[Advaita-l] Re: Ishvara in advaita vEdAnta

[jagannathan mahadevan]

On 11/23/06, Amuthan <aparyap at gmail.com> wrote:
> namo nArAyaNAya!

> On 11/23/06, Annapureddy Siddhartha Reddy <annapureddy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > -- If, on the other hand, Ishvara Himself attains the supreme nirguNa brahma
> > at the
> > time of praLaya (as suggested by BSB IV.iii.10 according to svAmi
> > Gambhiranandaji's translation. The word used here is hiraNyagarbha. In other
> > words, I am considering
> > the definition of Ishvara to be hiraNyagarbha in this bullet point), then
> > there arises the
> > possibility of multiple Ishvaras during the multiple cycles of the world.
> > This contradicts
> > the vEda which says that there is only one Ishvara.
>
> suppose that a man A has two children B and C. is the father of B
> different from the father of C? similarly Ishvara is the same though
> two different sRShTi-s may be different.
>
> vAsudevaH sarvaM,
> aparyAptAmRtaH.

If Ishvara is defined as either jagadkAraNA or dRShyakAraNa ( I am
understanding them both to be the same, as jagad is simply the world
we see/perceive) then the aspect of Ishvara does not perish with the
multiple cycles.

vivekachuDAmaNi verse no.243 translation by Swami Chinmayananda (I saw
that this same verse appears as verse no. 245 in the sanskrit
translation by Sri chandrasEkara bhArathi mahAsvAminaH):

"The difference between them (Ishvara and jeeva) is only created by
superimposition and is not real. The conditioning in the case of
Ishwara is Maya, or mahat etc. And listen, the conditionings in the
case of the jeeva are the five sheaths."

>From the second part of the verse, we can infer that the Ishvara is a
modification of Atman by mAyA.