[Advaita-l] Body is the disease

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> So, are you saying explanation "jagan mithyA" too provisional? If so,
> advitIyattva of Brahman cannot be said to be so sure, for the reason that

No provisionality for advitIyatva of brahman from our side, for Sruti says so. And
it just doesn't assert it as such. It supports this in multiple ways that are amenable
to human thought and experience, for example, by asking you to examine your
own svapna and sushupti states, in addition to the jAgrat state. It is a matter of
sAkshAt and aparokshAt experience.
    
> > 2. Why should non-duality of brahman need any explanation? What is Sruti
> > for?
> >
> >
> But shruti is considered mithyA and it cannot possibly generate yathArtha
> jnyAna about non-duality of brahman at all. Read my reply to Sri.Anand for
> the explanation on this topic.

Maybe so, for *you*, because you insist that a pramANa that generates a jnAna can
never be mithyA, in any state of reality. Not so for *us*. We accept that a  pramANa
can generate a jnAna in one state, and in so doing, take you to a higher state of being.
>From *that* higher perspective, the pramANa in the previous state is accepted as
mithyA. No problem for us. The only problem is for you who do not accept the very
idea that different gradations of reality value can even be possible.
 
You say we are deluded. We say you are being foolish. This is an impasse, so we might
as well call an end to this discussion, agreeing to disagree.
 
> > 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.
> >
> >
> anuyOgi in your assertion "non-duality of brahman is svAnubhUti" is
> non-dual Brahman, which is not siddhA yet but only known from shruti. But
> in your model, since suruti is also mithyA, under that circumstance there
> is no hope to have definitive "idamittaM" type niScchaya jnyAna about
> existence of non-dual Brahman let alone whether such anuyOgi is going to be
> svAnubhUti for sure.

No, for which, see above. 
 
> 
> You tell me, do you want hear my niScchayAtmaka take on this topic? or do
> you want to hear my belief that it is so?
> 

Yes, indeed, I would very much like to hear your niScayAtmaka take on this. It 
would help establish whether you are arguing firmly from the dvaita standpoint
or somewhere else. Just so that everyone who is participating in this thread can
be clear about your unstated assumptions and view your conclusions in that light.
I have gone over the history of your postings here, starting from your new member
introduction post and have not been able to see a clear statement about it. And
I can see that some on this thread are responding to you by incorrectly assuming
that you have something fresh to say about advaita and are not simply repeating
arguments that have been made for centuries from the dvaita side.
 
> >
> 
> That exactly is my point too -- you arrive at tattva *after* examining two
> facts. But in case of current vEdAnta context, two aspects "vyavahAra" and
> "pAramArtha" were made *before* we know for sure they are so. If you argue

Statements made by whom? We are talking about vyavahAra and paramArtha based
only on Sruti. yatra dvaitam *iva* bhavati and yatra tv asya sarvam AtmaivAbhUt, to
cite just one such vAkya. This is where the advaita vedAnta enterprise begins and ends.
And we had already said that in adhyAtma jijnAsA, Sruti is not sama-bala with
pratyakShAdi itara pramANa-s.
 
Any dRShTAnta that we offer in the course of deliberating upon SAstra is only in order
to make amenable to buddhi-s clouded by dvaitAtmaka ajnAna, what is the truth about
abheda that is being conveyed by Sruti.
 
> they are accepted so based on dristAntha-s of our dream experience, mind
> you, we have more dristAntha-s in life which are based on reality of two
> facts and what prevent us extending reality to world based on such real
> facts? Both the cases are in our experience, both are sama-bala. So, my
> take is that one cannot do nirNaya based on dristAntha-s, instead they
> should be based on pramANa-s.

You might as well argue that all nyAya reasoning should have done away with upamAna
completely.
 
> 
> jnAna about existence/nonexistence of vastu is different from
> existence/nonexistence of vastu itself. One belongs to epistemology and
> other belongs to ontology.
> 

And never the twain shall meet? What reveals the difference between the jnAna of a
vastu and the vastu itself?
 
The vastu itself? Impossible, because you do not know the vastu or anything about it
through any means other than the jnAna of the vastu.
 
The jnAna itself? What, pray, is the mechanism by which the said jnAna stands up and
says, "here I am, the knowledge about that thing; here is the difference between me
and the thing." ?
 
Is the difference between a thing and the jnAna of a thing itself a thing that needs yet
another jnAna to reveal it? The difference between the vastu and the jnAna becomes
the vastu of this second jnAna. What then reveals the difference between this second
jnAna and its vastu, namely the difference between the vastu and the first jnAna? A
third jnAna?
 
Your contention about epistemology and ontology leads to anavasthA in the very
endeavor of knowing anything about any thing.
 
So, if you wish to strictly assert that jnAna is epistemological and the vastu is about
ontology, the only thing you can validly say is that you can never make *any* statement
on ontology whatsoever. Or, perhaps you can make a concession that anything you say
about ontology is only provisionally valid, never certain. Everything you know and say
with any certainty can only be epistemological in nature, never ontological. In any case,
we are back to worrying about provisionalities. Anything that you can say will only be
tAtkAlika, not tAttvika, including whatever you say about epistemology itself and the
pramANatva of any pramANa.
 
> > 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.
> >
> 
> so, what is the point?
> 

Ha, you still don't get it? An object, and the jnAna of that object, appearing in one state,
can cause the jnAtA of that object to transcend to another, higher state. Having reached
that higher state, both the object and the jnAna of it can well lose reality for the jnAtA.
Simple. The rajju-sarpa and the svapna-vyAghra are laukika examples to demonstrate how
this can happen. The jnAtA who sees his  nitya existence through these states and regards
objects that appeared in a lower state as not really real is on the path to moksha. The one
who remains bound to the object and constantly asserts their real reality at all times, in all
states, is bound to beginningless and endless (for him) saMsAra.
 
> 
> >
> > 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.
> >
> >
> That exactly is my point too. Dividing the reality into  "vyavahAra" and
> "pAramArtha" should be made *after* raise of pramA jnAna but not before.

So, Sruti janita jnAna is not pramA jnAna? Great.
 
We are not the ones going on and on about the mithyAtva of mithyAtva. We accept that
Sruti is pramANa for us, here in vyavahAra. We accept that this Sruti tells us about the
existence of the paramArtha and how to attain it. And we accept the Sruti as is, in this
vyavahAra, when Sruti itself says that in paramArtha, the Sruti itself ceases. Sri Anand
Hudli already pointed out to you another citation from Sruti in this context, tatra vedA
avedAH. When we say that Sruti itself partakes of this kind of mithyAtva, yes, I agree
that this is a statement about paramArtha being made while in vyavahAra. If you contend
that no statement about paramArtha can be made by anyone anywhere in vyavahAra,
then I say to you that again, this is a stance that seeks to bind everyone everywhere to
endless saMsAra. Ultimately, in your stance, moksha is an impossibility. The best you
can have is a modified view of moksha, not what Sruti directly teaches you about it.
 
I'm not responding to the rest, because we are repeating ourselves here. And in view of
the silence that is demonstrated by first breaking it and then re-entering into it, this is the
last response from my end. 
 
Best wishes,
Vidyasankar