[Advaita-l] Re:Three Questions on Jiva, Atman & Brahma-jnAna

[sunil bhattacharjya]

Namaste,

Jiva does not have eternally separate existence from
Brahman yet it feels a separate existence till it
realises the truth.

skbhattacharjya at yahoo.com

--- Aditya Varun Chadha <adichad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings VK Ji,
> 
> I have a doubt that borders on utter naivety:
> 
> > [VK: The body is destroyed but not the Jiva. It is
> the Jiva
> > that 'escapes'. Secondly, Atman does not 'become'
> one with
> > Brahman; Atman is always Brahman]
> 
> Since Atman is brAhmaN, who (or what) undergoes
> "enlightenment" or
> "realization"? Is it the jIva? and since brAhmaN is
> ALL pervasive,
> what does it mean to be "in a state before
> enlightenment" and to be
> "in a state after enlightenment"? Since time is just
> a manifestation
> in mAyA, can enlightenment really be taken as an
> "real event"?
> 
> Is the event of realization itself an illusion then,
> since nothing
> really changes in the absolute sense? If so then why
> is this
> particular "event" considered so important? Who
> benefits from it? the
> jIva? but "after" realization the jIva knows that
> All is brAhmaN, and
> that it itself is mAyA (or illusion).
> 
> Since "merging" into brAhmaN retains the nirguNa
> nature of brAhmaN,
> it's like saying that jIva is just a 0 (as compared
> to Atman/brAhmaN),
> which to me makes total sense, but then I see
> "enlightenment" as just
> an event that helps the jIvA "live happily ever
> after" INSIDE mAyA,
> not really "escaping" it.
> 
> But the above is because of my naive assumption that
> the jIvA cannot
> "realize that it does not exist (seperately from
> brAhmaN), and
> actually not exist (seperately from brAhmaN) at the
> same time", simply
> because "realizing" is an action, and something that
> IS brAhmaN cannot
> "do actions". Am I approaching a paradox?
> 
> Actually I find this the beauty of advaita, that
> (atleast for me)
> advaita works so close to Absolute Paradox that you
> can identify the
> exact "seeming contradiction" and meditate on it
> directly to attain
> inner peace.
> 
> As always my rantings are without any references (to
> Sruti or other
> literature), my apologies. I hope this won't be a
> waste of time for
> you to shed light upon.
> --
> Aditya Varun Chadha
> adichad AT gmail.com
> http://www.adichad.com
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