[Advaita-l] Re: liilaa and brahma

[Ravisankar Mayavaram]

Sylvain elisabeth-sylvain at sympatico.ca  wrote

    Do you mean that liilaa or leela or the divine play is incompatible with
    brahman ?
    If yes, i don't personally see any incompatibility.

    Therefore, would you tell me in which kind of advaita does my
conception fit
    ?

namaste Sylvain

This is what I think, and I may be wrong. In brief, it is not
necessary to understand how it happened.

1. shruti affirms that the absolute reality (pAramArthika) is non-dual
brahman. And Atman is brahman.

2. In vyAvahArika (relative reality), we know from experience that we
see multiplicity. And also we identify Atman with anAtman, as we have
no direct knowledge (aparoxa jnAna) of shruti affirmation.  Hence, a
jiva is limited by avidyA (which is taking ephemeral as eternal and
anAtman as Atman). And this jagat is governed by Ishvara, wielder of
mAyA. Latter is an article of faith.

3. Neither it is necessary to know how #2 came about from #1 nor it is
useful.  This is my understanding. If at all, with our limited
capability, anything we say is going to have some issue or other.

4. From #2, to attain liberation, the path laid out is clear. It may
be long and difficult, but at least it is clear and possible. I also
believe that  Ishwara pranidhAna is most important element to succeed
in this step.

5. It is better to focus on #4. There is nothing wrong in accepting
that I do not know how #2 came about from #1. Because it has no
bearing on #4.

BTW I am not a vishiShTAdvaitin. My knee jerk reaction to question of
locus of avidyA  in the first post was based on my ignorance and lack
of humility.   I will work on correcting it.

My 2c.

Ravi