[Advaita-l] Sankara on "After GYAna" (was Re: BrahmaGYAna and jIvanmukti - 1...)

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Good post. In any case, even a niyama vidhi implies avoidance of an
action, and that implies an assumption of a doer who *opts* not act.
Niyama vidhi is not compatible with the teory that there is only
brahman "after" brahma-j~naana. You cannot impose a niyama-vidhi on
the perfect aatman can you, it is already naishkarmya! Any which way
you lose.

Rama

On 11/16/06, S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com wrote:
>
> [..]
>
> > KJ prabhuji:
> >
> > I had already quoted Sankara's Brihadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya a
> > couple of times before. Here it is again:
> >
> > bhaskar :
> >
> > prabhuji I am requesting you to parallelly quote shankara bhAshya
> > also
> > while exploring the JMV...it is not on one instance live above...at
> > every
> > stage of your presentation of JMV if possible quote shankara
> > bhAshya also
> > from prasthAna traya...as said above, that would help us a lot to
> > understand shankara's stand on these issues...Hope you would take
> > care of
> > this.
> >
> > As far as 1.4.7 of BU is concerned, we have had enough discussions
> > on this
> > issue earlier in this same list...
>
> This will be my last posting on this topic.
>
> I shall explain myself very clearly, and then leave it at that. This
> is the FOURTH time (at least) that I'm posting this quote, so I will
> make my question quite clear:
>
> ---
> yady apy evaM SarIrAbdhakasya karmaNo niyata-phalatvAt
> samyag-jnAna-prAptAv apy avaSyaM-bhAvinI-pravRttir
> vA.n-manaH-kAyAnAm. labdha-vRtter karmaNo balIyastvAt, mukteShvAdi
> pravRttivat. tena pakShe prAptaM jnAna-pravRtti-daurbalyaM. tasmAd
> tyAga-vairAgyAdi-sAdhana-balAvalambena Atma-vijnAna-smRti-saMtatir
> niyantavyA bhavati ...
>
> The gist of the above quotation is, "even after the rise of right
> knowledge (samyag-jnAna), due to the strong effect of prior karmA
> (balIyastva), whose momentum is like that of a released arrow (mukta
> iShu), and the relatively weakness of the newly acquired tendency
> towards jnAna, it is necessary (niyantavyA) to maintain a steady
> recollection of Self-knowledge (Atma-vijnAna-smRti-saMtati), assisted
> by sAdhana-s like renunciation (tyAga), dispassion (vairAgya) and the
> like.
> ---
>
>
> My question is:
>
> "Why does Sankara talk about the effect of Karma AFTER THE RISE OF
> SAMYAGGYANA - where the effect of Karma should not exist at all?"
>
> (Note: I'm NOT INTERESTED in the topic of niyama vidhi here.)
>
> In other words, since you claim to follow the great "shuddha Sankara
> mArga", I AM CHALLENGING YOU to answer the question of why Sankara
> speaks of ANYTHING after GYAna, when NOTHING BUT BRAHMAN remains.
>
> (Note that for Sankara, Samyak-GYAna refers only to perfect
> BrahmaGYAna and nothing else.)
>