[Advaita-l] Advaita-1)Body is the disease

[Sujal Upadhyay]

Namaste,

please read another way to understand Adi Shankara, as said by Sri Ramana
Maharshi<http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/advaitin/conversations/topics/31951>

*Sri Ramana Maharshi - Talk 315*

One of the attendants asked: Sri Bhagavan has said:'Reality and myth are
both the same'. How it is so?

Maharshi: The tantrikas and others of the kind condemn Sri Shankara's
philosophy as maya vada without understanding him aright.
What does he say? He says.

1. Brahman is real.
2. The universe is a myth.
3. Brahman is the universe.

He does not stop at the second statement but continues to supplement it
with the third. What does it signify? The universe is conceived
to be apart from Brahman and that perception is wrong. The antagonists
point to his illustration of rajju sarpa (rope snake). This is
unconditioned superimposition. After the truth of the rope is known, the
illussion of snake is removed once for all.

But they should take the unconditioned superimposition also
into consideration, e.g. marumarichika or mrigatrishna(Water of mirage).

The mirage does not disappear even after knowing to be a mirage. The vision
is there but the man does not run to it for water. Sri
Shankara must be understood in the light of both the illustrations. The
world is a myth. Even after knowing it, it continues to appear.
It must be known to be Brahman and not apart.

If the world appears, yet to whom does it appear, he asks. What is your
reply? You must say the self. If not, will the world appear in
the absence of the congnising self? Therefore the self is the reality. That
is his conclusion. The phenomena are real as the self
and are myths apart from the self.

Now, what do the tantriks etc. say? They say that the phenomena are real
because they are part of the reality in which they appear.

Are not these two statements the same? That is what i meant by reality and
falsehood being one and the same.

The antagonists continue: With the conditioned as well as the unconditioned
illusions considered, the phenomenon of wate in mirage
is purely illusory because that water cannot be used for any purpose.
Whereas the phenomenon of the world is different, for it is
purposeful. How then does the latter stand on a par with the former?

A phenomenon cannot be a reality simply because it serves a purpose or
purposes. Take a dream for example. The dream creations are
purposesful: They serve the dream-purpose. The dream water quenches dream
thirst. The dream creation is however contradicted in the
other two states. What is not continuous cannot be real. If real, the thing
must ever be real and not real for a short time and unreal at other times.

So it is with magical creations. They appear real and are yet illusory.

Similarly the universe cannot be real of itself-that is to say, apart from
the underlying reality.............

This conversation proves the saying 'Only a jnani can understand another
jnani.'

Hari OM