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

[Jay Nelamangala]

Dear NAgArjuna,

All right,  Let us go back one step.

What is self-nature?.  Give me the sanskrit equivalent.

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

In advaita,  any such notions of distinctions is also only in the
first level of truth.

Since I have my own set of questions on advaita,  it may be
proper that all your questions on advaita be answered by
a scholar from this List,  rather than me.

> material. Hardness is just our way of perceiving this
> phenomenon. Hardness has no reality in itself.
>

What is reality to you?

For me,  if you bang your head on a brick and get hurt
because the brick is hard,  then that is reality.
For me,  if you bang your head on a pillow and do not
get hurt, then that is reality.

How molecules are arranged is left to nature.  But the
fact remains that nature 'did'  arrange brick molecules
and pillow molecules differently for 'real'.  That is reality.

Why do you deny this 'reality' of work of nature ?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nagarjuna Siddhartha" <nagarjunasiddhartha at yahoo.com>
To: "Jay Nelamangala" <jay at r-c-i.com>; <ADVAITA-L at LISTS.ADVAITA-VEDANTA.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Advaita-l Digest, Vol 2, Issue 29


> 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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