[Advaita-l] Why only jagat is mithya and jeeva is brahman !!??

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Sri Bhaskar ji,
Would be interested in hearing other members' thoughts.

The knowledge that Brahman is the only satyam has been given in many places
in the Veda (सत्यं ज्ञानं अनन्तं, सर्वं खल्विदं ब्रह्म, सदेव सोम्य
इदमग्रासीत् एकमेवाद्वितीयं), and the natural follow-up question to this
statement is - If Brahman is the only reality, how to explain this
multiplicity that is manifest in front of me?

Shruti explicitly denies this and says that whatever multiplicity is there
is not real (मृत्यो: स मृत्युमाप्नोति य इह नानेव पश्यति, एकधैवनुद्रश्टव्यं,
नेह नानास्ति किंचन). So if Brahman is the only truth, and there is no
multiplicity, it follows that whatever is seen is only mithyA nAma rUpa
(वाचारम्भणं विकारो नामधेयं).

This was just background to establish that both ब्रह्म सत्यत्वं and
जगन्मिथ्यात्वं are very much derived from shruti - it is not something
advaita or ShankarAchArya has invented.

So coming to your question why is the focus on jIva's identity with Brahman
in the teaching जीनो ब्रह्मैव नापरः, and not on jagat's identity with
Brahman. First of all, I agree that both statements are true, because
Brahman is the only ultimate reality.

Having said that, I believe that the teaching explicitly focuses on जीवो
ब्रह्मैव नापरः, because ultimately vedAnta is moksha shAstram - the
teaching is focused on what will "give" moksha to the jIva, not what will
give jagat mokshA!

The jIva's sense that he is a finite samsAri is the nature of bandha, and
the cause of his bandha is the non realisation of who he truly is.
Therefore, the teaching methodology is oriented towards clearing his
misconception that his not a limited samsAri, but the unlimited Brahman.
Therefore the focus is on ऐक्य  of jIva and Brahman, and less so on ऐक्य of
jagat and Brahman.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan
On 14 Mar 2016 12:28 p.m., "Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> praNAms
> Hare Krishna
>
> The jagat in advaita vedAnta is mithya why??
>
> brahma satya jaganmithya jeevo brahmaiva na paraH famouns saying goes in
> advaita though same order of statement cannot be found anywhere in
> prasthAna traya bhAshya of shankara.  I always wonder when the jeeva has
> been identified as brahman why jagat is barred from this status that too
> when advaita readily accepts that for the jagat,  brahman is the both
> upAdAna and nimitta kAraNa??  Well argument may go like this :  since jeeva
> is chaitanya it is acceptable that jeeva in its svarUpa brahman only
> nothing else because brahman is the akhanda chaitanya whereas jagat is jada
> (inert) anAtma hence jagat is not brahman it is mithya only.  Is this mean
> that there exists a thing that can be called as 'anAtma' in  'jada'
> svarUpa?? How can this jada jagat can exist aloof from brahman to bifurcate
> brahman is Chaitanya and jagat is jada and this jada is not brahman but
> only mithyA??   And contrarily,  we elevate upAdhirahita jeeva as brahman
> since upadhi rahita jeeva is in his svarUpa brahman only ?? whereas we are
> not ready to accept jagat in its svarUpa brahman only  when we see the same
> jagat beyond its nAma rUpa, still we argue that jagat is mithya only.  We
> are not ready to accept that once the extra attributes removed from jeeva
> and jagat   what remains is brahman only is it not??   So the equation is
> (a) upAdhi + brahman = jeeva,
> (b) nAma / rUpa + brahman = jagat
> (c) jeeva - upAdhi = brahman and
> (d) jagat - nAma/rUpa = brahman too since what remains after removing
> adhyArOpita is brahman only nothing else.  Under these circumstances how
> can we elevate one aspect as brahman and another one  as mithyA??  Any
> constructive thoughts on this would be most welcome.
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
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