[Advaita-l] jiva and creation

[Venkatesh Murthy via Advaita-l]

Namaste Sri Chandramouli Mahodaya

I have already said earlier Jeeva can imagine far more intelligent Ishwara
than himself with his Avidyaa. He can imagine Ishwara as Sarvajna, Sarva
Shaktimaan and having many excellent qualities. That Ishwara will create
the Universe. But here Jeeva is Indirect Creator because he can imagine a
Creator far more intelligent than himself. Kindly see the argument I have
made in this link:

http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2014-April/036893.html


On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 7:40 PM, H S Chandramouli via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste. Sometime back we had a long drawn out discussion on creation and
> jiva. Just for reference I am copying below what Sri Venkateshmurthyji
> wrote in one of his postings
>
>
> << I am happy you have agreed Avidyaa is in Jeeva but not Brahma.
> The next step is Jeeva endowed with Avidyaa has created all the Universe
> out of his Avidyaa Kalpita Maayaa only. >>
>
>
> This is only by way of drawing reference to the issue. As per my
> understanding Sri Venkateshmurthyji had in a number of his postings in that
> thread relied on the factor of jiva being the ashraya for avidya to
> conclude that thereby he is the also creator of the universe . Very
> recently I came across an alternative explanation to this position which I
> have copied below. This explanation is from the introduction in his
> translation on  “ The Bhamati of Vachaspati “ ( Chatussutri ) by Sri
> Suryanarayana Shastri who is considered to be an expert on advaita vedanta.
> While discussing the alternative of jiva being the ashraya for avidya he
> makes the following observation.
>
>
> Quote <<  Each jiva would appear to be the creator of his world, through
> and out of the nescience abiding in him ; the world is sustained by his
> nescience , and is destroyed with its destruction. The true creator,
> sustainer and destroyer would thus appear to be the jiva himself.>>
>
>
>  << The truth of the matter seems to be this. Ignorance is bipolar. It is
> located  somewhere ,  ie , it belongs to someone; and it has a content.
> Though the jiva is the locus , the content is Iswara. When ordinarily we
> use the possessive pronoun ‘mine’ or ‘his’ we imply in the person capacity
> to control what is referred to. Not so in the case of ignorance ; I mean by
> “ my ignorance “ the ignorance that is in me , not the ignorance that I can
> control. The control of avidya belongs not to me with my limited powers of
> knowing and acting , but to the omniscient and omnipotent Being. Iswara too
> may be said to be the ashraya of ignorance , if by ashraya is meant the
> content , but not its locus ( adhara ) . When , therefore , it is said that
> my ignorance creates universe, it does not follow that I create the
> universe ; rather does it mean that Iswara , the content of my ignorance ,
> uses the ignorance that is in me and out of that as material cause ,
> evolves the world ; the ignorance in me , the maya , the prakruti is the
> primal material cause ; he who yields it for fashioning the world , the
> mayin , the arch-juggler , is Iswara. >> Unquote.
>
>
> I am not sure if Sri Venkateshmurthyji had come across this explanation
> earlier. I had not come across such an explanation earlier in any of the
> texts . While it is not my intention to start all over again a discussion
> on this subject, I thought it may be of interest to Sri VMji as well as
> other members who had contributed to that post.
>
> Regards
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-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh