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

[H S Chandramouli]

H S Chandramouli

Dear Sri Bhaskarji,

You wrote

< Yes, it is said that
prAjna (please note which is upAdhi rahita ) in sushupti is sarveshwara,
sarvajna.  Here this sarvajnatva attributed to jeeva's sushupti sthAna
without the help of any upAdhi. >

If Prajna is upadhirahita, then how to distinguish Prajna from Turiya.
Please clarify

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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