[Advaita-l] No one is liberated yet?

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

I see some problems with extreme application of the dream analogy as it is
self-destructive and hope that the learned members, (as I imagine you to be
in my dream :)), will address that.

1. If everything is a dream and hence ultimately false, then the conception
that every thing is a dream is also a dream and hence false. Therefore,
everything is not a dream and hence real.
2. As all this is only a mental construct (dream like), if a real object
can be seen as a pillar, man or demon (rf. Madhusudana Saraswati's
Siddhantabindu verse 78) and in the same way, we can have different
descriptions of the world of dualtiy within the advaita tradition, then the
non-advaitic conclusions such as Dwaita, Vishistadvaita, BhedAbhedA etc.,
will also be valid because they are part of the same dream.
3. As they are part of the dream, if the sastras can repeat human delusions
(rf. rf. Madhusudana Saraswati's Siddhantabindu verse 79), then they will
also lose their validity as a means of knowledge in teaching that all this
is Brahman. You cannot say that one statement of the sastra is true and
reject another as untrue just as you cannot say that the eye is working
fine when you see lotus but not so when you see a tiger next to it.
4. If a tiger chases you, it scares even in a dream. If a lotus blooms, it
pleases. You do not call a tiger a lotus even in a dream unless you are
delusional. If one says that the underlying rules are also part of the
dream, then it should be equally valid argument to say the rules are not
but you are imagining that they are part of the dream. You may say that the
conception that these rules are not part of the dream is also part of the
dream. And I will say that the rule that leads to such a conception is not
part of the dream - thus leading to an infinite regress.