[Advaita-l] The essence of advaita

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007, prabha wrote:

> I agree with your view point. But my question is not how I shall gain
> deliverance. Every religion has a prescription for that – most of them
> (Dvaita, Christianity, Islam…) seem to say that we are NOT same as god and
> we are sinful/suffering because made mistakes along the way (bad Karma,
> disobeying god...), hence the only way is to blindly follow their prescribed
> path.

Note that Advaita Vedanta also says we are not the same as God if by that 
term you mean Ishvara.  He  has one attribute that the jivas do not and 
that is the ability of creating the universe.  However Ishvara is Brahman 
and we too are Brahman so in that ultimate sense we are identical but not 
in the conventional sense.

This might seem a very subtle distinction but it has implications for 
practice.  It means the Advaitin too must upto the point of jnana "blindly 
follow the prescribed path" (and please note the important point about 
Michael made about shraddha/faith)

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