[Advaita-l] Vikalpa, Savikalpa, and Nirvikalpa

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste


On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan
<svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
Samadhi is also experience of some person in Jagrat. Some people joke
to say Samadhi is Sushupti. But in both cases it will also have Ajnana
in it because all three Jagrat, Svapna and Sushupti are in Ajnana
only. How can Jnana come in Samadhi? Some people can take drugs and
have wonderful hallucinations. But it is also Ajnana only.

> Best regards,
> Vidyasankar
>

-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh