[Advaita-l] Advaiti Response to this report?

[V Subrahmanian]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Venkatesh Murthy <vmurthy36 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Namaste Sri Praveen
>
> Tell me one place where there is no Brahman. This is how
> Hiranyakashipu asked the boy Prahlada. He said Everywhere. Even the non
> living Pillar. He broke it to see and inside there was Narasimha.
>

The Pillar had to be broken.  There lies the answer to your question.  It
is only because Sat cannot be seen there was the need to break the pillar.
This episode only symbolically teaches that the gross, the nAma-rUpa pair,
is what is 'covering', enveloping the extremely subtle Sat that indeed is
everywhere, everything. Prahlada had to show that the Sat is the
adhishThAnam of the superimposed pillar.  In fact Sat alone IS.  It is only
because the unenlightened is engrossed in the gross thinking that that
alone is the real, the truth, the Scripture has to show by means of
negation, neti neti, the only reality, Sat, by 'breaking' the 'pillar'.
So, by the indispensable method of negation, neti neti, the Scripture is
compelled to use mAyAvAda only to enable the grasping of the truth that it
itself teaches through brahmavAda.  Thus it is impossible to implement
brahmavAda in the absence of the tool mAyAvAda.  Just one example where
this, this alone is, the method of the Scripture is:

*नासतो*  विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सतः ।
उभयोरपि दृष्टोऽन्तस्त्वनयोस्तत्त्वदर्शिभिः ।।१६।। BG 2.16

Here note the key words : asat and sat.  After defining what these two are:
asat has no true existence whatsoever and sat has no destruction
whatsoever, the verse goes on to say the most crucial thing:  The firm
understanding of these TWO (mAyAvAda and brahmavAda) is essential for one
to be a tattvavit.  It neither stops with either of these two nor endorses
that Tattvavedanam consists of just a knowledge of either of these two;
both are a must.

There are a number of such dual-teachings all over the scripture.  (The
teaching of) brahmavAda is impossible without (the teaching of) mAyAvAda
and mAyAvAda is incomplete without culminating in BrahmavAa.

Sri Vidyaranya Swamin says in the Panchadashi:

चिद्यं वा परिहारो वा क्रियतां द्वतभाषया

The vyvahara of question-answer (teaching) is possible only through the
language of duality; hence the need for the pair of mAyAvAda and
BrahmavAda.

This is the Vedanta siddhAnta.  Anything that differs from this fundamental
position of vedanta is simply inadmissible in the sampradaya.

Om Tat Sat  (signifying my last post in this thread)

subrahmanian.v




> This shows Brahman is there in everything. That is Sat is there in
> everything.
>
>