[Advaita-l] Discussion on Chandogya 8.6.6

[Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)]

>In his Email of April 29,2008,Ramesh krishnamurthy wrires that
>earlier,Vidyasankar has posted the role of Yogasastra in
>Brahmasutrabhashyas of Shankara.However,Sahankara's view is that
whereever
>Yogasastra is not in contradiction to Vedas,Yogasastra could be
>accepted.whereever it is in opposition to the vedas it should be
>rejected.No where in his bhashyas he has mentioned about kundalini
yoga. 

As you may be aware, I had posted a series on Advaita Vedanta and its
relationship to Yoga. The whole topic of Sruty-anusAra-ananusAra
acceptance/rejection of Yoga (or for that matter, any other smRti
tradition) was discussed in some fair detail. These postings are at

http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-September/01824
2.html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-September/01825
5.html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-September/01829
6.html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-October/018353.
html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-October/018355.
html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-October/018429.
html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-October/018448.
html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-October/018453.
html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-October/018459.
html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-November/018550
.html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-November/018612
.html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-December/018698
.html
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2007-January/018743.
html

The last posting in this series was made in January 2007. I have not
continued with further postings in this series, as I didn't want to keep
repeating the same things over and over again. In the last post, I had
stopped with a statement that I will examine the references to yoga in
the gItAbhAshya, but in reality these are so extensive that I cannot do
justice to it without discussing almost every paragraph in the bhAshya
on the gItA! Also, there is nothing much that I can say about this
bhAshya that is not already available in various translations/general
books and that numerous others on our list aren't already discussing.

>Vedanta is an exclusive discipline free from the influence of other
>theories,like sankhya,yoga,Vaisheshika,nyaya etc.here,the emphasis is
on
>the immediate perception or jnana of the Brahman.it is based on the
simple
>logic that whatever is Truth,it must be uncontradicted in all the
periods
>of time(trikalabhadita satya.)This it arrives at by negating(Neti neti)
>the superimpositions created by ignorance(avidya) of the
>Jivatma(individual self).To achieve this it adopts two
>approaches:adhyaropa apavada nyaya and the anvaya-vyatireka nyaya.The
>Vedanta is self sufficient in itself 

Yes, vedAnta is indeed self-sufficient in itself, but Sankara
bhagavatpAda does not ignore nyAya or sAMkhya-yoga or mImAMsA at all.
Nor does he hesitate to refer to dhyAna (in a significantly yogic sense)
in addition to jnAna when necessary. After all, if the immediate
perception or jnAna of brahman is that easy to attain, we would all be
sadyo-mukta-s right now, living out perfect exemplary lives! It is
easier said than done, to attain the Sama, dama, uparati, titikshA and
samAdhAna that are prerequisites for jnAna, and it seems to me that
Sankara bhagavatpAda fully takes into account the contribution that yoga
and other darSana-s make towards qualifying us for that jnAna.  

As always, the application of concepts, conclusions, examples and
relevant sUtras from the other darSana-s is determined by the context of
discussion in vedAnta. Sankara bhagavatpAda does not stop with
adhyAropa-apavAda vAda and anvaya-vyatireka based tarka. He extensively
describes and explains various upAsana-s, dhyAna on saguNa brahman, on
pratIka-s (symbolic representations), the mImAMsA topics of injunctions
(vidhi) and prohibitions (pratishedha) as applied to these upAsana-s,
the role of yoga (Asana-s, ekAgratA, dhAraNa, etc) in the upAsana-s and
many other topics.

Regards,
Vidyasankar