[Advaita-l] RE: On the parakAyapraveSa legend about Sankara

[jagannathan mahadevan]

> Bhaskar ji wrote:
>
> Had it been that case, if shankara in amaruka's body was so detached then
> there was no business for shankara's disciples to wake him up from the
> immersed state of sexuality.  I think author of SD spoiled the whole spirit
> of yati dharma here by narrating the shankara's passionate involvement in
> sexuality.  Hope you are aware how elaborately author of SD described
> shankara's enjoyment in amaruka's body & how his disciples struggled to
> drag him out of this mess!!!
>

I think the meaning of the story is simply that Sankara demonstrated
that experience is a necessary precondition to knowledge. It has to be
taken at face value. Whether it was right for Sankara to experience
through another body does not matter. During the debate, to answer the
questions to another, he underwent the process by which he could get
the right answers himself. Why don't we simply allow Sankara to become
the knower of all other knowledges in his own way through yogic
powers? If one has a better way of learning the art of love by all
means one is definitely allowed to go for it !

To portray sexuality or involvement in sexuality as baneful smacks of
hypocrisy and negation of fundamentals of nature. A brahmajnAni is one
who has gained the knowledge gaining which one does not have to gain
anything more. Lord yama promises so many things to young nachikEta to
wean him away from the quest of brahmajnAna. But still nachikEta
persisted saying that gaining brahmajnAna I will not "need" anything
else. It does not necessarily mean that other forms of knowledge are
encompassed in brahmajnAna and that all brahmajnAni's are necessarily
readily well versed in any other form of knowledge. However, all
brahmajnAni's do have the yogic powers to "readily" gain also the
necessary form of knowledge one way of which Sankara has demonstrated.

Jagannathan.