[Advaita-l] Advaita and Bhagavad Gita

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

Thanks for your responses. A friend of mine quoted 13.32 "anaditvat
nirgunatvat paramatma ayam avyaya: sarirastopi kaunteya na karoti na
lipyate". Here the Lord clearly refers to the jivatma as paramatma, calls it
nirguna, unconditioned but more importantly actionless!

Jaladhar Vyas, pandavanam dhananjaya: (10.37) is a good point.
Vidyasankar, if jnani is the self why does he take many lives to attain or
surrender to the lord? (bahunam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapadyate 7.19)
Ravisankar, being the self of all is one of the vibhutis of the lord like
being the sun or dhananjaya. Please see the previous verse (bg 10.19) where
the lord sets the context. Also, as you said, it could refer to paramatma
not jivatma for those who dont accept both are one. Hence this cannot be a
verse to unambiguously establish advaitam.
Bhaskar, every sampradaya claims to interpret consistently but we should
only take that interpretation that is true to sastras. If Sri Ramanuja calls
jiva a karta but the Lord says jiva is akarta, then we cannot accept Sri
Ramanuja's opinion. All variants of dualists teach that jiva is conditioned
and the purpose of sastras is to teach jiva to become unconditioned. But the
Lord clearly says that jiva is not conditioned even while in the body like
space is not tainted because it is subtle.