[Advaita-l] ChidAbhAsa and Ishvara

[V Subrahmanian]

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 3:06 PM, Raghav Kumar <raghavkumar00 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> I would like to suggest that the whole idea of cidAbhasa was introuduced in
> the tradition primarily to explain not how the jIva is *different *from cit,
> being a limited/partial manifestion of that very Cit. Rather, the more
> important reason is to explain how the jIvopAdhi is able to accomplish
> something like free will, deliberation, thinkng etc which are not possible
> for stones and rocks etc.
>
> Rocks and stones too have the aspects of "asti and bhAti", or "sattA and
> sphurti" which are derived from their adhiShThAna which is Cit-Brahma
> alone. In that wider sense, everything in jagat, even inanimate matter has
> cidAbhAsa. But that is not the idea behind introducing this word by the
> acharyas of yore. Rather, the antahkaraNa (the reflecting meduim, as you
> put it) is a special configuration (sattva-pradhAna configuration) of the
> panchabhUtas which endows it with a special property or characteristic not
> observed in stones etc., and this allows the antaHkaraNa to catch the
> reflection so to speak of the all-pervading Cit  I have cidAbhasa, but an
> android or robot which can mimic "seeing" or "perception" through CCD
> cameras and software does not have cidAbhasa.



The above theme is presented in some elaboration in an old post of mine
here:

http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2010-April/024371.html



> Therefore, even if we grudgingly grant a robot/android some kind of
> vritti-vyApti when it "sees" an object. It does not have phala-vyApti which
> I have, which comes from cidAbhAsa of my antaHkaraNa.  Therfore I have
> perceptual knowledge which I  can own up (I know that I know) and objectify,
> while the robot has at best perceptual information but not knowledge or
> ownership over that its data.)
>
>
>
> Raghav
>