[Advaita-l] Body is the disease

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

 svedagarbha at gmail.com wrote:

> Upsana is need for mOksha, agreed, but such vAkya-s of shruti, which are
> meant only for upAsana, cannot be used to prove a tattva. That is the point
> I was making.

No, the point you were making was about bheda in general, for pramANa-prameya
vyavahAra, not about the narrow question of upAsana, nor about which Sruti can
be cited in support of which position. But, I'll let that pass.
 
My point was to ask you to ponder over the utility of upAsana in the first place. It is
admittedly something that presumes bheda, but it is also a recommended means, 
highly so, for going past bheda to abheda.

> 
> Do you mean to say it was unnecessary that Shankara argued with bhOudha-s
> and bhatta-s? Do you mean to say it is unnecessary for Madhusudhana to
> argue against his opponent?
> 

No, YOU were saying that. You argue that the pUrvapakshin considers pramANa-s to
be tAttvika "real" but that siddhAntin sees them only as provisional. You then assert
that provisional pramANa-s *cannot* be used to arrive at tAttvika conclusions. You
are effectively trying to stack the deck against the siddhAntin, and trying to declare
his defeat before a vAda even begins. Essentially, YOU are claiming that siddhAntin
is not even capable of entering into the vAda.

All *I* am saying is that, even if so,  under your premises, the siddhAntin can indeed
enter into the vAda and that the victory of the siddhAntin can be well established. I
would suggest you read the two earlier responses by Sri Lalitaalaalita very carefully.

> Existence of agOcara Brahman is known only from Agama pramANa, and given
> that Agama is shabda based, you cannot conclude such brahman is shabda
> avAchya citing yatO vAcho shruti out of context. If brahman is shabda
> avAchya as you hold, then there is no question of the equating self with
> such Brahman or denying brahmEtara tattvas etc.

Again, you are missing the point. Equating the AtmA with vAg-agocara brahman is
not something established by logical argument. It is a *given*. Sruti says so.
 
> 
> > So, the crux of the issue really is that an
> > advaitin can finally remain silent, impervious to anything that the
> > pUrvapkshin throws
> > at him and that very silence, that non-action is a sign of victory in the
> > discussion. For
> > advaitins, all this usage of words in the dicussion is only a means to
> > reach that which
> > is silence. For true silence, the words have to come to a stop.
> > Eventually...
> >
> >
> I am afraid such position makes it indistinguishable from an invalid
> position, for both have no answer at the end.

Not so. We do have an answer: "go to Sruti." Whether it is upadeSasAhasrI or the
khaNDana-khaNDa-khAdya or advaita-siddhi, that answer has not changed. If that
is an invalid position for you, that is a pity indeed. 
 
Best regards,
Vidyasankar