[Advaita-l] Locus of maayaa and avidyaa

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Sadananda prabhuji
Hare Krishna

After almost a gap of fortnight I am looking at my un-official mails in 
inbox :-)) and first post of yours itself immediately dragged my 
attention, because, as you know, avidyA & maya both are my pet topics 
apart from jnAni of advaita & his BMI :-))  And you may have to forgive me 
as without reading previous posts on this thread I am replying to your 
mail.  Here is my few thoughts on some of your observation :


Second, since there is nothing other than Brahman, locus for anything 
cannot but be Brahman. At the same time, Brahman being infiniteness cannot 
be locus for anything.

>  Yes, when we consider the sarva vyApakatvaM of brahma, we cannot have 
bifurcation like this Ashraya and Ashrita or mere antaryAmitva and 
sarvavyApakatva. 


Hence the whole discussion of the existence of maayaa and avidyaa are in 
the realm of vyavahaara only. 

> yes, and in addition all these talks about mAya, avidyA, brahma etc. are 
from jeeva's point of view only...brahma which is nitya shuddha, buddha, 
mukta svarUpa does not have anything to do in this avidyAkalpita dvaita 
vyavahAra.

However, vyavahaara itself is product of maayaa from the point of Iswara 
and avidya from
the point of jiiva. 

>  Since we are more particular about getting rid of our (jeeva's) avidyA 
it is better to talk about avidyA of jeeva instead of deciding on 
Ishwara's mAyA vilAsa or leela :-))

Personally I prefer the use of maayaa at Iswara level and
avidyaa at the jiiva level for one important reason. 


>  and shankara too rightly says mAya is Ishwaraadheena (vide geeta 
bhAshya, tAm prakrutiM svAM adhishtAya vasheekrutya saMbhavAmi dehavAniva 
bhavAmi jAta iva ityAdi) and avidyA is jeeva's antaHkaraNa dOsha (vide 
taitereeya bhAshya). 

We need to distinguish Iswara sRishTi and jiiva sRishTi - 

>  jeeva srushti is due to avidyA (adhyAsa), when this adhyAsa goes, jeeva 
realizes that Ishwara srushti 'as it is' in its svarUpa nothing but that 
THAT. 

avidya locus of jiiva since it is the mind of the jiiva that is deluded 
but not the
mind of Iswara. 

>  again, I reckon instead of scratching our head on Ishwara's mind, it is 
better to focus on our (jeeva's) mind which is deluded and seeing one 
thing for another :-)) If we are seeing the snake in place of rope then it 
is our problem, what samashti srushti has to do with this karaNa dOsha??

Hence self-realization or jnaanam occurs at the level of jiiva's mind and 
is not needed at Iswara's level. 

>  Yes, by the grace of Ishwara jeeva realizes that his svarUpa is no more 
a tiny self but it is SELF which is secondless.

The realization at Jiiva level also occurs as Upahita chaitanyam, where 
the upaadhi is his own BMI - it involves destruction of avidyaa but not 
destruction of maayaa which is at Iswara level. 

>  After the destruction of avidyA, erstwhile jeeva realizes that Ishwara 
mAya or srushti is nothing but HIS own, there is a beautiful bhAshya vAkya 
for this in chAndOgya, but I cannot recall it right now!! 


Hence as we saw extended discussions in the other list, there is a 
significant confusion in terms of misunderstanding of destruction of the 
whole creation saying that jnaani does not have BMI 

>  I am sorry, those who are talking about abhAva of jnAni's BMI do not 
saying that after jnAna, the whole creation would vanish like a flash in a 
pan :-)) have you seen any statements like that prabhuji??

and has no perception of the world of plurality, when Jiiva attains 
self-realization. 

>  IMO, there is a valley of difference between saying : 'no perception of 
the world of plurality' and 'jnAni's sarvAtmaikatva adviteeya drushti. 

This problem seems to be somewhat deep-rooted as we see here as well as in 
the other lists due to some incorrect interpretations that were passed on. 


>  IMHO, this is what other camp too thinking, it is due to incorrect 
interpretation of some shruti/smruti/bhAshya vAkya-s, others are wrongly 
attributing kAma-krOdha to paramArtha jnAni in the name of prArabdha karma 
and avidyA lesha.  Kindly dont think this is an attempt to 'level the 
scores', it is the sincere opinion of those who hold advaita's paramArtha 
jnAni/jnAna at high esteem. 


In essence, I feel it is more clearly understood if one uses avidyaa at 
the jiiva level and maayaa at the
Iswara level; although it is muula avidyaa as the primordial cause for 
creation. Most of the confusion, here and elsewhere (in terms of what is 
the status of jiiva mukta) is due to this confusion of the terms of 
avidyaa vs maayaa.

>  I agree with you...but BTW, what is your suggestion to those who argue 
that avidyA = mAya  :-))

My 2 cents.

>  just my 2 naya paisa

Hari Om!
Sadananda

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar