[Advaita-l] Question about Avaccheda vada

[Aditya Kumar]

 But do not forget such potency is
 not real per se as narrated within AV, but said to be a
 kalpana/apavAda by shaastras

A: I don't think it means the potency of Ishwara is bogus as you seem to suggest. Rather Ishwara is omnipresent etc because of his very nature such as swayamprakasha, abhadhita, bhuma etc. Ishwara need not lift a finger, so to speak, in order to wield his power because then it would mean kartritva. 



 Since potency of Ishwara is said to
 be kaalpanika only, there is no question of so called
 "release" in real sense at all. 
 If you want to persist reality
 to release,
 you have to persist reality to potency of Ishwara as well.
 On the other hand, if you want to deny reality to potency of
 Ishwara, you have to deny reality to release of a jIva with
 a equal voice. You cannot have one thing in one way and
 other in another way.

A: Potency of Ishwara is not kalpanika at all in my understanding. It is inherent in ishwara by his very nature, which makes him without any obligations. Even a king of the world who wishes to wield his power need to exert a force but ishwara does not have such obligations like a samsarin. Hence Ishwara does not consciously bind each and every jiva. Jiva is bound by its own delusion.


 So, only two options;
 1. Either say Ishwara (and His
 potency) and Jiva's release both are
 kaalpanika/apavAda2. Or say both are
 real.
 In the former
 case, your conclusion "jiva-ishwara
 only brahman" needs to be corrected as "jiva-ishwara 
 are imaginary concepts and hence nothing to do with
 brahman" 
 In
 the later case, one has to do tarpanaNa for jIva-brhman
 aikya-vAda
 /sv
 
A: I will reiterate that Ishwaras shakti is not kalpanika. I tend to believe that Nirvishesha Brahman itself is termed Ishwara when qualified with omnipresence etc. This qualification becomes nought after jiva merges with brahman, as there is no more duality in brahman. Not because ishwara stops being omnipresent but because there is no more room for any duality and only brahman remains. Its a smooth transition from vyavahara to paramarthika.