[Advaita-l] Does Brahman Know?

[Ananth Padmanabhan]

vAgarTHAviva samprkthau vAgarTHaprathipaththayE /  jagathaha pitharau vandhE pArvathIparamEshvarau -

 वागर्थाविव सम्पृक्तौ वागर्थप्रतिपत्तयॆ /  जगत: पितरौ वन्दे पार्वतीपरमॆश्वरौ]

As many know, This is the first verse of Kalidasa's epic poem, Raghuvamsham.   

When Kalidasa attained Jnanam from Devi, one of the 3 words Devi mentioned is vAk that he used to start his Raguvamsam (with the other two, he started Megadhootham and KumArasambhavam).
The substantive realities of everything, apart from being known individually as vAk and artha, also are inclusive in the Absolute Brahman, which is intrinsic of everything.
 I may be  'Iddlisubban' to some, Padmanabhan to some others, husband to my wife, son to my mom, father to my children etc depending on the beholder but to an end-state-mumukshu or beholder, this is 'THAT BRAHMAN'. When bahirmuham disappears and only antharmuham is seen, when the light that lits the room alone is seen and not the objects it lights or the senses that see, this is when iddli,flour,the ingredients that became flour all get negated (nethi) one by one until the Ultimate Brahman is realised. This process of elimination and deduction goes on until it stops at the final destination; mumukshus' sadhana has to go thru the stages of being iddlisubban, subban, none and Brahman; some may skip some stages depending on merit, abhyasam and GRACE. Some may keep failing in '101-Sadhana for Mumukshus' and some may need 'Moksha Sadhana for Dummies'. Some smart-cookies may jump from being Iddlisubban straight to being a 'realized nameless! Brahma Subban'.  

There is nothing sacred or not-sacred in the realm of the Underlying reality. Sri Rudram glorifies Brahman in everything and engages us to see that 'Brahman' in all.

with pranaams to all mumukshus


 

> Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2010 09:57:35 +0000
> From: rajaramvenk at gmail.com
> To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Subject: [Advaita-l] Does Brahman Know?
> 
> Sri Vidyasankar, noted your general "answer". Our svarupa is determined
> through sastras which is known through a sampradaya before personal
> realization. Before realization, one can definitely have sraddha (strong or
> weak) but this sraddha is only a mental modification subject to further
> change. Now, according to advaita, we are all flour. But according to
> bhedAbheda, we are all of course flour but also idli, dosai, idli
> kozhakkattai, idli fry etc. By saying that I am only flour but not others,
> one denies one's own nature. To avoid getting the title of "idli subban",
> let me quickly change the example :)
> 
> We see ocean (ishwra) , waves (jiva) and water (brahman). In reality, all
> this is water only but we also know that the names wave and ocean exist
> because there is a substantive reality to it. We cannot name an object (or a
> subject) that does not exist or such a word will have no meaning. Even if
> the object is destroyed, the notion of the object is not destroyed and the
> knowledge of the object remains. For example, we go to the beach on low tide
> and say there are no waves today because wave is a reality from our point of
> view though it does not exist as an object of observation. For the ocean,
> the reality of water that makes it and waves that issue forth and merge back
> is never sublated. In other words, the reality of ocean, waves and water
> cannot be sublated as long as omniscient ishwara exists. As ishwara is
> immutable, the platonic ideal of ocean, waves and water will not cease to
> be. Of course, you can get around this by saying that omniscience of Ishwara
> is mayika and is sublated on mukti along with Ishwara like the the stick
> used for burning the corpse. Hence my original question. Does Brahman Know?
> - not in the sense of subject-object duality but without that. Let me
> rephrase that. You said Brahman IS Bliss. Is Brahman Existence? Is Brahman
> Jnanam? For Ishwara, jnana shakti is an attribute but for Brahman jnanam is
> not a shakti but Brahman is jnanam.
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