[Advaita-l] Pervade-ness

[V Subrahmanian]

Namaste.

While Ishwara and the jagat also have Brahman as their Substratum just as
the jiva has, the Upanishadic teaching is addressed to the jiva alone.
Ishwara and the jagat do not face the problem of samsara.  They (both) are
there only for catering to the jiva's samsAritvam.

Therefore, the Upanishad wants to show who in truth the jiva is.  It employs
several methods to accomplish this.  In the Taittiriya Upanishad the chief
method is the pancha kosha viveka.  Jiva's jivatvam (samsAritvam) is
essentially his identitification with the body-mind-senses-apparatus which
is what the pancha-kosha group is.  The Upanishad takes the jiva step by
step from the grossest kosha, physical body, thru the more subtle koshas and
shows them all as anAtma and only the kosha-free Consciousness as the Real
Atman, Brahman.

The aim of the Upanishad is to free the jiva from samsAritva.  To this end
it shows thru the above method that the jiva is not any of the inert kosha-s
but he is in truth the Pure Consciousness.  This is what is conveyed by the
line: jivo Brahmaiva, na paraH (the jiva is Brahman alone and nothing
else).  It is like 'Tat tvam asi' or 'ayam Atma Brahma'.

In the course of the teaching the Upanishad also succeeds in showing that
the jagat, the manifestation of Prakriti, is also only Brahman, being a
superimposition.  Ishwara who is the entity that brings together the jiva
and the jagat during samsara, having now no role to play as Ishwara, lapses
into Brahman.  Of course, this is only from the standpoint of the now Jnani
jiva.

Best regards,
subrahmanian.v

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Karen <karens at i.ua> wrote:

> Dear Sri Subrahmanian,
>
> thanks for your explanations on "entry" in creation.
>
> Could you please explain me:
> why Acharya use *jIvo* as brahmaiva naparah
> when jiva also mithya on a level with Ishvara and Jagan?
>
> I know that here Acharya means Substratum of jIva, but not jIva himself.
> Then why he say "Jivo Brahmaiva naparah"
> Where is my confusion?
>
> Please bear with me!
>
> With warm regards,
> Karen
>