[Advaita-l] Re: Advaita-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 29

[Kotekal, Srinivas [Non-Employee/0200]]

Dear Jaldhar,

Please through some light on few questions.

>It is the word illusion which is tripping you up.  There are nuances to
>the english word which are not there when we use the Sanskrit mithya.

So, what is this "mithya" ? Is it ..

1. As real as computer monitor in front of me right now ?

or

2. Illusion like mirage in the desert ?

or 

3. Virtually non-existent thing as "Hare's horn" ?

or 

4. Something entirely different ?

Any explanation is helpful in better understanding. Thanks.


>In  fact we play the two (or more) level game of truth all the time.  Take
>the sun.  "Everybody knows" that the sun rises in the East in the
>morning and sets in the West in the evening.  This "fact"  is as obvious
>as your own two eyes.  Yet through education we somehow accept the
>seemingly preposterous notion that the earth in fact goes around the sun!

>What has changed?  The sun is the same.  The earth is the same.  The
>observer is the same.  The observers' _perspective_ has changed.  Sunrise
>and Sunset are false in this sense.  They are not illusionary but
>misunderstood.  

I would see it differently. Say, a person on earth is saying "Sun is rising
from East". At, the same time, a person in space (on some space station)
saying "Earth is rotating and that's why person on earth is saying it is
rising from East". Two different observers and two different perspective.
Right ? But the thing is space observer's perspective does not sublates
earth observer's perspective any time. That means to say, space observer's
view **does not** invalidates earth view. It is just change in observing
position. That is to say, space observation is as real as its counterpart
and it is in addition to earthly observation. Right ?

I am trying to understand Advaitic position in the similar regards. We have
vyavahArika view (earth observer's view) and pAramarthika (space observer's)
view. Why is that pAramarthika level sublates vyavaharika sattya once you
are there ?      


>There are no two truths just two perspectives on one truth.   

Ok.. but these two perspectives (on the truth) go to be *TRUE* themselves in
order to call them 
as perspectives on TRUTH ! If one is true and other is not (or not as true
as other one); they are hardly be labeled as so. My opinion.

> Look at Prahallada,

>Look at Gajendra.  He was dying trapped by the crocodile until he realized
>that in fact he was and always had been eternally free.

I am sorry I did not get this part. You mean to say, Lord Hari did not come
and rescue Gajendra at all ? by just realizing was he free from his sorrow ?
Please clarify.

Thanks,
Srinivas. 

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