[Advaita-l] Ishwara Turiya?

[Antharyami]

Hari OM~
Sri Rajaram,

I do not see this as a tussle between Sri Subramaniam vs Devanathan or Sri
Vidyasankar vs Devanathan or with others who have been following up with
this topic.  Nor do I intend to undermine their scholarships. I see this as
a collective endeavour to clarify some crucial / subtle metaphysical
concepts of Advaita Vedanta. And this forum gives us the space to
collectively engage in a constructive dialogue. The purpose is sharing our
understandings stemming from each of our learnings (gifted by great guru-s)
and take home crucial questions back to revisit our own positions. I see no
reason to be baffled over variant readings of the tenets within a
tradition. This is natural process in the activity of  knowledge production
and I appreciate these variations. It only indicates the continuity of a
tradition.

My Prof, who was a smArta and an advaitin himself, use to mention that
scholars like N.S.Devanatha Thathacharya, N.S.Ramanuja Thathacharya, being
ardent VaiSNava-s themselves happened to be one of the finest 'teachers' of
Advaita Vedanta. One should not forget that for a great jignyAsin like
satyakAma-jAbAla, birth or background meant nothing. RAmarAya kavi is yet
another fitting example who was a born vishiSTAdvaitin, which did not deter
him to be a true advaitin later on. I strongly believe in the saying
'Ishvara anugrahAt eva puMsAM advaita vAsanA'. So let me put the converse
of your comment. My advaita is innate in me (anugraha-vashAt) and birth is
just a sharIra vAsanA (prArabdha-vashAt).

Whether or not 'my' position is fed by VaiSNava influence is not the
substance of the investigation here. All that I want to mention is that I
have made my diligent attempts to explain the ontological position of
Ishvara. I have paid best efforts to situate my arguments upon the textual
sources from within the tradition ie., shruti-s, smRti-s, bhASya etc. You
might want to speculate upon the presuppositions of the premise of my
argument and I would appreciate it. I do not intend to convince or
supersede the readings of other scholars in this forum. The process is
dialogical and I truly wish it would be constructive. I am not hurt or
offended by your remark. This is meant just to clarify things and I
understand your point.

Looking forward to gloss over my writing to you sometime.

With Narayana Smrti,
-- 
Devanathan.J