[Advaita-l] No one is liberated yet?

[Raghav Kumar]

On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 5:44 PM, Anand Hudli <anandhudli at hotmail.com> wrote:
>  Madhusudana has referred to eka-jIva vAda as "mukhyo vedAntasiddhAnta
> ekajIvavAdAkhyaH" in the siddhAnta bindu. It is not clear whether it is his
> opinion that it is "mukhya", the chief doctrine of vedAnta, or he is
> quoting or paraphrasing another work. In any case, the commentator
> BrahmAnanda appeals to the principle of "lAghavatva" or economy while
> explaining the concepts of jIva, Ishvara, and jagat. Looked at from this
> angle of economy, it is possible to rule out the multiplicity of jIvas,
> admitting only one jIva.

> This leads to the theory that there is exactly one
> jIva in the whole universe and it is this jIva that aims for liberation.
> All other beings, including the Guru, and the shAstra are only imagined by
> this jIva. When this jIva gets AtmasAkShAtkAra through the instructions of
> the Guru and the study of shAstra, it gets liberated.
>
> Anand
>
My doubt is :

1. Is the dream analogy applicable to understand ekajIvavAda ?
Apparently not. Since the dreamer with his dream body and dream mind
is not the projector of the dream, rather it is the waker with his
samskara-s who can be said to the eka-jIva of the dream, not the
dreamer.

One AcArya who had studied prakASAnanda-sarasvatI once said that the
eka-jIva referred to in eka-jIva-vAda is not the simple jIva who
identifies with one body-mind the person who goes to work in the
morning and comes home in the evening - rather he is one who has
accomplished proficiency in ahamgrahopAsaA to identify with
hiraNyagarbha, the Cosmic Being (or an equivalent upAsAnA whereby he
is just as comfortable identifying with the Cosmic body-mind as he is
in identifying with the individual body-mind). Only from such an
adhikArI's standpoint eka-jIva-vAda or even DSV makes sense. This may
well be just his opinion. But it seems to make sense.

2.1.  I can imagine an apple or a chair etc., only if I already
possess knowledge of the object I am imagining. If shAstra is being
'imagined' by the me, I already have the knowledge of shAstra, which
renders the whole pramANa-vyApAra infructuous even before it is
operated ; rather than it (prAmANa-prameya-pramAtA) being sublated
after it is operated. How can we say a priori that the Guru and
shAstra is being "imagined" by the jIva ? One way to answer this
question could be to posit eka-jIva-vAda as a single step jump to
GYAna - the moment we talk of a series of steps in the teaching, then,
questions asked of SDV seem to inevitably crop up.


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