[Advaita-l] The essence of advaita

[sreenivasa murthy]

From: H.N.Sreenivasa Murthy
Pranams to all.

Dear Sri Amuthan,

          Hats off to you  for the eye-opening  post of yours!
    Many of the thoughts in your post  should be pondered over in depth by the new entrants to the  sacred temple of   Advaitha. 
              
       With warm and respectful regards,
           Sreenivasa Murthy.

Amuthan <aparyap at gmail.com> wrote: namo nArAyaNAya!

On 9/26/07, Ravisankar Mayavaram  wrote:
> A simpler approach is trust in shruti. shruti states that ultimate
> reality is non-dual brahman, but on a practical level we see duality
> which is caused by so called avidya/mAyA.  shruti also affirms there
> is a way out of it.  When try to explain and understand how this
> non-dual brahman became all this dual stuff, we seem to get stuck. If
> this non-dual brahman is beyond the grasp of one's mind, why should we
> assume that somehow we will grasp how "that" became "this"? The
> explanation that ties the ultimate non-duality to perceived duality
> too is beyond the grasp of mind. Ultimately we progress only by
> shraddha and it better not to get trapped in this. shraddhaavan
> labhate jnAnam.

this is a much better view. instead of wasting time trying to
understand the ontological significance of mAyA, which is
anirvacanIya, it is better to concentrate on knowing the Self.

there is a huge difference between looking at advaita as a
philosophical viewpoint and as a means to overcome birth and death.
the former (the 'academic' view), while being of some importance in
establishing the soundness of advaita over other darSana-s, is not of
much help to someone who wants to put an end to suffering and
ignorance. in the latter approach (that of a mumukshu), there is
actually no necessity to worry about unnecessary questions like 'what
is mAyA?', 'how can mAyA exist at all in brahman which is non-dual?'
etc. such questions can at best be answered in terms of some analogy
and since no analogy is perfect, there will be no end to doubts. one
can exhaust a lifetime asking doubts and trying to rationalize avidyA,
which is the essence of all irrationality; but that won't lead us
anywhere. rather it is better to ask questions like 'i experience
hunger, pain, fear, love, hatred etc... how the heck do i put an end
to this?'. advaita is best understood only from a mumukshu's
viewpoint; certainly not from a speculator's.

in short, it is better to either plunge into svAtma vicAra or do
nishkAma bhagavad bhakti instead of getting lost in what AcArya calls
SabdajAlamahAraNyam.

vAsudevaH sarvaM,
aparyAptAmRtaH.
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