Creation theories (was Re: What is the exact meaning/significance of this?)

[Vidyasankar]

>Sri Vidyasankar ji, how is creation to be explained in the context of
>Aitareya Upanishad 1.3.12 which seems to be saying that the waking state is
>similar to a dream. Elsewhere in his commentary on Br.U, Sri Adi Shankara
>says this again. AchArya Gaudapada, in his vaitathya-prakaraNa, repeatedly
>compares the waking state to the dream state, though he points out a
>difference between them.

The purpose of comparing the waking state and the dream state is this. Men
usually take the objects of the waking state to be "real" and assume that
the objects of the dreaming state are "unreal". All the discussion about
waking and dreaming states in advaita vedAnta is in order to point out that
objects in the waking state are not really real. Once this is grasped, one
can give up the habit of assigning intrinsic reality to objects in the
waking state. ajAtivAda goes a step further and points out that there is no
creation of things whatsoever. What exists always exists. What does not
exist never exists.

Vidyasankar