[Advaita-l] doubt on the role of shruti vAkyAs : Liberation

[Murali Karamchedu]

Manish Said:
>but the things are being said in some context.
Fair enough. The context being Amuthan's question on reconciliation.

The explanations that I've heard about this are as follows:

1. upadesha is necessary for jnana, and that too upadesha from a jnani and a 
tatvadarshi.
For example, BGB 4.34 answers the question - " tat etat vishiSTaM jnanaM 
tarhi
kena prApyate iti? "
      [then, by whom is this special knowledge obtained?]


2. This being the case, the explanation for exceptions such as Ramana 
Manharshi is that
they had obtained such upadesha in a prior birth, and were 'almost there'. 
The current
birth was just the means to finish up. In the book 'Exalting Elucidations' 
on the chapter on
Rebirth, the previous acharya of sringeri say's something to the effect that 
even though
his guru, HH Chandrasekhara Bharati swami, did not have the physical 
presence of *his*
guru, the knowledge acquired in his prior birth continued into his present 
birth. (I do not
have the book with me; perhaps someone else can verify this?)

>You don't have to throw away your normal garbs, don't have to do anything 
>out of the way. Sahaja SamAdhi is the best for it is based on simple 
>realization, no out of the way and out of the world things need to be done

If I understand this argument correctly, it goes something like this:

1. Liberation is here and now.
2. There is nothing to obtain in reality.
3. It is not obtainable, because there is nothing to obtain.
4. It is the mind that leads us to believe that it needs liberation
5. Once the mind is seen as non existent, then there is liberation there and 
then.
6. Since 5 is the case, one can continue with normal life, and we are 
liberated.

Perhaps I am oversimplifying; nonetheless the thrust here is that it is 
business as usual so
long as we know 5 to be the case, because liberation just is.

Ok, the question then is how does this mind see itself as non-existent?

a) If it does so because it read so, or someone told it so, or it pondered 
on it and deduced
it to be so; then it knows this knowledge as an object to be known. No 
advaita anubhuti
here. If however, after such a conclusion it pretends that it is liberated; 
then it is just that -
pretension. This is delusional.

b) It becomes (instead of seeing itself as) non-existent because of the dawn 
of knowledge.
How does this come to be? This, the acharyas say requires sanyAsa. This is 
the 'out of the
way out of the world' process that you perhaps refer to. There is no 
equivocation here;
sanyAsa is a prerequisite for jnana.


>The whole Bhagvada Gita talks from the first page to the last-- Arjuna 
>fight.

Indeed. It however does not say that he will get mukti by doing so. What is 
said is that
action done in a spirit of dedication to God  creates the circumstances to 
lead one to
mukti. In fact there is significant argument in the second chappter of BGB 
itself, where
the acharya takes pains to explain that jnana and karma cannot mix.

>Janaka is mentioned in Bhagvada Gita as a jivanmukta,
>[...]
In this very chapter, he takes the example of Janaka...[BGB 2.10]


In this chapter, the acharya does not say whether Janaka was a jIvanmukta or 
not. He
admits two possibilities:

a) If he was, then, even though he could have renounced all action, he 
continued for the
good of the world, knowing 'the gunas remain in the gunas'. i.e it was 
im-material to him.

b) He was not a jIvanmukta. In that case, he achieved saMsiddhI by 
dedicating all action
to IshvarA. Here the acharya explains saMsiddhi could be understood as 
either sattva
shuddhi(loosely, pure mind), or as the attributes necessary jnanotpattI (the 
emergence of
knowledge).

Now, if anyone of us is already liberated, it makes no difference that one 
continues with
life as usual. Sahaja Samadhi is a consequence I suppose. citta vRitti 
nirodha is
just a natural outcome.

If, however we are'nt there yet, the object-ive knowledge that the mind is 
non-existent
does no good by itself. It requires us to proceed down the path of sadhana 
first before
even vairagya sets in; the rest, and (jIvan)mukti is dependent on it.


>Sahaja SamAdhi is the best for it is based on simple realization, no out of 
>the way and out of the world things need to be done.

Seems tempting! :)
Who then should be the audience for all the complex realization process? Or 
is that just a
waste of time? I am not trying to be glib, if we admit such an easy way out, 
then, the
hard way is either a waste of time, or meant for a specific audience. Which 
is it?


Murali Manohar