[Advaita-l] Omnisience .........

[H S Chandramouli]

Namaste.

A few excerpts from the Report relevant to current topic under discussion.



Being And Beings: Some Epistemological And Metaphysical Considerations

R. Balasubramanian
Sri Aurobindo School of Eastern and Western Thought, Pondicherry
University, Pondicherry, India

 While cause and effect have the same ontological status (sama-satta) in
the case of parinama, they have different ontological status (visama-satta)
in vivarta. Consider clay and pot which are related as cause and effect.
Here clay is the cause of pot through parinama. Both of them have
empirically reality (vyavaharika-satta); and so they have the same
ontological status. But in the case of the rope-snake example in which rope
is the transfigurative material cause (vivartopadana-karana) of snake, they
have different ontological status; for, while rope has empirical reality,
snake has phenomenal reality (pratibhasika-satta).

Unlike Nyaya-Vaisesika which is pluralistic and Sankhya which is dualistic,
Advaita is non-dualistic because it accepts only one reality, Brahman or
the Self. Though its aim is to inquire into Brahman, it accepts only one
reality, Brahman or the Self. Though its aim is to inquire into Brahman, it
cannot and does not straight away start its inquiry with Brahman. It starts
with the lived experience, the life-world of the jiva, in order to discover
the reality which is immanent it. In other words, Brahman-in-the-world is
the starting point of philosophical inquiry; and Brahman which is mixed up
with the world can be distinguished from the world through inquiry.

 Making a distinction between two kinds of upadana-karana, Advaita holds
that, while Maya is the transformative material cause
(parinamyupadana-karana). Brahman is the transfigurative material cause
(vivartopadana-karana).

Regards


On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 4:14 PM, H S Chandramouli
<hschandramouli at gmail.com>wrote:

> Namaste.
>
> Since my earlier mail was held back by the Moderator due to exceeding the
> permitted length, presumably due to clubbing together of all mails therein,
> I have taken the liberty of resending this as a separate mail.This is in
> reply to Sri Sji's mail.
>
>  Namaste.
>
> Sorry. The earlier mail went thru by mistake in the computer. I have no
> where stated that the Real Karanam ( Brahman ) undergoes vikara. I have
> mentioned that it is through Maya that it appears to undergo vikara in the
> form of creation. This is the start of vivarta. Upanishads do ascribe
> reality to begin with for this vikara and followup with negating reality to
> this creation through the use of karana-karya prakriya. It is during this
> negation that it uses the principle that karya is not different from karana
> as it is dependent on karana. You had mentioned in your first mail that
> rope snake is the ONLY example of depndence of this nature. This is what i
> had disputed. There is certainly a difference between the two types of
> dependence, rope snake and clay pot. Whatever you have quoted from the
> upanishads is only with reference to Brahman and that has no where been
> disputed by me. We are discussing only the methodology adopted by
> upanishads to bring home this truth.
>
> Regards
>