[Advaita-l] Brahman - bhAvarUpa or abhAvarUpa (was Re: Advaita vEdAnta - Unit (28))

[Vishy]

Dear Shyam
   
  Going further in this example of Mr. Pott...
  There are millions/ trillions of pots and all are made of clay called 'prkruthi' , ie, combination of body+mind+intellect....the color/shapes and sizes may be different but ultimately one and same clay called prakruthi. Where as all these exist in space called ' Purusha' which within as well without all the these pots.
  All these pots come into existence within this Purusha vanishes and again comes back in the same Purusha again and again.
  Now my understanding is simple, you have a choice in identifying you 'self' either with walls of the pot (Prakruthi, which comes and goes again and again, constantly changing) or the space within /without "Purusha' changeless, beginning less/endless. 99.99% of people endup identifying with walls of the pot , ending up with birth./ death cycle and attributes like good/bad/ jealousy
  This is Avidhya.
  The movement you realise and shift your identity from walls to space inside
  you reached home. That is Jnana .
   
  This is what my little understanding of the Existence/ Truth/ Brahman. I feel this is core of Advaitha in simple language, but I canto quote any scriptures or use jargon's to make it look more sophisticated.   
   
  Warm Regards
   
  Viswanath
   
  (PS: I am poor in typing and dint even have time to run a spell check..so pl bear with me for mistakes)
  

Shyam <shyam_md at yahoo.com> wrote:
  To understand the issue of whether avidya is sat or asat and what if any is the locus for avidya let us take a story of a pot, lets say his name is Mr.Pott.

Mr.Pott is in reality clay, the same clay that all other claypots are. He takes himself to be only the pot. As long as he entertains a notion that he is a pot he is small, he has aged 20 years since he was born, lives in a poor home, has lost some of the colour on his head, etc.. Now avidya is Mr.Potts ignorance about himself not being just a pot, but in reality being clay. And as clay he is neither born nor will he die - na jaayate mryate va kadacit.. Now if you ask who does this ignorance belong to? The answer is - it belongs to Mr.Pott. Well isnt Mr.Pott clay? Yes. Then does the ignorance belong to clay. No. The clay never has anything really to do with the "pot notion", although without the clay, the pot cannot have any subtantive existence. 

Well then isnt Mr.Pott also a pot?
Yes 

Then does the ignorance belong to the pot.
No again!

The pot by itself is nothing but clay. 

Then who is Mr.Pott?
He is the I-sense that feels itself to be "a" pot separate from clay, and doesn't recognize itself to be clay even though all along it is clay, and nothing but clay. 

When did it get ignorant? 
This is a wrong question because it assumes an absence of ignorance prior to the onset of ignorance which is impossible. 

Who needs the right knowledge to get liberated? 
The clay? No 
The pot? No 
Mr.Pott - Yes! 

When you say avidya is lighted by atman you are linking two things which share no relation really. It is like saying the clay lights up Mr.Potts ignorance. Assigning a locus for avidya is possible only when there are two distinct realities - not when both pot and clay are in essence one. For example, there are two sides to a coin, and yes - you can assign a locus to the head - one side vs the other. In the case of avidya, this cannot be done - because what is real, what IS is always the clay alone. 

The pot is nondifferent from clay. If you mark a large "X" on the pot are you marking it on clay or the pot? If you say the pot, then one can say, OK remove the clay and lets see the X mark on the pot now - see the difficulty in doing this? The X marks are none other than mind, intellect, etc etc. Yes they all belong to the pot- but there really is no pot - only clay! What Mr.Pott needs to realize is that he is not the pot, that these marks he thinks are his are also in reality nothing but clay which he himself his. 

The clay has no ignorance about it being clay. A pot, separate from clay, cannot have any existence let alone ignorance. 

The adhyasa is this only - that Mr.Pott mistakes himself for a pot without realizing he is clay. As clay not only is he immortal, but he is nonseparate from the whole clay-universe, and, to go one step further, the entire clay-universe is arising from him alone and will dissolve unto him alone. "Mayyeva sakalam jaatam.. mayyeva sakalam jaatam mayi sarvam pratishtitam, mayi sarvam layam yaati.." 

The recognitions 
- I am clay and hence not limited by my notion of being a pot.
- The entire world is nothing but clay and hence nonseparate from me, and rather than I being a product of the world as i had originally thought, i am actually the very substratum on which this whole universe of pots is seemingly created and destroyed. 
- I the clay alone am 
are all in essence one and the same recognition. 

Avidya is never "real". What is real is only One - the non-dual vastu. What is real has to be anantam, and if something existent can be removed in the wake of knowledge, then it cannot be said to have satta.
It is not "unreal" either because after all poor Mr.Pott thinks he is small and old, and in so doing reveals the workings of avidya. But this is a mere notion on his part. With the dawn of knowledge from an appropriate means of knowledge (i.e.Ma Shruti), this ignorance is once and forever dispelled. He realizes he is clay, not then, in the future, but in and through all times forever in the past and forever in the future. And again, ignorance did not "create" the pot. The clay is the ONLY material cause for the pot. Mr.Pott's ignorance about him being a limited pot is beginingless and hence there is no creation of someone creating it as we have already seen. 

Suffice to say, the simplest and really the only answer to any question on avidya's locus will be "i" or me. "i" who is ignorant am the locus of avidya because "i" know not that really speaking "i" am "I"

Hari OM
Shri Gurubhyo namah
Shyam



S Jayanarayanan wrote: --- Krishnamurthy Ramakrishna 
wrote:

> 
> In Unit 25, we studied the nature of ajnyana and understood that
> ajnyAna is
> abhAvarUpa;

According to you: is Brahman bhAvarUpa or abhAvarUpa?

If Brahman is bhAvarUpa, you have TWO bhAvarUpa entities -- Brahman
and adhyAsa, and your thesis ceases to be advaita.

If Brahman is abhAvarUpa, then Brahman itself is sublated by adhyAsa!

Regards,
Kartik



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