[Advaita-l] Who is Ishwara? He is NARAYANA only. Beautiful and soothing Narayana Bhajan

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Namaste Srinathji,

On Wed, May 24, 2017 at 8:14 PM, Srinath Vedagarbha <svedagarbha at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> May be I can help put a clarity on Sri.Kalyan's question.
>
I think Kalyanji's question was clear enough, there was no clarity sought.


> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 10:58 AM, Kalyan via Advaita-l <
>> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>>
>> ​If the Atman is nirguNa nirvishesha, how can he have the attribute of
>> ignorance?​
>
>
> That exactly is the question of Sri.Kalyan to AV.
>
​No it is not.​

​His statement was "Isn't the nirguNa nirvishesha Atman itself the biggest
and only ignoramus in advaita". Will he or you be satisfied with no as an
answer? You will quote that but it is, since there is nothing other than
Atman, to which I will say yes too. Ergo, my follow on question of mithyA.


> If nirguNa-nirviShESha brahman is always is, how could AV brings
> mAya/avidya to explain this dvandva prapancha?
>
Rather, that is why AV brings in the same. If you went to sleep alone, how
are you dreaming ​the entire dvandva prapancha in svapnAvasthA? What does
it rest on? Did you divide and become many? Did you undergo change? The
dreamer is ignorant about being the waker along with the waking world.
Therefore, he takes the dreamer along with the dream world as real. Ditto.


> Since ignorance cannot float freely without any aShraya, and given that
> only NB is only the tatva according to AV, then his question is how NB
> possibly could have ignorance?
>
NB is the Ashraya, which is unopposed to knowledge and ignorance alike,
just as the desert land is the Ashraya for mirage-water without being
affected.

If it cannot then why invoke ignorance argument to explain away duality?
>
I didn't say that ​ignorance is ​a guNa of NB; why ignorance, sat, chit and
Ananda are also not guNas of NB.


> So I suggest you explain what you understand by the word mithyA in contrast
>> to sat and asat, if you're really interested to get an answer to the
>> question you posed.
>>
>
> If you permit me, let me explain mithya w.r.t to Sat and Asat.
>
​Wonderful, please do. However, unless Kalyanji himself agrees with your
explanation, I can't assume that his understanding is same as yours.​

NyAmrita deals with not single, but by five definitions of 'mithya' as
> propounded across various texts in Advaita.
>
​More the merrier.​ Then, one can easily switch between each of these
definitions as used at each AV statement.

Ignoring all those technical definitions aside, let me say -- mithya is not
> at all an  ontological category such as sat & asat, but rather an
> epistemological error confusing one for the other.
>
​I don't know this definition as being an AV definition at all, viz. sat
being confused as [atyanta] asat and vice-versa! Please elaborate as to
where this definition is seen in AV.

gurupAdukAbhyAm,
--praveen