[Advaita-l] chid-aabhaasa

Michael Shepherd michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk
Thu Feb 26 07:23:39 CST 2009


Sri Sadananda --

Thank you again for your generosity of soul.

It's that moment of 'union' between Brahman in subject and Brahman in
object, that intrigues all philosophers !

I'm unfamiliar with the terms BMI. I have always taken antahkarana as
ahamkara, chitta, buddhi, manas. So my question was, what in the Panchadashi
and in your own mind, does 'intellect' and the 'pool of intellect' cover in
Sanskrit ?

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of
kuntimaddi sadananda
Sent: 26 February 2009 12:19
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] chid-aabhaasa




Michael - PraNAms

Here is my understanding.

Brahman - is pure consciousness - one without a second. Hence it is infinite
and part-less. It is pure existence - sat and pure consciousness - chit and
limitless which is same as pure happiness.

If I see, know etc something other than Brahman, then that is not sat but
not asat (non-existent either) and it is called mithyaa. Mithyaa  is not a
conscious entity. Therefore anything that is not conscious entity is inert.
Hence all mithyaa is inert. BMI is seen or known and therefore comes under
mithyaa. Every mithyaa should have a basis for its existence and that
existence part comes from Brahman only. Hence BMI IS  or the world IS - the
is-ness comes from Brahman. In that sense all idams or objects and thus the
world you see are superfically different but substantially nothing but
Brahman - To have that 'vision' of Brahman in everything that I see or
transact with is the knowledge.

Hence Body, Mind and Intellect all comes under 'idam' and 'known' and
whatever that exists - the substantive is Brahman - the rest, the name and
form is mithyaa - like pot on clay or ring on gold. Pot is nothing but clay
but still pot is different from mass of clay - it has its own name and form
different from jug which is also clay. Similarly all objects are nothing but
names and forms on the substantive Brahman.

Mind and intellect - are part of subtle body - Being subtle they can reflect
the light of consciousness much better than the gross body. The reflected
consciousness in the intellect is called chidaabhaasa. The rest I have
described in terms of knowledge takes place. For perceptuality condition
(see the knowledge series) the existence of the object and the consciousness
of the subject have to get 'united' for one to be conscious of the existence
of the object. In that process vRitti or a thought arises - with reference
to say pot - 'three IS a pot' and with reference to the knower of the pot -
'I know there IS pot' - called idam VRitti and aham VRitti. Both happen in
the pool of intellect. The rest I have described in my previous post.

Hari Om!
Sadananda





--- On Thu, 2/26/09, Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk>
wrote:


One further question about Panchadashi 8 and chid-aabhaasa please, since I
don't have the Sanskrit or a transliteration :

In such phrases as 'the intellect is inert' is 'buddhi' the word translated
intellect/intelligence ?

English blurs the distinction in translation between manas, buddhi and
chitta, with words like 'mind' or 'intellect', and it's rather vital to
understanding this operation of 'reflection'.

Michael







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