[Advaita-l] Weather Vedas are considered as false in ultimate reality?

[RAMESH RAMANAN]

Dear friends,
Pranams, 

I recall a visitor/devotee asking Sri Abhinava Vidya Theertha Mahaswami that if the whole world is false, then, the Vedas and Upanishads are also false. Then, why should one read the scriptures, which are false anyway? To this question, Sri Abhinava Vidya Theertha Mahaswami, who apart from all his spiritual greatness, was also a great logician, replied as follows: "If you see a very bad and horrible dream, you start shivering and get up with a start. Your body is still shivering, even though you have fully woken up from the dream. Though the dream was false, the effect is real. Similarly, you can move from the unreal to the real, that is the unreal ones can teach you reality. So, a study of Vedas and Upanishads will not be a waste and the study will definitely guide you to self-abidance or Atma-Vichara and Self-realization. Further, the Vedas and Upanishads are not entirely false, they are false only to a realized person, because he does not need them any more, as he has fully attained or rediscovered his natural state and is established in Sahaja Sthithi. For the others, as long as they identify themselves with a name and form, body,gender, nationality, sex, etc., the Vedas and Upanishads are very much real to them. 

Pranams once again, Ramesh Ramanan. 


     On Tuesday, 4 August 2015, 19:34, Siva Senani Nori via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
   

 Sir
My replies are given inline starting with three stars
 
      From: Harsha Bhat <harsha9519 at gmail.com>
 To: Siva Senani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com>; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> 
 Sent: Tuesday, 4 August 2015 8:20 PM
 Subject: Re: Weather Vedas are considered as false in ultimate reality?
  
Ok Sir,                          I will not mix up the two metaphors,now let us take the seeing snake in rope example....When we come to know that it is rope not snake,the snake and hence afraid because of snake gets remove,,,I accept that....
But the knowledge of rope is realized right ?because of which miss understanding of snake in rope gets removed right?
So,there should be the knowledge of rope then after .....
Similarly after brahma jgnana (Athma jagrathavasta)...there should be the knowledge of self after moksha....So,moksha should be waken up state (Athma jagrathavasta)....after moksha not deep sleep state..where there is no knowledge of self...
*** Yes, you are spot on. In this line of thinking Moksha is indeed different from deep sleep. If waking state is the upamaana that you want to choose, so be it. Here the saamaanya dharma (similarity between the standard of comparison and the thing being compared) is the perceived Reality of both states, and more importantly the perceived Reality of knowledge, the known and the knower in jaagrath state. Always being alert about the lack of complete identification, one can follow your line of thought. This example has absolutely no bearing on the one the Upanishad used. This is Cricket, that is Basketball.

Another thing is ,you compare deep sleep state to moksha,dreaming state to samsara(jagath)....
Similarly...to which state you compare to waken up state?...is it samsara or moksha?..or waken up state doen't exist at all??


*** Well, I did not compare the dreaming state to samsaara, but if one were to do so (it is done quite often in the literature), then dreaming state can be compared to paaribhaasika sattaa (i.e. where you think a seashell is silver) and the waking state to vyaavahaarika satta (where you think that you have correctly identified the thing seen as a seashell - observe the assumptions: that you exist separately from Brahman, that the seashell is separate from Brahman, that there is the process of seeing etc.)
RegardsN. Siva Senani
On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 7:58 PM, Siva Senani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com> wrote:

Sir
In English, they say that we should not mix metaphors. In our language, we should caution that we should not take drishTAntas, (examples), upamaanas (comparisons) etc. literally. If an example or upamaana were completely identical to a given situation then it would cease to be an example or an upamaana. 
For instance in the context of Indian batsmen, a 6 footer might be considered tall and we might say things like "it is easy for tall batsmen to play spinners due to their reach". Now in NBA a 6 footer is not considered tall and we need to say something like "it shows his exceptional talent that notwithstanding his lack of height he was so successful in NBA." Now if a same person X were to play both games, he is "tall" in one situation and "lacks height" in the other situation.
In the present case you are mixing examples. The particular context of the Upanishad treats the state of deep sleep as similar to the state of Moksha and we should not mix it with other examples - Vaidika or otherwise - and get confused.
RegardsN. Siva Senani
 
      From: Harsha Bhat <harsha9519 at gmail.com>
 To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>; Sivasenani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com> 
 Sent: Tuesday, 4 August 2015 6:14 AM
 Subject: Re: Weather Vedas are considered as false in ultimate reality?
  
For example,                              while explaining dreaming state ,advaithis explain it as when we wake up dream become false,similarly when we get brahma jgnana (moksha)...this jagath is false.....
Here moksha is compared to waken up state no?...(not compared to deep sleep state ,as when we go to deep sleep state dream become false...which is quite meaning less)...




On Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 6:06 AM, Harsha Bhat <harsha9519 at gmail.com> wrote:


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harsha Bhat <harsha9519 at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 3, 2015 at 11:09 PM
Subject: Re: Weather Vedas are considered as false in ultimate reality?
To: Siva Senani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com>


Shiva sir,                              Completely understood,but my doubt is, according to you moksha is similar to deep sleep state,Samsaara is dreaming state...
Then what is waken up state? What is compared to waken up state?,I have seen many times advaithi's compare waken up state to moksha ,but you compare deep sleep state to moksha.
On Mon, Aug 3, 2015 at 6:03 PM, Siva Senani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com> wrote:

Sir
Pranam.
I never said "vedas are false in ultimately reality of waken up state". As I tried to explain in one of the early posts, this is a mischievous way of twisting the views of Advaita with a purpose to show that Advaita is incorrect. We Sraddhaalus should not construct such statements. 
Kindly consider the phrase "when a man is embraced by prAj~na (the intelligent Self)" and mull over it. 
The Braahmeesthiti is beyond words (यतो वाचो विवर्तन्ते अप्राप्य मनसा सह) and cannot be described. However all of reach a similar state on a daily basis, that is during deep sleep, where we do not dream. We forget everything in this state ("dead as a log", is how the English put it) - yet we resume our activities without skipping a beat. How is this possible? Because the one aspect of Self - called Praajña - is active during this state. In other words, this state is the equivalent of Moksha. The difference is that in Moksha, there is no punaraavritti, but we return from this deep sleep state all the time. However the situation while we are in deep sleep is comparable to Moksha. 
The Upanishad thus describes the state of Moksha, using the state of Deep Sleep. This is the sense of "when a man is embraced by prAj~na (the intelligent Self)". The funny thing about liberation is that it is not obtained in the sense getting what one did not have before (say, like acquiring a fancy car), it only needs to be discovered, like the chain in one's neck that one thought is lost. So, in reality, the AtmA is always Mukta - only we don't understand that. So if is perfectly reasonable that one of our three states is used to describe the state of Moksha.
This is also the reason why I quoted BSB 4.1.3 where Bhagavatpada clearly takes the statement "यत्र वेदा अवेदाः" as applying to prabodhasthiti (enlightenment or Moksha). As further proof the sentence from Adhyaasabhaashya "अविद्यावद्विषयाणि प्रत्यक्षादीनि प्रमाणानि शास्त्राणि च" also was quoted. The idea is that once one realizes that everything is Brahman (सर्वं खल्विदं ब्रह्म), the one without a second (एकमेवाद्वितीयम्), there cannot be a second entity, even Veda. So what happens to Veda? It dissolves into Brahman. What about pramaaNas like pratyaksha (perception), inference (anumaana) etc.? These can operate only where there is perceiver or knower (pramaataa), and something being perceived or cognized (prameya). But no two such entities are there in ultimate reality. Only one entity, Brahman, is there. So when we talk of that state, it is untenable to talk of Pramaataa, Prameyaa etc. separately.
Therefore, Veda is only an upaaya to know Brahman. Once Brahman is known Veda is non-different from Brahman and hence अवेदः. At no point does Saastrakrit ever say that Veda is false, only its abhaava - absence (that is not being present in a form and state different from Brahman) - is accepted, that too in prabodha. 
RegardsN. Siva Senani
 
      From: Harsha Bhat <harsha9519 at gmail.com>
 To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>; Sivasenani Nori <sivasenani at yahoo.com> 
 Sent: Monday, 3 August 2015 1:39 PM
 Subject: Weather Vedas are considered as false in ultimate reality?
  
Namaste Shiv Sir,
                                            In your explanation you said,                                                       ///There the journey of the Self in the states of waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep are expounded. While dealing with the last, the Upanishad teaches that when a man is embraced by prAj~na (the intelligent Self), then he does not know anything without or within. This state is described in 4.3.22 - “Then a father is not a father, a mother not a mother, the worlds not worlds, the gods not gods, the Vedas not Vedas. Then a thief is not a thief, a murderer not a murderer, a Chandala not a Chandala, a Paulkasa not a Paulkasa, a Sramana not a Sramana, a Tapasa not a Tapasa. He is not followed by good, not followed by evil, for he has then overcome all the sorrows of the heart.” (Max Muller's translation) (PaulkaSa is the son of a Sudra father and a Kshatriya mother – i.e. a result of pratiloma marriage; Sramana is a mendicant).


In dreamless sleep state vedas are aveda...I also accept,But my doubt is,weather mokha is waken up state or dream less sleep state?
Now we are in dreaming state (samsara) where there is (little)  knowledge of vedas,When we are in deep sleep ,we are in dream less sleep  state ,where there is no knowledge of vedas....
But moksha is considered as waken up state,the vedas says in deep sleep state there is no vedas (as said in vedaha avedhaha matra)...But in moksha (Waken up state)...knowledge of vedas should be there.....
How do you say vedas are false in ultimately reality of waken up state.....
In dream less sleep state knowledge of vedas may not be there ,but in moksha which is waken up state ,the knowledge of vedas should be there no?..
As when we wake up from deep sleep we have knowledge of vedas back,which was not there in deep sleep state....
regards,Harsha Bhat

  
 






  
 



  
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