Seer - Act of Seeing - Seen

[MSR]

On Tue, 18 Jun 1996, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

> Sankar Jayanarayanan <kartik at ENG.AUBURN.EDU> wrote:
>
> Why be sorry, It may help us to understand advaita better?
>
> >MMK (13.3) "Because of the perception of change, the absence of self-nature
> >of existents is [recognized]. Because of the emptiness (shUnyataa) of
> >existents, there is no existent without self-nature".
> >
> >> can say is that the seen object has no reality apart from you, i.e., there
 is
> >> no way of distinguishing objects seen "outside" and "inside" (waking and
> >> dream). This is the only way we can say "jagat mithya", i.e., ascribing a
> >> special reality to the world, apart from you, is "mithya". A seer is
>  certainly
> >> meaningful, since there must be someone to deny the "seen", otherwise you
 get
> >
> >If the "seen" is non-existent, how then can there be a "seer" for the word
> >"seer" to have meaning?
>
> I don't know what you mean by non-existent, I take it you mean it to be an
> "illusion" or maya.
>
> The reality of the seer need not be denied even if the seen is an "illusion".
> Examples from vyaavahaarika satya:

        But what will be the case if the act of seeing itself is an
illusion?  Will that negate both seer and the seen?

        Ramakrishnan's examples ( mirage etc) indicated clearly that
we have to negate the reality of the appearance with a higher level
knowledge which is based on understanding. May be we should similarly
learn to negate the reality of perception in the waking state through
intuive knowledge of the self.


\aside-1

        Even in the vyaavahaarika reality, what we think as we see is
very different from what we see. Mind does a lot of trick inbetween
and creates beauty out of signals our eye receive. When we think we
are seeing something outside, actually we are seeing something inside
the mind. I saw a cassette on brain, few years back. The cassette was
explaining the miracles that happen in inside which is not generally
known to lay men.

--
Ravi