[Advaita-l] How can the reality of brahman be proven?

[Jay Kumar]

Dear Sri  Kalyanji,
Namaste.


“one may say - I dont remember doesn't mean it did not exist. Fair enough. But we are talking about proof..” 

Generally, some of the things are accepted through proofs and some obvious things have to be ONLY cognitively accepted for good.
  
For example, every one of us  cognitively only accept that our great great great grand fathers and great great great grand mothers  (both paternal & maternal) lived. What proof other than my presence can establish and confirm this intellectual and undeniable conclusion ? Similarly, informed persons know that the inert body-mind complex cannot have sentience or more simply living beings cannot have feelings or unprogrammed / judgemental responses  without the ‘influence’ of a sentient thing. Though this fact is revealed only by ‘Srudhi’, the same fact is supported (rather, not disputed) by science, logic and our own experience. Therefore, it is  wise to accept the truth cognitively, own ‘it’ up as oneself and enjoy the mind boggling benefits.
  
The reason that prevents easy understanding of this fact is that  Science, logic, all instruments of knowledge, and  also all our thinking faculties operate in  the plane of lower reality and they cannot  ‘reach ‘, comprehend or  prove the existence of their higher reality ‘the Bhramman’, Consciousness or non-changing awareness. For example, the dreamer does not know that ‘his dream is a dream during his dream’. This means, dreamer cannot prove his own waking state but, we know that dream state  pre-supposes waking state, isn’t it? Thus, even ‘asking proof for the presence of Bhramman’ pre-suppose or is the proof for the presence of Bhramman ‘prathi bhodha vidhitham matham’. 

Finally, everyone  of us know that ‘any changing thing cannot produce a changeless thing. We also accept that ‘we have in us, the ‘changeless awareness’ that has been present throughout our life (prompting every change in our body, mind, intellect etc) and also present in and through  the three states of experiences. Since our ever vibrating ever changing brain cells or neurons cannot produce this changeless awareness, we must agree that we are in that ‘changeless awareness’. Here, ‘we’ means our body-mind complex exists  in the changeless awareness. Thus, this non-changing awareness was, is and will be present before, during and after this body-mind complex born and die and that  ‘non-changing awareness’  is only ‘Bhramman’ and is ever present and all pervading.

Your other question :
‘One needs to show that my sense of self existed whether or not I remember it’

If your question is in the sense of understanding the ‘self’ as your lower self or ego : 
No one remember his or her knowledge, possession, position relationships etc during deep sleep.  Thus ‘I don’t remember the ‘sense of self’ during my deep sleep’. But, if anyone calls me loud enough, I wake up and so the ‘sense of self’ existed during my sleep even if I don’t remember it.  

If your question is in the sense of understanding the ‘Self’ as your higher Self or Atman : the ‘thing’ that sustains one’s memory (in the brain cells) is the Self’ or Atman and so we are able to recall and co-relate many remembered things (‘pratyabhigna’) and also most of our memories (listed above) comes back generally after our every deep sleep. This is despite ‘I don’t remember that I am Atman during deep sleep. 
 
If any more clarification is required, please call me as it is difficult for me to use the screen reader software and type long matters. 
  
With Regards,
S K Jayakumar
9916494729

-----Original Message-----
From: Advaita-l [mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org] On Behalf Of Venkatesh Murthy via Advaita-l
Sent: 07 April 2018 08:04
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Cc: Venkatesh Murthy
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] How can the reality of brahman be proven?

Namaste
On Fri, Apr 6, 2018 at 3:23 PM, Kalyan via Advaita-l < advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> //The answer becomes easy if you change Brahman to Self. Because in 
> Advaita both are one and the same. How can you prove you yourself 
> exist? Do you need a proof? Or not? Do you have doubt you are existing 
> or not? Do you need faith in Sruti to tell you you are existing?//
>
> Namaste
>
> There is a self-evident sense of self in me right now. But there is no 
> proof that this sense of self is permanent. In fact, we see people 
> taking birth and undergoing death everyday. I dont remember having a 
> sense of self before my birth. Nor do I know what will happen after my death.
>
> Now one may say - I dont remember doesn't mean it did not exist. Fair 
> enough. But we are talking about proof. One needs to show that my 
> sense of self existed whether or not I remember it.
>
> If it were so simple, then even nAstikas would have accepted brahman.


Your argument is like Kshanika Vaada Buddhists but it is destroyed by Adi Sankara easily in Ghata Bhashya. When you say there is no permanent sense of self there must be something in the background seeing the changing sense of self. Otherwise how you say it is changing? For any change to be called as change there must be something to observe the change and that something must be unchanging. That unchanging observer is Brahman and your true Self.

That Unchanging Observer will remain throughout your life. But you cannot prove it dies with death of body Or it was dead before birth. The burden is on you to prove it was not existing before birth and after death of body.



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--
Regards

-Venkatesh
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