[Advaita-l] Fwd: Difference Between Sankya and Advaita!

[Ravisankar Mayavaram]

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 12:21 AM, Siva Senani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> Next when we say that Yoga is saankhya + ISvara, it needs to be emphasised that
> it does not amount to anything significant. The ISvara of Yoga is a special
> person, 'purusha-viSeshah' [2] (? like the arhat of Jains, whose
> samyakchaaritram is exactly the same as the yamas of Yogasutras), whose main
> drawback is that he is not the creator and that he cannot 'grant' moksha [3]. To
> that extent, this acceptance of Isvara does not have any conflict with Saankhya,
> especially given the context that Isvara is mainly proposed as an aalambana for
> yogaabhyaasana. From a meditation point of view, Isvara is as good as anything
> that one likes [4], like a statue, a book, a teacher or whatever. Thus the
> atheism of Saankhya and the theism of Yoga are not really different. I think
> this is the reason why not too much stress is placed on this difference between
> Saankhya and Yoga on this aspect.
>

You should also consider the sutra
ईश्वरप्रणिधानाद्वा॥ १ - २३॥

which is again repeated
समाधिसिद्धिरीश्वरप्रणिधानात्‌॥ २- ४५॥

In addition His role as Guru
स पूर्वेषाम्‌ अपि गुरुः कालेनानवच्छेदात्‌॥ १ -२६॥

And the fact that praNava is unique and constant symbol
तस्य वाचकः प्रणवः॥ १-  २७॥

You can tie this verses reverential to praNava in shruti such as Om
ityekAxaram brahma.

yoga darshaNa considers that liberation is attained easily by iishvara
praNidhaana.

One cannot take that yataabhimataddhyAnAdvaa by itself to say that hey
meditating on Ishvarya Rai is same as meditating on Ishvara, hence
Ishvara is not important. Even meditating on Ishvarya Rai will help to
integrate the scattered mind - patanjali is OK with a beginner
starting on anything that is easy for him/her to learn the principles
behind eka tattva abhyAsa.

My 2c.

Ravi

(Sunil Bhattacharjya in some other thread a while ago mentioned that
purpose of Yoga is to Unite. Sorry for posting this out of context
without giving the link. Actually the purpose of Yoga as in Yoga
Darshana is to *separate* puruSha from prakrti. It helps to achieve
this by integrating the scattered mind and eventually leading to
mano-nAsha)