[Advaita-l] Body is the disease

[Srinath Vedagarbha]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 12:09 PM, Anand Hudli <anandhudli at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> I would like to make two points here. First, advaitins are justified
> in using provisional facts to derive provisional conclusions. I think
> you would have no problem in agreeing to this. The question of the
> locus of avidyA is a provisional one, since there is no avidyA at all
> really, and the answer is also provisional. It is like asking - "In
> the dream last night, was I sick or was it my friend?"  If one says
> the locus is Brahman, it is a provisional answer. If one says the
> locus is jIva, it is again provisional.


By all means you may consider both provisional paxa-s as provisional, I
have no objection. However, when you accept there is no avidya at all in
the end, this perceived bhEdAtmaka jagat remains unexplained by you along
with non-duality of Brahman.



> The second point, which you
> seem to be completely missing, is that provisional facts may, in fact,
> be used to arrive at tattva itself. How? A frequent example cited is
> that of a dream tiger that causes real fear and sweat upon waking up.
> The dream tiger was provisionally real as long as tIhe dream lasted,
> but it did have a real effect - fear and sweat. Another example is
> that of the famous illusory snake. A person may really tremble in fear
> and run away upon seeing the illusory snake. Taking even the shruti
> vAkya "tattvamasi" as provisional, one may wake up to the reality of
> Brahman.
>
>
First, your conclusion "provisional facts can be used to arrive at tattva"
is not correct. In both of your examples, what has happened is a kArya
(sweating, trembling etc), and not any "tattva" such as "tattvamasi" etc. I
hope, you know the difference tattva and a kArya.

Secondly, sweating/trebling etc, are not due to illusory tiger/snake
themselves per se. They are due to your jnyAna about them. Although this
jnyAna is a brAnti (ayathArtha jnyAna), nevertheless it is a real one (ok,
as real as you, to be specific). So, it is not correct to say mithya vastu
has sAdakatvaM for pramEya/tatva siddhi.

>From another perspective too, your position is untenable. The notion of
"mithyA pramAna could have sAdakatvaM" is in itself a pramEya from your
part, which is not (yet) acceptable to opponent. Now, as a proponent of
that pramEya, onus is on you to prove it. Using what kind of pramANa do you
prove it? Do you prove it using sat-pramANa or mithyA-pramANa? advaitahAni
if former, for you end up with dual entities -- Brahamn and this pramANa.
On the other hand, if you say you would use mithyA-pramANa, we are back to
our original question and you need another pramANa to prove the fact that
your first level mithyA-pramANa has a sAdakatvaM. You are on your way to
anavastA.

Regards,
/SV