[Advaita-l] Meditation (dhyAna), knowledge (jnAna) etc. in Sankara's advaita

[Bhaskar YR]

(a) What is chittavRutti? What is chittavRuttinirOdha?

       (b) To perform the act of chittavRuttinirOdha it is absolutely
necessary that the doer of nirodha viz.kartRu should exist prior to the
appearance of cittavRutti. Who is that entity ?  Is he different from the
chitta or the same as chitta?

       (c) During the existence and dissolution of the vRitti  is there an
entity separate from the chiita?

       (d) Who is the SEER of the chittavRutti in order to perform the
nirOdha? Are the seer  and the doer  same entities are different entities?

Humble praNAms Sri Srinivas Murthy prabhuji
Hare Krishna

I know you are an ardent desciple of Daivajna kavi Sri Devarao Kulkarni,
who is direct desciple of Sri SSS...I too know that despite knowing the
answers to these questions you are simply asking it in forum with a
different intention...Let me share my thoughts on it.

Yes, what is chitta first of all ??  is there anything that can be called
*chitta* apart from Atma svarUpa??  I dont think so...(ofcourse PY think
so..) It is a well known fact in vEdAnta that when we are in sphere of
avidyA,  Atman itself appears as *chitta*.  When we start enquiring what is
chitta/mind, we will find that it is nothing but Atman & it does not have
its own existence (astitva).  So, if we strictly follow the teachings of
vedAnta, it is ONLY the Atman that is secondless truth and socalled chitta
is a false appearance in avidyA vyavahAra.  that is the reason why, ramaNa
maharshi  also says somewhere that if you start searching the existence of
mind, you will come to know that it is not there at the first place....If
you analyse this from avasthAtraya viveka, that which is advitIya in deep
sleep, becomes/appears vishaya & vishayi in dream & socalled waking
state...so for this false apperance here mind/chitta/mana (or manassu in
Kannada)  is the upAdhi..as soon as this mana become a-mana we dont see any
duality...But question is how this mana become a-mana??  PY followers say
this *amanaskata* happens only in *svarUpa shUnyata samAdhi* or
asamprajnATha samAdhi.  Whereas vEdAnta says this amanaskate happens in two
ways, one is in deep sleep state another through viveka darshana, abhyAsa &
vairAgya...Ofcourse it is in our anubhava that duality re-appear after
waking up, so we can infer that there is a seed form (bIja rUpa) mana in
deep sleep state..Shankara says this rule is applicable even to samAdhi
also coz. waker from samAdhi also does carry the avidyA...But on the other
hand if we attain this a-manaskata through viveka, vairAgyAbhhyAsa with the
aid of direct sAdhana-s like shravaNa, manana & nidhidhyAsana of shAstra
vAkya, then the jnAni would realize that there was/is/will be never ever a
mind at all & it is only Atman existed forever..Hence, gaudapAda in kArika
calls jnAni-s manas as *bAdhita* mana...No need to mention this is not the
case with PY where prakruti & purusha difference maintained eternally.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar