[Advaita-l] iswara, jiva and prakruti

[ramesh badisa]

>...if Adi Sankaracharya's philosophy was flawless then why can't it 

describe how the cognition of this world started, one of the answers 

given by myself was that it is because of ignorance, but then the 

question is, if Brahman is pure and all knowing then how can 

ignorance even come into the equation. If Paramatma is pure then how 

can this world (or creation) be a part of ignorance, as only 

ignorance can arise from not knowing, saying this if Paramatma was 

all knowing ignorance would have no leg to stand on, or if ignorance 

is the cause then Brahma is flawed. Ramanujacharya overcomes this problem by saying that Jiva and Ishwar and Prakriti are all equal but not the same, so forignorance to prevail that is the fault of Jiva and not Ishwar. What 

are the views  by Advaita Vedanta on this issue?

Namaste. 

Sri Ramanuja, as far as I understand, never said that jiva, ishwar 

and prakruti are all equal, as it is against to the sruti teachings. 

And no references from sri Ramanujam's works was provided so far 

even on request. In the absence of this fact, the question how 

the cognition of this world came into being still remain unanswered 

by Vishitadvaita philosophy also. On the similar lines, can 

Vishitadvaita philosophy say why the divine is all powerful, and 

why souls cannot become divine rather why they only form a part of divine (body-cell analogy)

in the state of salvation also, why the souls have to be like slaves

at Vaikunta loka (or any other loka) even in the state of salvation 

when both divine and souls are birth less (thus death less), 

why the souls have to be condemned forever not to become divine even 

in the state of salvation? Why, the all-perfect divine, would do it? 

Can they explain these questions? On the other hand, the question, 

how this ignorance came into picture in the first place is difficult 

to explain, and well beyond our limitation to comprehend. In Gita, 

3/38 and 5/15 Lord Krishna indicates that ignorance is the root cause of our bondage. But, how this ignorance was started in the first place is not mentioned. Individual souls may attain salvation, but at the same time, samsar would remain to exist for those who entertain it. 
This question was asked in a different way many years ago. The question asked was what will happen to creation once all the souls get salvation after trillion, trillion, trillion, etc of years? In the absence of karma (and thus it leads to gyan), the souls do not need to take birth in the universe. That means,  there is no need for creation of universe by divine if all souls merge in divine for salvation. We may argue that this won’t happen so soon. True. But, it may certainly happen after many, many, many etc years. In that case, what will happen to creation? In the absence of creation, where is the question of existence of prakruti? 
Namaste


		
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