[Advaita-l] Shata-shlokI of Shankara - 33 TO 38 of 101: Dream Analogy

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

I never saw a reply to this from Prof. VK. It seems to me that this is
not any definition, but a statement of the matter as it stands. For
example, the aatman is said to be beyond the three states and is
designated as turiiya. Sankara points out that turiiya is not a state
to be reached by going beyond the three states, but rather it is the
underlying reality of the three states. The three states come and go,
but the underlying reality does not change. This is from the
epistemological perspective.

>From the ontological perspective, it is time which characterizes the
flow of events. Brahman is beyond time, but it does not mean salvation
is shifting to a timeless zone beyond the past, present and future.
Brahman is the underlying reality or substratum behind time. The past,
present and future come and go, but the underlying "common" thing is
the only reality. Time itself is ultimately unreal.

The ga.napati-atharva"siir.sam explicity says: dehatrayaatiita.h,
kaalatrayaatiita.h. Both imply the same - that which appears and
diasppears is ultimately unreal, the first is epistemic and the second
ontic.

Rama

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 05:29:04 -0700 (PDT), kuntimaddi sadananda
<kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- "V. Krishnamurthy" <profvk at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > Note 2. Reality is that which exists in the three stages of
> > Time � past, present and future.
> 
> Prof. VK -
> 
> The above definition of reality - does it have a scriptual basis or
> evolved out of deductive process?
> 
> Hari OM!
> Sadananda
>