[Advaita-l] The "Royal Way"

[M. S. Ravisankar]

I may be wrong and my intention is not to find faults, I was shocked and
quite disturbed by the revelation that brahma-j~nAna by itself does not give
mukti (which I do not agree with).I see few issues with Vidyaranya's
position. Your clarifications are welcome.


0) How does brahma-jnAni go about destroying vaasana-s for vaasana xaya and
then mano naasha*? Does he go back to sadhanachatushhTaya ?

1) It think, it brings elements of yoga (karma) after attaining perfect
brahma-jnAna as a upAya for mukti. Which is not acceptable. One cannot say
more jnAna is required for vAsana xaya after brahma jnAna, it has to be
something other than jnAna then.

2) mukti is removal of avidyaa. Yoga says avidya is a vaasana or latent
impression, requires vasana xaya as necessary condition for mukti.  If
brahma-jnAna (that too perfect and aparoxa) does not get rid of avidya. It
leads to: a) jnana is not a means for mukti b) avidya is more real than what
it is said to be. Both are not acceptable.

3) shruti such as "tatra ko mohaH ka shoka ekatvamanupashyata" goes squarely
against it.

4) shankara too says that nothing comes in between brahma-jnAna and moxa in
BSB (while commenting on samanvayaadhikaraNam). You can read the section in
IIT kanpur site. It ends with "... brahmavidyaanantaram moxam darshyanto
madhye karyaantaram vaarayanti". I have put that section alone as an image
file  http://www.ambaa.org/download/advaita/bsb1.jpg (Jaldhar, can we create
place for members to share binary files rather than including them in the
text of the message?). I think this by itself contradicts Vidyaranya's
position.

5) I think the BuBh statemensts should be interpreted more carefully** .
Otherwise I fear that avidya in advaita-vedAnta becomes quite real.

TIA.

Ravi

* http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m14085.html
** quoted in http://www.escribe.com/religion/advaita/m14072.html
> -----Original Message-----
> From: S Jayanarayanan [mailto:sjayana at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 12:06 PM
> To: advaita-l
> Subject: RE: [Advaita-l] The "Royal Way"
>
>
> What svAmi vidyAraNya means by GYAna (that is different from mukti) is
> crystal clear: it is saMyak (perfect/complete) as well as aparoksha
> (immediate/direct). aparoksha brahmavidyA is final realization, where
> Brahman is not merely known "through the upanishhads" or "through the
> upadesha/Ishvara", but as Brahman-itself, directly with no mediacy. It
> is in spite of such knowledge that mukti is not yet achieved. I had
> posted some relevant extracts from the JMV, which is now at
> http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/public/advaita-l/2003-Augu
> st/012752.html
>
> Ramana Maharshi has spoken of lack of firmness in Self-realization, but
> I don't have the exact references. Vidyasankar had posted a similar
> reference in Shankara's commentary on BR^hadaaraNyaka upanishhad.
>
> -Kartik
>