[Advaita-l] Is the concept of maya essential to explain advaita?

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 1:24 AM, kuntimaddi sadananda <
kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Shree Rajaram - PraNAms
>
> With due respects, Shri Balasubramanian has not recognized that his own
> existence and the words he stated cannot be explained without maaya. Maya
> is a force that makes one to appear as many. any change of state requires a
> force and forces has locus - this the fundamental law of physics. It is
> like stating I do not need gravitational force to explain apple falling
> down. For one to become many there has to be a driving force. Maaya in
> vedanta comes since all pervading consciousness is appearing as inert
> entities - which is impossible on a realistic scale. Hence maaya is defined
> as aghaTita ghaTanaa paTiiyasii - that which makes impossible possible.
>
> Hari Om!
> Sadananda
>
>
Rajaram: Considering Shri Balasubramanian's age, scholarly accomplishments
and association with traditional mutts, I have revised my position based on
Shri Vidyasankar's way of looking at it. I think he is quite aware that
Maya / Avidya is required to explain advaita just as a scholar of Physics
knows the importance of Mathematical concepts. But a great Physicist such
as Roger Penrose may write an advanced book like Shadows of the
Mind  without forcing the reader to understand the intricacies of
underlying mathematics. A Physics professor  writing the foreword to Roger
Penrose might say, "Roger Penrose does not use mathematical concepts to
explain Physics  because it is not essential that a book on Physics should
use Mathematics". It does not mean that Roger Penrose does not think
Mathematics underlies Physics or that the professor writing the foreword is
unaware of the importance of Mathematics to explain Physics. It is just
that it is possible to explain Physics without *too much* Mathematics as
long as you use the conclusion. It is analogous to Shri Totakacharya
explaining Advaitam without going deep in to the concept of Maya and Avidya
where as using conclusions such as unreal jagat caused by ignorance and
Shri R. Balasubramanian saying that "The concept of Maya is not essential
to explain Advaita".