the variety in the dream. Let us even grant
> that the waking - state is unreal visavis the absolute -state of
> advaita. What accounts for the variety seen in the waking state?
> Even accepting the alleged unreality of dream-objects, we can account
> for its variety invoking the variety seen in the waking-state.
> However we cannot invoke anything to explain away the variety in the
> waking state, because their is no variety in the absolute state of
> the advaitic brahman which is "akhanda", "nirguna",etc. Even if the
> advaitic stand-point of unreality of this world is accepted, the
> variety in the waking-state cannot be explained in their own
> frame-work. Thus using the method of "reductio-ad-absurdum" ,we
> see that the entire edifice on which advaita is built crumbles.

   There are serious logical flaws in *this* argument. First, it assumes
   that the relationship between the "absolute" state and the waking
   state is exactly like the relationship between the waking state
   and the dream state. How do we know this? In other words,

    variety in dream state  implies   variety in waking state

     does not necessarily imply


    variety in waking state  implies variety in absolute state


    There would be such an implication if the absolute state were
    similar to the two other states in some sense. But this is impossible
   according to the scriptures. The absolute is not only advaita (devoid
   of duality) but also advaya (one without a second) and nirupama
   (incomparable to anything).

   So the absolute state cannot be compared to any state or for that matter
   anything at all.  The statement :

   The absolute state must be similar to the waking state

   and even the statement:

   the relationship between the absolute and waking state is similar
   to the relationship between the waking and dream state

   are both not logically provable.


   Now, even if we allow that these are provable, there is another
   logical flaw in the dvaitin's argument.

   This flaw is the familiar infinite regress.

   Suppose the absolute state were to have variety or duality. Then
   its duality would be the result of the duality existing in a
   higher absolute state. The duality in this higher absolute state
   would be inferred from the duality in a yet higher state. The
   duality in this third absolute state would be inferred from the
   duality in state higher than it and so on. This leads to infinite
   regress. And it would be impossible to speak of the highest state
   "VishhNoH paramaM padaM" which we often hear from the Vedas.

    So the highest state must necessarily be not only advaita but also
    advaya (one without a second) and nirupama (incomparable to anything).


> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Conclusion: the world is real. Jeeva can never be the same as
> Brahman.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  Maybe according to PuraaNas and other fairy tales. But I seriously doubt
  if the Vedas say so.

> K.Guruprasad
> Department of Mathematics
> Indian Institute of Science
> Bangalore-560 012


 Anand