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

[Nagarjuna Siddhartha]

Dear Jay Nelamangala,

> Because this world has dependent reality,
> a question such as "is this world real on its own? "
> will be answered
> negatively.  World reality is only a derived
> reality.
> 
> But does it  have self-nature? Yes it has a
> dependent 
> self-nature. We don't say it has no self-nature.
> But if the question is "does it have independent
> self-nature?"
> then the answer is no.

It is surprising that you talk about something called
"eternally dependant self-nature" because there is no
such thing. Self-nature of an object, by definition
cannot be eternally dependant on something else for
its existence.

> Brahman is the absolute reality no doubt,  but that
> does not
> make world unreal.  The world has derived reality.
> 
> But advaita does not say this,  it says there are
> two levels of
> truth,  and the world is true only in the first
> level.

To my knowledge, Advaita does distinguish between  the
perceived world and a barren woman's son.

The two levels of truth are empirical and
metaphysical. Empirical truth deals with the perceived
world. Metaphysical truth deals with the essence. 

To understand it from a physical example - The
hardness of a material is in reality due to a
particular way of behaviour of the molecules of the
material. Hardness is just our way of perceiving this
phenomenon. Hardness has no reality in itself.

Once you appreciate the fact that there is no such
thing as an eternally dependant self-nature, you will
realize that the second sutra clearly justifies
advaita alone.

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