[Advaita-l] Omniscience, etc. only due to upAdhi

[H S Chandramouli]

Namaste.

Sorry. The earlier mail went thru by mistake in the computer. I have no
where stated that the Real Karanam ( Brahman ) undergoes vikara. I have
mentioned that it is through Maya that it appears to undergo vikara in the
form of creation. This is the start of vivarta. Upanishads do ascribe
reality to begin with for this vikara and followup with negating reality to
this creation through the use of karana-karya prakriya. It is during this
negation that it uses the principle that karya is not different from karana
as it is dependent on karana. You had mentioned in your first mail that
rope snake is the ONLY example of depndence of this nature. This is what i
had disputed. There is certainly a difference between the two types of
dependence, rope snake and clay pot. Whatever you have quoted from the
upanishads is only with reference to Brahman and that has no where been
disputed by me. We are discussing only the methodology adopted by
upanishads to bring home this truth.

Regards


On Sat, Dec 28, 2013 at 12:34 PM, V Subrahmanian
<v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>wrote:

> Namaste
>
> 'Omniscience' is the word generally used to connote the sanskrit term
> 'sarvajnatvam'.  'Knowledge' of 'everything' implies that the possessor of
> such a knowledge is different from the 'everything' and the 'knowledge'.
> Thus, just as a person who 'knows' something is different from that thing,
> and without that thing in place no knowledge of it is possible for the
> person, the Vedantic Brahman too cannot be inherently possessed with the
> knowledge of 'everything' unless that 'everything' is existing.
>
> Now, the 'everything', in other words, the entire creation, jagat, is
> 'existing' ONLY on the 'sat', existence, of the Sat, Brahman.  Thus the
> world enjoys only a dependent existence, paratantra sattaa, and never an
> independent existence, swatantra sattaa.  The ONLY example for such a
> phenomenon is the rope-snake.
>
> Since the world is thus not Brahman but only dependent on It, the
> omniscience of Brahman cannot be inherent in Brahman but could at best be
> 'attributed' to It.  Inseparably attached to the concept of 'omniscience'
> is the pair satyakAmatvam (unfailing desire) and satyasankalpatvaM
> (unfailing resolves)
>
> We have in the chandogya up. a mantra:
>
> स ब्रूयान्नास्य.......सत्यकामः सत्यसंकल्पो....८.१.५
>
> The translation of this mantra is:
>
> //5.   Then he (the teacher) should say: "With the old age of the  body,
> That (i.e. Brahman, described as the akasa in the heart)  does not age;
> with the death of the body, That does not die.  That Brahman and not the
> body is the real city of Brahman. In  It all desires are contained. It is
> the Self — free from sin, free  from old age, free from death, free from
> grief free from hunger, free from thirst; free from thirst; Its desires
> come true, Its thoughts come true.   Just as, here on earth, people follow
> as they are commanded by  a leader and depend upon whatever objects they
> desire, be it a  country or a piece of land so also those who are ignorant
> of the  Self depend upon other objects and experience the result of  their
> good and evil deeds.//
>
> Here is a teaching of the nature of Brahman, the Self.  The teaching comes
> both in the saguna and nirguna mode, combined, as is the case with the
> Upanishads and the smRtis, in several places.  Shankaracharya while
> commenting on the highlighted words above says:
>
> संकल्पाः कामाश्च शुद्धसत्त्वोपाधिनिमित्ताः ईश्वरस्य, चित्रगुवत् । न स्वतः,
> नेति नेतीत्युक्त्वात् ।
>
> [sankalpAh kAmAshcha shuddhasattvopAdhinimittAH Ishvarasya, chitraguvat. na
> svataH, neti neti ityuktatvAt']
>
> The translation of the above is:
>
> //Wills and desires of God are caused by the limiting adjunct (upAdhi) of
> pure sattva, as a man is called 'Chitragu' when he is possessed of cows of
> various colors. [A person having cows of various colors is called
> 'chitragu', and the phrase does not mean that the person himself has many
> colors.  Similarly in the case of Brahman, true wills and desires are not
> the qualities of Brahman Itself, but caused the quality of sattva which is
> Its upAdhi.]  But they do not inhere in Him, since the UpaniShad declares,
> 'Not this, not this' (Br.2.3.6).//
>
> Thus satyakAmatva, satyasankalpatva, etc can remain in Brahman only owing
> to the upAdhi which is not-brahman.  In other words, the shruti teaches
> Brahman as possessed of omniscience and its related attributes only to
> impress upon the mind of the seeker the existence and infinite nature of
> Brahman.  The shruti also, as shown by Shankara above, negates all such
> attributes through passages such as neti neti.  Thereby the shruti holds
> out Brahman free of all attributes for realization as one's true Self as
> taught by passages such as 'tat tvam asi'.
>
> regards
> subrahmanian.v
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