[Advaita-l] Re: Advaita-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 1

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> >>But is this completeness same as Parabrahman's compleness?
> >>Shrutis, sootras, and Geeta  in union say - NO.
>
> >Pray, where?
>
>Honestly, I am quite surprised you asked me this question.
>

The upanishads very convincingly tell us, brahma veda brahmaiva bhavati, 
paramaM sAmyam upaiti, neha nAnAsti kiMcana etc. All these are descriptions 
of moksha. That you wish to interpret these sentences differently does not 
take away from the message the texts give us.

...

>"bahooni mE vyateetAni janmAni tava chArjuna |
>tAnhyaham vEda sarvANi na tvam vEttha parantapa ||
>(Arjuna,  you and Me have taken many births already,
>you don't know any of them,  but I do know all of them)
>
>What does this teach us?.   That the knowledge of God is
>complete  and the knowledge of a jeeva is incomplete.

The knowledge of a normal jIva in the state of saMsAra is incomplete. Not so 
with moksha. What SAstra does is to make the incomplete knowledge complete. 
It is really superfluous for SAstra to reinfoce to us that the jIva's 
knowledge in saMsAra is incomplete. We already know this as a matter of 
daily experience.

>
>In the Upanishats,  I have already quoted this one before.
>Atleast let us know how you understand this talavakArOpanishat vAkya
>before asking me 'Pray ,  where? '.    Any way I have repeated it here:
>
>"yadi manyasE suvedaa iti daharamEvApi noonam,  tvam vEttha brahmaNo 
>roopam"
>(If you think you know Brahma-swaroopa well then what you know is very
>little indeed).

This only warns us not to assume that we know brahman well. It is meant as a 
caution towards those who think that they know brahman when they don't. It 
doesn't exclude the possibility that brahman may indeed be known, through 
SAstra and through a guru.

>
>In the sootras,  "Om prithagupadEshAt Om"
>

pRthak-tva is cited here because the faults of the jIva in saMsAra do not 
affect ISvara. Limitedness is itself a fault. In the state of moksha, there 
are no more faults, so the question of the faults affecting ISvara does not 
arise. It does not mean that even in the state of moksha, the jIva suffers 
from the fault of being limited.

Vidyasankar

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