[Advaita-l] Question on Samadhi

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com wrote:

> >  Kindly pardon my intrusion here prabhuji.  Though traditional advaitins
> hold lot of prakaraNa granthas as genuine works of Sri Shankara.  Some
> scholars through the in-depth analysis of these prakaraNa grantha-s have
> decided that methods & doctrines contained in these grantha-s are quite
> contradictory to the purports of shankara's original prasthAna trayi
> bhAshya.

To illustrate the drawbacks of such methods, let me give an example. One
of my other interests is the Linux computer operating system.  Let's say
1000 years in the future three articles about Linux are all that survive
of my literary output.  Some historian of that era might conclude "This
Jaldhar was an atheist.  He only talks about computers not God."  Then
perhaps one of my advaita-l articles might turn up and the historian might
say "This is obviously a forgery because it doesn't match up with the
themes of the know genuine works of Jaldhar Vyas."

I'm not one to simply dismiss the views of historians but we need to
soberly assess what they are capable off.  In many cases they cannot
"decide" emphatically but only suggest probabilities.

>
> >  Swamiji of HN Pur, discusses these issues elaborately in his master
> piece vedAnta prakriya pratyabhigna (English version The Method of The
> Vedanta), on the chapter dedicated to bhatruprapancha & vivaraNa school,
> categorically proves this with parallel quotes from sUtra bhAshya & says
> that major prakaraNa grantha-s such as vivekachudAmaNi, sarva vEdAnta
> siddhAnta sAra Sangraha, aparOkShAnubhUti etc  are not definitely works of
> bhagavadpAda since these minor works propagating jnAna-karma samucchaya
> vAda. He accepts only UpadEsha sAhasri as the genuine work from shankara
> since his direct desciple Sri surEshwarAchArya quotes verses from this work
> in his vArtikas & its main theme will not contradict the prasthAna trayi
> bhAshya.
>
> >  prabhuji, following are some of the points swamiji of HN Pur raised
> against vivEkachudAmaNi in which he finds diametrically opposed views in
> prasthAna trayi bhAshyas :
>
> (a) After attaining paramArtha jnAna / self realisation  must be
> *maintained* through further sAdhana.
>
> (b) Knowledge gained through vedAnta shravaNa is only parOkSha jnAna.
>
> (c) The ultimate realisation can be had only in nirvikalpa samAdhi.
>
> (d) Treating avidyA & mAyA are synonyms.
>
> >  prabhuji, all the above points have been refuted by swamiji by quoting
> the references from the sUtra bhAshya.
>

If you have some time can you write about these issues and Swami
Sacchidanandendras' views?

> >  I donot know, what scholars of orthodox advaita tradition could offer us
> to prove that vivEkachudAmani is from bhAshyakArA's pen.
>

Until the invention of a time machine, they will have the same problem as
the historians of declaring their view 100% fact.  But as I pointed out
for hundreds of years learned people from all over the country have
accepted VC as a genuine work of Shankaracharya and a valuable work of
Advaita Vedanta.  If there were huge flaws surely someone would have said
something?


-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
It's a girl! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/