[Advaita-l] Advaita Vedanta and Ignorance

[Krunal Makwana]

|| Namo Narayan ||
|| Jai Sri Krishna ||
|| Ram ||

Dear Jaldharji,

Firstly my adoration for your knowledge on Advaita Vedanta and the mere 
grasp of such a hard but flawless philosophy.

I have always had one enquiry which i have waited for an answer for a long 
time thinking someone else will ask the question but unfortunately no one 
has and i am left with small but very important doubts.

A few days ago i was talking to a few Satsangis about Advaita and Vashishta 
Advaita (I myself a follower of Advaita) and during the conversation an 
interesting conversation started about the cognition of this exterior world 
and what is seemed to be real, is it or isn't it. Ramanujacharya's view on 
the world is that the world is real and so is Ishwara, but Adi Sankaracharya 
says that only Brahm is real and the world is false, till then the 
conversation was okay and the two merely philosphies are correct in their 
views.

But gradually as the conversation progressed some interesting views were 
made that  began to interest me in what were the views of Advaita Vedanta. 
Firstly the discussion that started off this stimulating conversation was 
that, if Adi Sankaracharya's philosophy was flawless then why can't it 
describe how the cognition of this world started, one of the answers given 
by myself was that it is because of ignorance, but then the question is, if 
Brahman is pure and all knowing then how can ignorance even come into the 
equation. If Paramatma is pure then how can this world (or creation) be a 
part of ignorance, as only ignorance can arise from not knowing, saying this 
if Paramatma was all knowing ignorance would have no leg to stand on, or if 
ignorance is the cause then Brahma is flawed.

Ramanujacharya overcomes this problem by saying that Jiva and Ishwar and 
Prakriti are all equal but not the same, so for ignorance to prevail that is 
the fault of Jiva and not Ishwar. What are the views  by Advaita Vedanta on 
this issue?

Please could you correct any miss understandings and explain the above in 
regard to Advaita Vedanta

Krunal Makwana
Hindu Youth UK

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