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

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 12:49 PM, V Subrahmanian
<v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>wrote:

> Straying from the main topic...doesn't BGVerse 4 /5 -"bahUni me
>> .. para.ntapa  " - indicate Bhagavan's descendances before the present form
>> of 'krishna'. Verse 4/6 - " ajo.api ..AtmamAyayA " - says he comes and goes
>> at his on will. Verses 7 & 8  - "yadA yadA...yuge yuge  " - clearly says
>> that he comes with a purpose. Now this is only to differentiate the
>> 'janmashtami Krishna and the eternal Krishna ( as Swami Paramarthananda
>> Ji says in his Gita classes).
>>
> RV: There are four questions that you should ask yourself or your teacher.
If the answer is yes to any one of them you should answer no to the the
last question. I may seem rudehere but am. Our system is based on pramanas.
Principles are more important than people.

1. Is the lord's body made of five elements?
2. Is the lord's body made of subtle elements?
3. Is the Lord actually embodied as we are?
4. Is there a real relationship between the Lord and His body?
5. Am I an advaitin?

If you read MS 4.6, you will get the right answers with reasons.

Very well said.  Actually MS in that commentary only means: //The
personality of Ishwara is eternal, till such time 'time' exists.//

RV: Does He have a body? If so, is His body gross or subtle? If His body is
gross, then He co-exists with Virat. If His body is subtle, then He
co-exists with Hiranyagarbha. If He does not have a body, does He occupy
someone else's body? Then He is like ghost.

This means: The mAyopAdhi Ishwara that I am, that is endowed with all the
> attributes of all the creation is incapable of being beheld by the physical
> eye.
>
RV: If you quote half his sentence, it is misleading. The full sentence is
"With physical eyes you cannot see Me who am possesed of all the qualities
of elements and who am endowed with the causal body as the upadhi".

>
> This shows that MS is NOT averring any eternality of any  formed avatAra
> like Krishna but only referring to the concept called Ishwara who is
> eternal in Vedanta.  Krishna tells Arjuna, several births of your's and
> mine have come and gone.  This means: several times Ishwara has taken
> avatAra-s, krishna, rama, devi, etc.  Innumerable are they.  The Ishwara
> who taught the Yoga to vivasvAn, the Sun God, in the yore is the same one
> who is now, in the form of Krishna teaching Arjuna.  As Ishwara it is the
> same 'person' who taught Sun in the distant past but NOT  as the
> body-krishna born on an aShTamI.
>
RV: Madhusudana Saraswati says this, "He dispels the notion of His
acceptance of fresh body; the notion of separation from a previous body by
saying avyayaytma api san".

>
> NONE can have any bhakti rasa for that formless Ishwara 'mRuti' but one
> can have any amount of joy, bliss, etc. for the formed Krishna, Rama,
> Narasimha, bAlAmbikA, vAmana, etc. All these bodies/forms are NOT eternal
> in the same way the Ishwara-concept-mUrti is.
>

RV: All the names and forms in the shruti are eternal. This is basic
mimamsa logic.

> अनादिमायैव मदुपाधिभूता यावत्कालस्थायित्वेन च नित्या जगत्कारणत्वसंपादिका
> मदिच्छयैव प्रवर्तमाना विशुद्धसत्वमयत्वेन मम मूर्तिः । [My 'Form' is eternal
> as long as Time exists. It is anAdi mAyA that is My upAdhi. This mUrti is
> the source for the creation-causehood.  That form is owing to My desire,
> made of pure-sattva. ]
>
> If the above purport is not taken then we will have the erroneous
> conclusion that 'krishna-form' is the one that is existing from
> beginningless time, causing the creation, etc.  Again, there is no specific
> Krishna-form, for within KrishnAvatAra we have innumerous forms like baby
> krishna, yashoda krishna, radha krishna, parthasarathy krishna,
> draupadi-krishna, kamsa slayer krishna, aniruddha-father krishna, etc. We
> will have to hold all these as anAdi, ananta.  Such absurdity can be
> avoided ONLY if the above analysis is admitted. MS himself says 'the form
> of Ishwara is not available for the human/physical eye.'  All the above
> enumerated forms were available for seeing by those who lived then and by
> those who do upAsanA, even now.  But that is not the Ishwara mUrti that MS
> is terming 'eternal'.  He also says: 'ato anena nityenaiva dehena
> vivasvantam...' ..therefore, with That Eternal Body did I taught Vivasvan
> and now, you...  Surely, the body that we enumerated above had a date of
> birth and a date of dissolution/passing.  With that body Krishna did not
> teach Vivasvan.
>
RV: Please see my quote above. You are directly contradicting Madhusudana
if you talk about His separation from a previous body and acceptance of a
new body. The appearance of transitional forms from
vyavahara perspective is like the appearance and disappearance of sun.
Please refer the first line of 4.5