[Advaita-l] 'Ishwaro'ham' and 'IshwarabhAvaH'

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Namaste,

Many persons think that a Paroksha Jnani will have to make all statements conforming to Paroksha-Jnana only. However that is not true. When Arjuna asked his sakha Lord Krishna to repeat the Bhagavad Gita a second time, the latter refused saying that he was in a yogayukta state (a different state) at that time. A Paroksha-jnani can make both Paroksha and Aparoksha statements, whereas an Aparoksha-Jnani can make only Aparoksha statements.

Regards,
Sunil KB




________________________________
 From: V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
To: Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 10:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] 'Ishwaro'ham' and 'IshwarabhAvaH'
 

On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 1:08 PM, <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> When Sringeri periyava identified with Narasimha etc. did he realise "I am
> Bhagavan Narasimha"  or that "I am Nirguna Brahman"?



It was neither.  On the day of the sannyasa, when He was 14, the Swamiji
was being initiated into the Narasimha rAja  mantra.  Here is the account
of the central part of the incident which is relevant here:

p. 68 of the book 'Yoga, Enlightenment and Perfection':  AcharyaL says: The
moment AcharyaL (HH Sri Chandrashekhara Bharati Swamiji) chanted the mantra
once and , following Him, I too did so, an amazing event occurred.
AcharyaL withdrew His hand from My head, joined His palms and gazed at Me
silently with deep reverence.  My breathing stopped.  The form of
Lakshmi-Narasimha that I was seeing within Me vanished.  However, I began
to experience the Lord as My antaryAmin (Inner Controller), refuge and
intimate well-wisher as clearly as one can see a fruit in one's open palm.
I ceased to regard the body, prANa, organ, mind and intellect as MIne;
everything was just His.  I do not know how long I remained thus,
motionless and immersed in bliss.  All along I did see Acharyal keeping His
palms joined and looking in My direction.

Then, the form of Narasimha reappeared and My breathing resumed.....I now
felt extremely intimate with Narasimha.  At the same time Acharyal lowered
HIs hands...After completing the initiation He said, 'After You had said
the mantra once, I saw just Narasimha in Your place. That is why I jerked
back My hand from Your head and offered My salutation to Him.  When His
form disappeared and You reappeared, I proceeded with the initiation.
Dedicate everything to Him.''

End of quote.

It is clear that the Acharya did not realize Himself to be Narasimha.  It
was only His guru that saw Narasimha in the disciple's place for a short
while.  It is another matter that in Advaita there is no realization of
absolute identity with a saguNa mUrthy possible in the manner ' I am Lord
Narasimha, and my consort is Lakshmi.'  And the event was not any
realization of NirguNa Brahman for the actual aparoksha jnanam for the
Acharya happened much later, which too is described in a subsequent chapter
of the same book.


Sankara says in 7.18 that a paroksha jnAni is imbued with the thought I am
> Bhagavan Vasudeva. You interpret on the lines I expected that a paroksha
> jnani thinks "I am nirupadhika brahman referred to by the term Bhagavan".
>

He is not a paroksha jnani but an aparoksha jnani.  Shankara having
declared in the BSB 2.1.14 that Ishwara's
Ishwaratvam/sarvajnatvam/sarvashaktitvam are all in the realm of
avidyA/relativity, and dispelled by right knowledge [...na paramArthato
vidyayA apAsta-sarvopAdhisvarUpa Atmani
IshtR-IshitavyasarvajnatvAdivyavahAraH upapadyate. =  right knowledge
dispels all upadhis in Atman and in such Atman the vyavahara involving
ruled jvas and the ruler Ishwara with omniscience etc.do not exist]  would
not be teaching such an erroneous state as a jnani's realization.

vs
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