[Advaita-l] Does Brahman's svaprakAshatvam make it mithyA?

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Srinivas Murthy prabhuji
Hare Krishna

 ahamEvEdagM  sarvam || Chandogya 7-25-1  AtmaivEdagM  sarvam || Chandogya 7-25-2  AtmatO idagM sarvam || Chandogya 7-26-1prapaMcOpaSamaM SAntaM Sivam advaitam
caturtham manyantE sa AtmA vijnEyaH || mAMDUkya ; mantra 7AtmA hi nAma svarUpam || Sri Shankara ; Brahmasutra 1-1-6 In the light of the above mantras it is an established fact than Atman / one's true svarUpa alone is paramArtha. I do not know the reasons  why so much of discussions and dissections about anAtma are taking place . I am interested  to know the reasons for it. 

>  the reason for this intellectual gymnastics is very simple . That we are yet to realize our own svarUpa :-) And to realize our svarUpa we have to start with sAdhana, the sAdhana chatushtaya and one of those sAdhana-s is nityAnitya vastu viveka.  What is nitya is svarUpAnanda and what is anitya is vishaya sukha.  To realize the svarUpa of this 'vishaya' (the anAtma) forms the main theme of this discussion.  As you have observed above, shruti at some place says : sOkAmayata, idam sarvamasrujata, satyanchAnrutancha satyamabhavat, yadidam kiMcha and in some other place the material of this universe is 'mAya' (mAyAntu prakrutiM vidyAt etc.) yet another place it says sarvaM khalvidaM brahma, AtmaivedagaM sarvaM, the whole universe is nothing but brahman(brahmaivedaM vishvamidaM varishtAt) And finally to complicate the issue further shruti emphatically denies the whole manifestation of brahman as with form and formless by saying athAta AdeshO 'neti neti'.  To reconcile all these seeming contradictory statements we have to do the brahma jignAsa in line with shruti, yukti and anubhava.  When we do the  jignAsa and realize that there is only one Chaitanya without second the categorization of Atma and anAtma does not arise.  There is no anAtma when AtmaivedaM sarvaM, prapancha what we are seeing independently from this brahman gets subsided (upashamanaM / upashantaM) and we realize the left, right, top, bottom, front, behind everything is nothing but brahman and there exists nothing but brahman.  In this state there is no 'anAtma vastu' aloof from Atma.  shvetAshvatara beautifully explains this in the mantra 1-12 : This, which is eternally in one's own self has got to be known, for there is nothing else to be known beyond this.  The experiencer, the object of experience and the inspirer must be contemplated and known.  All this the threefold distinction mentioned here, is REALLY brahman'.  And elsewhere shankara quite explicitly says there is nothing that can be called 'anAtma' what was / is / will ever be existed is one and only brahman.  

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar