[Advaita-l] : Sankhya and Yoga can give Moksha?

[S Jayanarayanan]

Bhaskar YR bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com wrote:

> No, I think you have not read the mAdhaveeya completely. As cautioned by 
> padmapAda, shankara indeed 'trapped' in King's body completely and lost 
> himself !! His shishya vrunda had to sing 8 songs to 'awake' AchArya from 
> king's body. While in king's body, Acharya has become expert in 
> vAtsyAyana kAma sUtra & its bhAshya and has written one new
dissertation 
> called Amaraka kAvya. One of the biographer explains that shankara 
> experienced 'nirargaLa brahmAnanda' in King's body when having 'contact' 
> with women in antaHpura :-)) So, according to mAdhaveeya, he is actually 
> trapped in king's body and his disciples had to try hard to get him out 

 
This mirrors
an incident that occurs towards the end of the Valmiki Ramayana. Brahma questions
Rama about the latter's identity, and Rama replies: “AtmAnam mAnuSham manye” ("I consider
myself to be a man").
 
 
Brahma then “reminds”
Rama that he is actually Vishnu, and Rama “remembers” His real nature.
 
 
The question
naturally arises – how did the great Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu Himself, apparently “forget” his real nature, and have
to be “reminded” by Brahma, whose status is inferior to Vishnu (there are
literally dozens of instances where Vishnu reveals himself to be superior to
Brahma)? The answer is quite simple – Rama had to play the role of a perfect ordinary
man to the fullest, and wanted to show the common people how the Self is to be realized only
through an instruction. This event also gave Brahma an opportunity to show his
devotion to Vishnu.
 
 
Just as Rama showed an apparent ignorance of his real nature, so too did Sankara show an apparent ignorance of his real nature. Sankara was playing the role of a king and gave his disciples an
opportunity to show their devotion to their Guru, in the same way as Brahma received an opportunity to show his devotion to Vishnu.
 
 
In fact, Sankara even says in the Dig-Vijayam, "I am equal to Maha-Vishnu".
 
 
Regards,
Kartik