[Advaita-l] A matter for Adjudication

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> Hence, you cannot comeout of 
> some mystic experience and say, see I had been there in nirvikalpasamAdhi 
> from early morning 4 to 6, based on my experience I will say brahman is 
> ONE without second, so you have to accept the advaita which is 
> ultimate..If you do that, immediately, a dualist would comeforward and say 
> : "see, I have the darshana of bhagavAn krishna today in brAhmi mahUrta, 
> during a course of discussion, he said, these mAyAvAdins making mess of my 
> sandesha in geeta, you tell all ajnAni-s in the world that I am the 
> supreme godhead and these puny jeeva-s should not think tattvamasi, let 
> them do archana, upAsana to reach by abode vaikunta I'll take care of 
> their yOgakshema, this is the ultimate saNdesha...Which one is parama 
> pramANa to realize the ultimate truth here?? Ofcourse, as you know, both 


Bhaskar, you are mixing up two issues here. One is - what is the pramANa for
knowing brahman? The second is - what is the pramANa for knowing that a 
person who has brahmAnubhava continues to live and function in the world,
*as if* he were just like all other human beings?

 

For the first issue, no one, not Sankara bhagavatpAda, not even one of the
traditional authors of vyAkhyAna-s and none among us e-sampradAya-vAdI-s
is asking you to take the jnAnI's word as a pramANa that brahman exists and
is ekam eva advitIyam. For that knowledge, there is the standard pramANa of
the veda, which guides you in your own analysis of the avasthA-traya and in
your own quest for the turIyAvasthA. This has nothing to do with anyone's
opinions regarding mUlAvidyA or avidyAleSa.

For the second issue, it is only a particular jnAnI's word that he has "sva-
hRdaya-pratyaya" of brahmAnubhava along with the dehadhAraNa. (I am using
the bhAshya terms alone here.) The jnAnI who is a true vedAntic philosopher
does not cite his own experience as a pramANa to establish the philosophical
darSana. However, there is no reason why he cannot cite his own experience
to his disciples in the course of teaching. The jnAnI who is a mystic and not
a rigorous philosopher may say something else, but that does not hurt the
rigorously established darSana in any way. Hope you see the distinction
between the two situations with respect to pramANa for realizing brahman.

The dvaitin can turn around and call both kinds of jnAnI liars, but that is an
issue that has no bearing on the above. As far as the advaitin is concerned,
the truth or otherwise of any person's statement about sva-hRdaya-pratyaya
can be known from the sthitaprajna-lakshaNa and other related teaching.

 

> of them based on the vaiyuktikAnubhava of respective individuals who are 
> preaching two different siddhAnta-s...it is only shraddha in one 
> individual you are saying other person's interpretation wrong or 
> interpreting his siddhAnta differently to match your book (as you did in 
> purandaradAsa devara nAma:-))..is it not?? And now what is purNAnubhava?? 
> anubhava which is neither indriyAnubhava or vedanAnubhava and which is 
> universal to one and all like agnirushNa....


The ushNatva of agni is certainly known for everybody through indriya-s
alone. A particular vedAnA of another person can be known through other
effects of that vedanA, these effects themselves been indriya-gocara,
e.g. happiness/sadness in the eyes, expressions of pain in movement etc.


brahmAnubhava is not like that and until there is avidyAnivRtti for me, I
have no idea what it is really. sarvAtmatva is the nature of the experience
of the jnAnI, but that does not mean that all bhUta-s have that experience
all the time. So long as we are talking of experience, the sarvAtmatva is
still a special experience of the jnAnI. Wouldn't you agree?

 

Vidyasankar

 		 	   		  
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