[Advaita-l] Vikalpa, Savikalpa, and Nirvikalpa

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Dear Bhaskar,
 
At the risk of continuing a discussion that is mostly moot at this point, here is a 
belated response.
 

> 
> 
> Is there any necessary obstacle to jnAna in the case of such a person, 
> which will require
> janmAntara for jnAna to rise? 
> 
> > I think that is the reason why arjuna asks about 'yOga brashta-s' and 
> subsequent clarification by lord. OTOH, for the jnAni-s there is no other 
> obstacle other than avidyA and once this ajnAna goes there is nothing that 
> can stop jnAni to realize & establish in his Atma svarUpa. 
> phalatvaprasiddhirapi mOkshasya baNdhanivruttimAtrApekshAH clarifies 
> shankara in sUtra bhAshya. 

I am afraid you missed the point of my question. The gItA verse you quote
is about those who do NOT reach saMsiddhi in the yogamArga. My point,
however, was to raise a thought-provoking question in the context of jnAna
yoga and kramamukti. To reiterate, my question was, given a person who is
on the path of krama mukti (which involves a lot of yogAbhyAsa, as you can
easily acknowledge), is there any obstacle to the rise of jnAna for such a
person, within the lifetime in which he or she is doing all this?
 
> 
> > sometimes your comments really hurts me prabhuji. But I know whatever 
> you say that is only for my betterment. Since you have already quoted the 
> bhAshya vAkya, I have not quoted the full sentence. Even if I quote the 
> full sentence that does not say chitta vrutti nirOdha is mOksha sAdhana. 
> Since jnAni's jnAna is ekadhAra towards Atmaikatva it can be called as 
> chitta vrutti nirOdha but it is sahaja & aprayatna, we cannot compare this 
> with patanjali's prayatna pUrvaka chitta vrutti nirOdha as a purusha 
> tantra sAdhana. In that bhAshya vAkya itself shankara clarifies 
> abhyupagamya idaM uktaM. 
> 

I do not mean to be hurtful at all, but just wish to point out that understanding
the siddhAnta upheld by Sankara bhagavatpAda requires a comprehensive 
reading of many different bhAshya sources and connecting the dots, as it were.

I fail to see why one has to keep harping on the purusha prayatna pUrvaka 
pAtanjala yogAbhyAsa every time someone other than Sankara bhagavatpAda
uses any word remotely connected to yoga, when the same words occur with
high frequency in the prasthAna traya bhAshya-s. That is all. I find it curious
that such comments always crop up from some quarters! And I find it more
curious that such critics never seem to take into account that a text written
as an independent discussion (e.g. jIvanmuktiviveka) or an instruction manual
(e.g. many of the prakaraNa granthas generally attributed to Sankara) or as
a descriptive account has quite diffferent aims than a commentary on the
upanishads and sUtras. When a later AcArya talks theoretically or from 
personal experience about nirvikalpa samAdhi or another kind of samAdhi
to a disciple, there is no need to immediately jump to pAtanjala yoga and
talk as if the said AcArya is deviating from Sankara. It is a description of
an anubhava that is subjected to the same kind of parIkshA that the usual 
avasthA-s of jAgrat, svapna and sushupti are subjected to in standard
vedAnta practice. That such experiences happen in the course of jnAna
nishThA is a foregone conclusion.
 
Best regards,
Vidyasankar