[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Deep Sleep is Nondual Self with objections refuted, SSSS

[Jaishankar Narayanan]

Namaste,

Many of the propositions in the SSSS prakriya fail the test of common sense.

First is abhAva as a bija / kArana. BhashyakAra does not accept any
vishesha-abhAva at all and considers them to be bhAvarupa. But they propose
a jnAna-abhAva which is the bijA even in sushupti. Bhaskar  ji even claims
that abhAva can be a cause and produce an effect, but bhAshyakAra has
clearly written in both Taittiriya and BG Bhashya that 'akarane
pratyavAyah' is not tenable as abhAva cannot cause anything. The analogy he
gave was that the parent's absence causes children to do mischief. Absence
cannot cause anything. It is the nature of children to do mischief and your
presence constrains them. In the shastra it is said that the presence of
Mani, Mantra, Aushada etc causes the fire to not burn. Applying Bhaskar
ji's logic we have to say that the absence of Mani, Mantra, Aushada etc has
caused the fire to burn!

Second is the refusal to differentiate between the drshtAnta (analogy) and
dArshtAntika (that which is revealed through an analogy), particularly with
reference to sleep and turiya. I think they have to do that as according to
them jnAna-abhAva is there in sleep and so there cannot be any difference
between sushupti and turiya on the basis of an abhAva. Whenever we point to
clear bhAshya statements or GaudapAda kArikA they give umpteen quotations
to show sushupti and turiya are the same. Obviously there will be
similarities between a drshtAnta and dArshtAntika and we have no dispute
with all these quotations. But based on these similarities to claim that
the drshtAnta and dArshtAntika are the same is really not common sense. My
Guru Swami Dayananda ji used to say to teach Vedanta avastha-traya prakriya
is not necessary as most upanishads and BG do not use this prakriya. In
fact one vAkya from kenopanishad (2.4) and one verse from BG (2.16) is good
enough to teach satyam-mithya and the vision of Vedanta.

Thirdly they accept mAyA as anirvachineeya but it is an effect of
jnAna-abhAva. Further they have an allergy for any mithyA-vastu which is
considered as bhAvarupa. Even after being explained that bhAvarupa is to be
understood like smritirupa i.e. 'as though existent', they say how can some
mithyA vastu which is solid/concrete be negated by jnAna. In fact the
negation depends on the type of jnAna and the pramANa which reveals it. I
would say even quantum physics negates our understanding of solid, liquid,
gas etc as everything is 99% space at quantum level and also all matter is
only energy, which aligns with mAyA-shakti (avidyA-shakti) being the
upAdAna even according to our shAstra. If bhAvarUpa mithyA mAyA/avidyA can
be the upAdAna for all elementals starting from space onwards and if it is
negated as mithyA by Upanishad vAkya-janita jnAnam, how can it be
questioned by anybody?

Fourth is what is this jnAna-abhAva, which is the cause of samsAra? It
cannot be svarUpa-jnAna-abhAva as it is nitya and svayamprakAsha. So the
jnAna-abhAva is vritti-jnAna-abhAva which will be there even after the
so-called jnAnam takes place as vritti is only momentary. So jnAna-abhAva
will continue and so moksha is not possible (anirmoksha-prasanga).

There are many more such illogical claims but when unable to counter the
defective reasoning the only recourse for them is to shift to pAramArthika
and say this is all adhyAropa / mAyA anyway.

with love and prayers,
Jaishankar


On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 9:59 AM Raghav Kumar Dwivedula <
raghavkumar00 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> I am sorry Michael ji, but no amount of “Hackery” can change the fact that
> if suShupti was shuddha brahman, it should by all standards of common sense
> be called tritiya not turIya . It definitely raises the “hackles” of those
> who are arguing in good faith. That is why Jaishankarji was constrained to
> point out that this mAyA saMkhyA justification for use of 4 instead of 3 is
> tantamount to sophistry.
>
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