Concept of personal God and Advaita

[Ashish Chandra]

On Thu, 23 May 2002 11:06:30 +0000, nanda chandran <vpcnk at HOTMAIL.COM>
wrote:
>
>You do not call that which you can infer as direct experience. Do you have
>the wholesome feeling of being a human being which can see, hear, talk etc?
>That's direct experience. Even as normal people can directly experience
>themselves as humans so can jnaanis directly experience themselves as pure
>consciousness.
>

But I also have the very direct experience of deep sleep and dreaming. From
what I know (through experience and subsequent inference), I did not know
what it was that was present during my deep sleep. That is also a direct
experience, is it not? I am not saying that jivanmuktas infer their
liberation through their direct experience - but we can at least experience
that we don't know what we truly are. I may be a man with hands and feet
and face and intellect right now but what happens when these are not
apprehended, when I experience non-dual avidyA? That is also everyone's
experience. In the waking state, one does not know what one was when one
was in deep sleep. So we either hazard discontinuity to our "Self" saying
that different people or different "things" had those experiences all of
which "I" somehow experienced, or we say that it was "Me" all along.

When I said that one does not know what one truly is, I meant that there
exists doubt in the mind of everyone (who wants to know) as to whether the
composite of body, mind and intellect is the person itself, or whether it
is something else.

>>Sorry for cutting in here but how are these two systems experienced or
>>observed everyday. We experience duality or plurality, that is granted.
>>However, both these systems talk of a jiva that is eternal.
>
>Eternality is only a philosophical description of the absolute - we call it
>eternal in contrast to phenomenal things that are temporary. As transient
>things represent suffering, we call that which is changeless and represents
>bliss as eternal. But strictly speaking eternality is only a concept
>attributed to the absolute.
>

True, but so is the word absolute.

ashish