[Advaita-l] Body is the disease

[Nithin Sridhar]

Vidyashankara ji

I loved the summary. Thank you :)

-Nithin


On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 3:41 AM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <
svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > Dear
> > Jiva is not able to realise that it is Brahman only is easy to
> understand.But Brahman with Avidhya is Jiva is somewhat difficult to accept
> .Perhaps this is Avidhya.R.Krishnamoorthy.
> >
>
> Perhaps the following will help.
>
> Q. Who is the jIva?
> A. brahman, whether it knows itself as such or not.
>
> Q. When does jIva know itself as brahman?
> A. When the vedAnta vijnAna arises and is established.
>
> Q. Before that, why does jIva not know it is brahman?
> A. That is avidyA.
>
> Q. Whose is that avidyA?
> A. Obviously, the jIva's, right?
>
> Q. But Sruti indicates the jIva is always brahman. So how can it have
> avidyA?
> A. Yes, where  jIva knows itself as brahman, there is no avidyA. Where
> jIva does not know itself as brahman, that state has/is avidyA.
>      Even in the state of avidyA, jIva remains brahman, it doesn't become
> another. If it did become another, advaita-brahmajnAna is impossible.
>
> Therefore, jIva-tva is only possible where there is avidyA and avidyA is
> the jIva's. This is the prima facie view.
>
> When the ultimate teaching is understood that jIva IS brahman, then asking
> about avidyA is the same as asking how the jIva got its jIva-tva. For that
> problem, it is said avidyA has brahman as its locus, because the jIva is
> brahman, or put another way, brahman became jIva, as it were. How can
> brahman "become" jIva, if we do not admit that basis of avidyA? How can
> jIva realize itself as brahman, if we do not admit the possibility of
> vidyA, conveyed through Sruti and gurUpadeSa? That is why it is said that
> all vyavahAra, including that of bandha-moksha, presumes avidyA. Where does
> all this avidyA-kRta vyavahAra take place? In brahman only, nowhere else,
> because there is nothing else than brahman (sarvaM khalv idaM brahma).
>
> One can supposedly "save" brahman from avidyA (in the above way of
> reasoning) by using the word mAyA instead, and it might make some of us
> feel good that we are thereby not tainting brahman with ignorance. In which
> case, all we have achieved is (a) to start from a state of avidyA, (b) to
> learn about *advitIya* brahman from SAstra/guru, (c) to introduce a
> *dvitIya* principle, namely mAyA, and (d) pretend that mAyA is a Sakti, a
> power, quite different from avidyA, which is only a liability. And all this
> compromising of true *advaita* is only because we seemingly can't let go of
> that basic avidyA that causes the apparent separation between jIva and
> brahma in the first place!
>
> Isn't it simpler to admit the following? Yes, there appears to be avidyA
> here in this state (yatra dvaitam iva bhavati), but there is only brahman
> in that state (yatra tv asya sarvam AtmaivAbhUt). *This* state may be the
> starting point in the journey towards moksha, but *that* state is the
> ground of being on which all this appearence is superimposed.
>
> The issue still remains, superimposed by whom? If we say jIva, the answer
> is "by me alone". Who am I? I am the jIva. But really, who am I, really? I
> am brahman!
>
> So, it follows that brahman alone appears to superimpose everything on
> itself (avidyA); brahman alone apparently gets rid of all the
> superimposition on itself (vidyA); in short, brahman alone is. Making that
> leap is what moksha and vedAnta vicAra is all about.
>
> Best regards,
> Vidyasankar
>
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