a question.

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> >  I have seen quotations where the punya of many previous good
deeds gets
> one
> >started in the pursuit of knowledge of Brahman. This is the first
time I am
> >seeing the reverse being stated.
>
> Go back to the principal upanishads. Many say that the entire
lineage of the
> brahmavit is purified, and that no one will be born in his kula
(family) who
> remains ignorant. This is an old thinking, reiterated in the
vivekacUDAmaNi.

My feeling is that the statements like no one else will be born in his
family who is ignorant is arthavAda in praise of brahmaGYAna.
Doubtless, being born in the same family a GYAni was born requires a
lot of previous puNya, but I don't see why that translates into Atma
GYAna.  If these statements are not treated as arthavAda, it becomes
very problematic w.r.t avidyA/mAyA.

Rama