brahmavid=Krishna

[Vidyasankar]

>You abstain from answering the question "Does braHman
>control worldly reality (Maya)?". Please answer that
>first. You cannot say that my tests are pointless,

That question is not even under debate, Kiran. As for whether brahman does
control worldly reality, your tests are not the way to go. Shruti and the
teachers of Vedanta have much to tell us about brahman and reality. That is
enough. As far as your argument is concerned, I just showed why it is
meaningless, regardless of whether brahman controls worldly reality or not.

>because it matters to me whether braHman really
>controls it or not!

And your idea of testing that control is to ask brahman to freeze water by
boiling it? Assume that brahman accedes to your request and does so. You
will then rename the process of boiling with the word "freezing", because
whatever that process does will result in the freezing of water. Everything
will be exactly the opposite and you will end up redefining the meanings of
all your words!

Or do you mean that the process of boiling will still "generally" result in
steam, except when you ask brahman to freeze water by boiling it? If so,
you are asking brahman to introduce arbitrariness in the control of worldly
reality, or to prove this control by contrariness with respect to the
natural order of things. May I ask why this arbitrariness or this
contrariness should be the ultimate test of whether brahman controls
worldly reality or not?

Imagine the following scenario - you ask brahman to freeze water by boiling
it. At exactly the same moment, I ask brahman not to do so, for that will
upset the current natural order and confuse a lot of people for the sake of
convincing one person named Kiran. What do you think brahman should do?

Vidyasankar