[Advaita-l] Body is the disease

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Thu, 23 Jan 2014 21:51:41 -0500, svedagarbha at gmail.com wrote:

> By all means you may consider both provisional paxa-s as provisional, I
> have no objection. However, when you accept there is no avidya at all in
> the end, this perceived bhEdAtmaka jagat remains unexplained by you along
> with non-duality of Brahman.

1. Why should there be any other explanation, when we have explicitly said that
*any* and *all* explanations can only be provisional?
 
2. Why should non-duality of brahman need any explanation? What is Sruti for?
 
3. Finally, are you arguing that the non-duality of brahman is not a matter of
svAnubhUti and can never be so, for anyone? If yes, please say so explicitly, so
the other members of the list know where you stand.
 
> First, your conclusion "provisional facts can be used to arrive at tattva"
> is not correct. In both of your examples, what has happened is a kArya
> (sweating, trembling etc), and not any "tattva" such as "tattvamasi" etc. I
> hope, you know the difference tattva and a kArya.
> 
 
I will wait for Sri Anand Hudli to respond if he so wishes. Yet, I'm sure he knows
very well what you are reaching towards. Meanwhile, 
 
Why not? Objects and events seen in dream have only provisional factuality. They
lose it after waking up. The transition to waking up is the kArya. The understanding
of the dream state and the waking state are tAttvika. Yet, the tattva cannot be arrived
at without analyzing the provisional fact of the dream object. "I always existed, even
through the dream and deep sleep" - this is a tattva arrived at after examining a set
of provisional facts.

> Secondly, sweating/trebling etc, are not due to illusory tiger/snake
> themselves per se. They are due to your jnyAna about them. Although this
> jnyAna is a brAnti (ayathArtha jnyAna), nevertheless it is a real one (ok,
> as real as you, to be specific). So, it is not correct to say mithya vastu
> has sAdakatvaM for pramEya/tatva siddhi.

Your emphasis on the distinction between tattva and kArya does not address the real
questions that you need to ask.
 
On what basis do you distinguish between the illusory tiger/snake and the jnAna of the
illusory tiger/snake? In the dream tiger example, the locus of your dream object is but
you. In the rajju-sarpa example as well, the locus of the sarpa is actually also only you,
because it is you who project the bhrama of sarpa on to an external rope. There is no
sarpa there, real or unreal; tattvataH, there is only rajju. The effect of trembling/fear is
also produced in the same locus, namely you. Clearly, "you" are real and dream tiger
and the bhrama-sarpa are illusory, yet the kArya of real (same order of reality as you)
trembling/fear happens to you. The realization of tattva, "the tiger was dream," 
"the snake was illusion" also happens to you, in you, by you.
 
The real issue is this. bhrama is revealed as bhrama only after the rise of pramA jnAna.
So long as you are under bhrama, it is the bhrama itself that appears to you as if it were
pramA.
 
When the dream tiger causes you to wake up, the tiger is pramA for you so long  as you
are dreaming. Yet, after waking up, you have the luxury of saying that it is not pramA.
Pray, why not?
 
The illusory snake, always not a real object, yet real enough for the person under illusion,
caused trembling, a real effect for the person under illusion. The person and his trembling
are at one level of reality, the snake is not. Yet, a real effect on a person at the same level
of reality was caused by an object that was only an illusion, not at the same level of reality.
Why? Because the person under illusion did not know that the snake was only an illusion.
By virtue of him mistakenly imputing his own level of reality to the illusory snake, he became
capable of experiencing an effect in his own level of reality.
 
The dream tiger is not a real, external object, yet it appears to be external to the dreamer
and appears real enough for the dreamer, so long as the dream lasts. The fear caused by
the dream tiger happens to the dreamer, in the dream state. And it results in him casting
off the dream state, to enter into the waking state, one to which he naturally ascribes
greater reality than his dream state. Within the waking state, he analyzes the dream and
concludes that a dream object caused a real effect. Unless there is something that is real
in the waking state, which persists into the dream state and which could be acted upon by
the dream object, even that waking up, a kArya, is not possible. Yet, what is the reality of
the dream object itself? Only so much as that imparted to it by the dreamer. The one who
dreams creates the dream object, within the dream, and casts them aside, after waking up.
This kind of analysis leads to tattva jnAna, eventually, at least about the dream state and
the waking state, if not about anything else. That very same dream object, partaking of
only so much reality as imparted to it by the dreamer, along with the dreamer's reaction
to that object, within the dream state, is key in transitioning out of the dream state into
the waking state. It appears to be real in one state. It is known to be not real in another
state. Welcome to mithyAtva, satyAnRte maithuna, tattva-anyatvAbhyAm anirvacanIyatva,
avidyA, sad-asad-vilakshaNatva ...
 
bandha-moksha vyavahAra is like that. We can very well say that mithyA vastu has
sAdhakatvam for prameya/tattva siddhi. 
 
Vidyasankar