[Advaita-l] AchArya on the Objects of the Waking State (B.S. II.2.29)

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007, br_vinayaka wrote:

> While I was going through an old translation of
> taittirIya upanishad freely translated by Swami
> Sharvanandaji of RKM. In that book while commenting
> upon the passage beginning with asannEva sa bhavati
> (II.vi.1) the translator swami makes the following
> comment:
>
> "He became and defined etc.- Brahman being the ground
> and substratum of all, He is immanent even in the
> conradictories. Whatever there is, perceived,
> intuited, or imagined, all that is He. The whole
> universe is Real as Brahman. Attention should be
> specifically drawn to this passage as it clearly shows
> that the universe is never a non-existence like a
> 'square-circle' or the 'human horn'. Brahman is the
> all-in-all of the universe; intuition of brahman is
> not transmutation of the universe into brahman or 'a
> rejection of it'; it is only the correction of an
> error in perception.

Yes! This states much more clearly what I was trying to say.

> Just as it is not possible to
> correct the erroneous perception of a snake in a rope
> without the knowledge of the identity between the
> super-imposed snake and the actual rope, so also it is
> not possible to realize that there is only one reality
> which is brahman, without the knowledge of the
> identity between the world and brahman trhough proper
> testimony. By stating that all this is brahman the
> passage in question serves this purpose most
> appropriately. Brahmajnana is not an act of
> contemplation in which one object is replaced by
> another; it is a total comprehension in which
> consciousness is deepened and widened and made to work
> at all levels. That is why Sri Shankara says while
> commenting on brahmasUtras, II.2.29 that-the objects
> experienced in the waking perception are not cancelled
> at 'any' state."
>
> Is this interpretation accpeted in the traditional
> circles? If it is, does it not amounts to saying that
> 'name and form' is eternal and ever present in
> brahman???
>

For instance a diamond and a lump of coal are both actually forms of 
carbon yet these things have different names and forms and are assigned 
very different values by conventional society.  But surely we can say that 
coal and diamond are two forms of one thing without having to say "coal and 
diamond do not exist"?

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>