Consciousness Speaks - by Sri Ramesh Balsekar

[Vidyasankar]

>Unfortunately, he did not use the word jIva in his
>book. So, can not comment on this point. He calls
>every thing as Body, Mind organism. There is no
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>individual doer as such.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is not consistent with -

>By saying that all there is Consciousness, the
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>teaching seems to point that they have already
>transcended the vyavahArika level.
>

Because, then one would have to conclude that this Consciousness, which is
all there is, is the same as the Body-Mind Organism (we might as well put a
capital O here). So, there is no individual doer, but there is only a cosmic
doer and there are actions taking place within this Body-Mind Organism.
Furthermore, if this Organism, which equals God, is as real as we are, then
all of vyavahAra gets reinstated, but without any notion of personal
responsibility. One does not transcend vyavahAra merely by saying the
equivalent of sarvaM khalv idaM brahma. One truly transcends vyavahAra only
when one recognizes that there is no karma whatsoever in the brahman state.
Otherwise, actions will keep coming back in, one way or the other, because
the ignorance that is behind these actions has not been destroyed.

Vidyasankar