Request: shrI shankara aShTottarashata-nAmAvali

[Ravi Mayavaram]

namaste

If any of our list members have access to the aShTottarashata-nAmAvali
on  shrI shankara, it will be very nice if one of them could post the
names to the List.

Thank you.


Ravi
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam.

>From  Sat Apr 25 18:46:38 1998
Message-Id: <SAT.25.APR.1998.184638.0400.>
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 18:46:38 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: Request: shrI shankara aShTottarashata-nAmAvali
Comments: To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
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Ravi Mayavaram wrote:

> If any of our list members have access to the aShTottarashata-nAmAvali
> on  shrI shankara, it will be very nice if one of them could post the
> names to the List.

Just yesterday I was thinking that I should type the ashhTottaram on
shrI sha.nkara and shrI vidyAraNya. I think this conclusively settles
the issue in favor of eka-jIva vAda :-). I am slightly busy right now,
so I can mail you a photocopy of the ashhTottaram and if you could type
it up it would be great. Everyone will get to see the stotram in a
reasonable amount of time, you get to type the stotram and I get to do
no work. It's a win-win situation :-). Just joking, but send me your
address.

Rama.

>From  Sat Apr 25 17:38:01 1998
Message-Id: <SAT.25.APR.1998.173801.0500.>
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 1998 17:38:01 -0500
Reply-To: niche at ameritech.net
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Parisi & Watson <niche at AMERITECH.NET>
Organization: Knitters Niche
Subject: Untimely Meditations
Comments: To: Advaita Posts <advaita-l at tamu.edu>
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A short time ago, I attempted to point out that the facts as we know
them about the human condition can be construed to support either the
Advaita Vedanta philosophy or the typical Western view. Anything that we
know, we know only by virtue of the fact that it has entered human
consciousness in some way, so in a sense, we are unable to prove that a
world exists without consciousness. Consciousness can be said to be the
starting point of epistemology: I am; all else follows from this, and is
at least partially inference. The sense of self awareness that we have
gives us the impression that it must be separate from both the body and
the mind, since it can observe both. I take care of 'my' body, I train
'my' mind, I observe 'my' feelings and thoughts, and so on.

The problem, at least for me, is that all of these things remain true
and are not undermined in any way even in the Western view. Even if the
physical world is the fundamental reality and consciousness exists only
as a biological function, not only do they all remain, but they
correspond to what we would expect. We still know things only by
perceiving them and bringing them into our conscious minds. We still
know first that 'I am,' and branch out from there to other forms of
knowledge. We know that our senses can be distorted in various ways or
removed completely, and yet the sense of self remains as long as we are
capable of consciousness. We know that the conscious mind can observe
its own contents and, when it is idle, can just observe itself. None of
these considerations present a serious challenge to the Western view in
any way that I can see.

The response always is that Vedanta is not established by mere dry
reasoning, but by a proper intellectual orientation filled out by
spiritual practice and direct personal experience. But now we seem to be
saying also that, since our sense of I-am already is the Self, self
realiztion is not so much a new experience as the same old experiences
with a new attitude. We have a sense of bliss and freedom, of being
without limitations or any vulnerability. We have the perception that we
do not actually do anything or suffer anything, because action and
suffering pertain to individuals, and we no longer have the feeling of
being identified with a separate ego. We still see the external world
through 'our' eyes, we are still directly privy only to 'our' thoughts,
etc. but the experience is dramatically different because we no longer
identify ourselves with these things. And how do we come to have this
remarkable attitude and the experiences that it brings with it? We have
it as the result of an intensive program of self indoctrination in the
sorts of ideas mentioned above, combined with extensive practice in
disassociating our awareness from our minds, bodies, desires, fears and
so on. But nothing in either the ideas or the experiences is
inconsistent with the Western view.

>From there, other troublesome questions begin to assert themselves:
Because I feel that I am not tied to a separate ego/mind/body and that I
have merged with an infinite ocean of bliss, does this necessarily mean
that I actually have? In other words, does having a direct sense or
feeling of something mean that it actually is the case? Could any
imaginable feeling, mode of experience, or state of consciousness ever
count as evidence that my body (or better, the physical organism that I
am) is irrelevant to my existence? It could, but only if, for example, I
saw my body either destroyed or dead beyond any recall (as opposed to
'dead' and then revived). These extremes seem necessary in order to make
the case, but in resorting to them, we become like Christians who
promise that all will be revealed after death. I'm having problems
seeing any considerations, any reasoning, or even any experience by a
living, breathing person that can meaningfully undermine the Western
view. Right now I have the feeling that Vedanta is slipping through my
fingers like water.