[Advaita-l] Thoughts of A Novice to Learned People

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Girish Ramadurgam wrote:

> I feel the true meaning of Advaita tries to convey is 'Every one is
> Brahman'. I mean see if I am Brahman then isn't everyone Brahman.
>

Girish, what you have written is true as far as it goes but consider this:

why is this shastra called Advaita and not eka?  If as you say the goal
is to consider everything (not just everyone) as Brahman then doesn't
"one" Vedanta sound better than "not-two" Vedanta?  But you see it is
"two"-ness which is the natural state of affairs.  This must be
transcended and _then_ one-ness is revealed.  That is the goal of this
shastra.  In order to achieve this one must be able to discriminate
between one and two.  This is the root of all the arguments.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
It's a boy! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/nilagriva/