[Advaita-l] Kazlev quote correctness?

Guru Meditation killuminati at onetel.com
Thu Apr 7 05:25:05 CDT 2005


Hari Om!

Thank you very much to Jaldhar Vyasji and Vidyasankar Sundaresanji for their
excellent replies to my questions. Vyasji, you mentioned something about having
more to say - if possible, please continue.

In the meantime, I have a further question regarding a quote that has recently
been passed to me. As follows:

"There has been a lot of misunderstanding regarding the status the phenomenal
world in Advaita, even by some of its modern proponents. According to this
false interpretation which the universe is considered nothing but illusion.
Many people therefore reject Advaita as 'illusionism'. But in fact Shankara was
a staunch empiricist and fully acknowledged the phenomenal reality of the world,
God (Ishwara) etc. He was actually very critical of the Yogachara Buddhist
position that the world is a subjective product of the mind). When Shankara
discusses the reality or otherwise of the world of duality, he is talking from
the point of view of his attainment of Enlightenment, according to which the
world-process really did appear unreal or false. But as far as the ordinary
consciousness goes, Advaita propounds pragmatic realism, including worship of
deities separate from oneself, etc." - M. Alan Kazlev

How true is this quote about ZaGkara's AdvaitavAda? The immediate thing that
springs to mind about the supposed reality of the world is the famous quote
from Viveka-cUDAmaNi: brahmam satyam jagat mithya. Other than that I do not
think that this perception of Advaita is correct. Is this so?

Kind regards,

D. Jay



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