[Advaita-l] avagati

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011, SIVAKUMAR RAMAKRISHNAN wrote:

> SAdara praNAmam,
> When you go through the sayings of all the well known realized
> MahAthmAs, especially Tamil saints, it can be seen that they
> are equivocal that "a scholar will not get moksha.".A scholar just means
> that one who has just the mastery over the scriptures,ie.mere 'bookish'
> knowledge.

If the scholar has such problems, the ignoramus will have 10 times as 
much.  Not having "bookish" knowledge is no answer.  But having bookish 
knowledge then renouncing it after understanding its limitations -- this 
is what the jnanis are getting at.

> In fact IsAvAsyOpanishath proclaims that those who knows enter
> deeper thamas!

It most certainly does not!

andhaM tamaH pravishanti ye.avidyamupAsate |
tato bhUya iva te tamo ya u vidyAyAM ratAH ||9||

"Into darkness enter those who do upasana of avidya.  Into greater 
darkness those who do upasana of vidya."

I have left several words untranslated because converting them into 
imperfect English equivalents is the cause for much of the confusion on 
this topic.

Shruti is not complaining about bookish or any other kind of knowledge 
here.  Upasana is something else like practice or worship.

Rather there are those who faithfully follow the injunctions and 
prohibitions of the karmakanda.  Though they are noble souls they 
mistakenly believe in the finite material rewards upto and including 
heaven.  So this is ignorance or avidya.  But there are others (this sort 
is very fashionable these days) who think they can shirk their dharmic 
duties because they are doing "meditation" which results in samadhi or 
some such which is other than jnana.  Atleast the first sort can by 
renouncing reward and dedicating his karma to Ishwara gain vairagya and 
eventually jnana.  The second sort is at a dead end.  They think they 
"know" hence they call it vidya but they are fooling themselves.

> BhagavadpAda also says that "sabdajAlam mahAranyam chitta vibhrama
> kAranam"in VivekachoodAmani.

Same thing here.  ShabdajAla is vitaNDa, fruitless pedantic arguing. 
Deliberating on Vedanta can hardly be objected to by the acharya who wrote 
voluminous commentaries on prasthAna trayI can it?

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>