[Advaita-l] The Jnani's feeling of physical pain

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Hari OM, Bhaskar ji,

On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 5:43 PM, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:
> Kindly pardon me for this very belated reply...I was down with severe
> conjunctivitis (popularly known as 'Madras Eye' here in Bangalore :-)) &
> hectic karma at office :-)) Today only I am reading all these mails in
> detail.  Hope you wont mind my share of thoughts here.

Hope you're feeling better. I too was away to Rishikesh till today and
hence the delay in response. I personally feel that we tend to run
around in circles and therefore I'll try to limit the length of
response. I can't help but be repetitive too even in this
intended short response.

> bhaskar :
>
> If jnAni, who is completely abiding in brahmabhAva (or brahman himself),
> does not have to do anything with prArabdha, kindly tell me whose
> suffering is this?? jnAni's?? or BMI of jnAni??

If the jnAni is in brahmabhAva, how can he suffer? So its not jnAni's.
The BMI appears to be suffering as it would, when the ajnAni
'occupied' it.


So, if at all we are seeing the feeling &
> suffering of jnAni's body, then definitely it is our own superimposition
> of dehAtma buddhi on the jnAni and asserting that see ramaNa is
> acknowleding the pain in 'his' body, krishna getting angry, rAma weeping
> for his wife etc. is it not??

This is where I differ. While you seem to make the superimposition of
dehAtma buddhi on the jnAni as a special case, its not so for me. I
think that such superimposition (by onlookers) was there even when the
jnAni was an ajnAni. So that
superimposition has not changed for the ajnAni. It has however changed
for the earlier ajnAni associating himself with the dehAtma buddhi,
who on the rise of jnAna has dropped that superimposition. The weeping
or anger continues its
momentum as it was, like the arrow shot yet to reach its destination.


> IMO, there are only two options available for us here...Either we have to
> accept that jnAni, even after having Atma jnAna or abiding himself in Atma
> bhAva would occasionally get rAgAdi feelings (vAsana-s) by identifying
> himself with the BMI OR having realized the truth that he is 'ashareeri'
> always, he does not/cannot have dehAtma buddhi to feel the feelings of
> rAga, dvesha...So, socalled activities/attitudes of jnAni-s are merely in
> the perception of ajnAni-s who cannot go beyond the realms of jnAni-s BMI.
>  Kindly tell me which one we should opt here.

If those are the only two options you have, I have no choice to make.
:) My pick is the third one that the same prArabdha that applied to
the BMI before the rise of jnAna applies on the rise of jnAna. The
change, however, is that the jnAni doesn't
bind himself to that BMI.

> I am sorry, I am finding it difficult to catch your thoughts here.  Do you
> mean to say here jnAni's jnAna (Atma jnAna) does not have anything to do
> with his attitude & controlling of his emotions??

Yes.

If everything taking
> care by his prArabdha itself then what is the use of jnAna??

The "use" of jnAna is *not* to have free-will and leaving it for
prArabdha to do what is deemed best. The freewill of controlling
prArabdhic flow is due to avidyA and thats what is binding.

As per
> standard theory, jnAna cannot influence the prArabdha karma phala of the
> 'present' jnAni, so jnAni with the influence of his prArabdha may get
> kAma, krOdha due to 'external' stimulations, if his prArabdha is such that
> he has to 'get-on' with these vipareeta pratyaya-s/vAsana-s,

Yes

then jnAni
> will be the victim of these rAgAdi vAsana-s is it not??

Not so. If the jnAni is not binding himself to any particular BMI, why
is he a victim of those?

His prArabdha may
> prompt him 'kill' some one or hurt someone, there is absolutely no control
> over it from jnAni's side!!

If there is no control over it on jnAni's side, its improper to say
"prompt *him*", isn't it? The him which comes from ahaMkAra of myness
has gone with rise of jnAna, IMHO.

Kindly clarify your stand prabhuji.  Anyway,
> shankara in bruhadAraNyaka says very clearly that there is no vipareeta
> pratyaya for the jnAni, whether there is influence of prArabdha or not.

I don't think anything that I said means that the jnAni has vipareeta
pratyaya. In any case, I foresee a Q, then whose pratyaya is it, which
will make us both run in circles again. :)

> prabhuji, as per my understanding of the recent discussion on jnAni's
> cheshte, using of jnAna is something like this, whenever jnAni gets the
> feelings or pravrutti-s in his mind, immediately he takes the shelter
> under newly acquired jnAna and sits in a witness box & objectify these
> feelings and controls or subdue it by thinking about his jnAna svarUpa.

To my understanding, that "newly acquired" jnAna has nothing to do
with his laukika behaviour, but the shuddhatA of chitta prior to rise
of jnAna defines the sthirata. Either way, the jnAni himself remains
free of associating with them.

> but jnAna cannot influence prArabdha and there is no guarantee that
> prArabdha gets dissolved on its own!!

There is no guarantee of what prArabdha does since it is an arrow shot
prior to anything happened in this lifetime of the jnAni.

one jnAni's pratyaya may subdue
> immediately coz. of his prArabdha but another jnAni's vipareeta pratyaya
> may continue to be there longer time causing more harms again due to the
> influence of same prArabdha..It is logical (according to some others!!) to
> think so, because prArabdha continues 'as long as' he is there in his
> BMI...in other words, kAma krodhAdi pravrutti-s will be there for the
> jnAni as long as he is there in the complex of BMI and he cannot even get
> the help of his jnAna to subdue it..is this what you are trying to say
> here prabhuji??

I'm saying that he needs to take no help of jnAna for anything, all he
needs to do, so to say, is be with the jnAna and remain there. What
happens to the BMI is not his business at all, which he knows now and
didn't know earlier (to rise of jnAna) due to wrong superimposition of
his.

> again, whether partial (or diffirent levels of purification) chitta
> shuddhi is enough to get svarUpa jnAna is a matter of further
> deliberation..shankara says in geeta bhAshya shama damAdi susamskruta
> manaH Atma darshane karaNaM and in the very first sUtra bhAshya too he
> talks about the qualification that is required for brahma jignAsa & jnAna
> ..I dont think shankara assures us here that 'bhAgashaH' chitta shuddhi is
> enough to realize Atma jnAna!!??  He might have talked about it somewhere
> else, kindly let me know.

I don't think it means sampUrNa anywhere here. Else I'd have to think
that Sw. Vidyaranya endorsing vidvat samnyAsa is meaningless, which I
surely don't.

> bhaskar :
>
> So, as per the above statement, jnAna of the jnAni does not have any role
> to play here...so prArabdha and its influence is ONE and the SAME for both
> jnAni & ajnAni...

To my understanding, yes.

and jnAni sometimes behave & indulge in activities like
> ajnAni due to his prArabdha karma phala.

Bhaskar ji, if I agree to "jnAni behaves" the way you put it here,
you'll say that I'm contradicting myself from earlier stand. So I do
not agree that jnAni behaves but "the BMI that was associated with him
earlier behaves"...

Dont you think jnAni's life
> getting tuff because of this prArabdha:-))

... so obviously, no. :) Its us ajnAnis whose lives are tough because
we can't make head nor tail of the jnAni. So, I'll stop here with a
summary ahead.


> bhaskar :
>
> But haven't we attributing BMI to Atma jnAni who is nothing but jnAna
> svarUpa??

BMI is attributed to because it was attributed to earlier. There is no
change in it from earlier stance by ajnAnis. I personally feel its
contradictory to say that jnAni's BMI is not his but only a
superimposition and in the same breath say that jnAni
can't have rAgAdi doshas. If its a superimposition, those rAgAdi
doshas are not his to talk of. But you seem to hold that if there are
rAgAdi doshas, he's not a jnAni. To this effect, you're also a scholar
to quote Shankara Bhagavatpada and prove
it. However, the contradiction seems to be there as is, at least for
mUDhAs like me. :) So instead, I understand that partial chitta
shuddhi existed when jnAna rose and therefore, anger, etc, may rise in
such a BMI post-jnAna. jnAni himself has no
binding to them. I think I'll stick to this stand unless jnAna shines
with Guru's immense grace which betters it. Thanks for your satsanga,
I reckon I've no more points beyond this summary.

shrIgurupAdukArpaNamastu,
--praveen