[Advaita-l] Why only jagat is mithya and jeeva is brahman !!?? - Samanvaya

Venkatraghavan S agnimile at gmail.com
Thu Apr 28 08:54:44 CDT 2016


Namaste Sri Bhaskar,

Your statement that "I am not holding bhedAkAra as bhedAkAra   in itself is
satya, I am saying it is satya because for the kAryAkAra,  Atma is kAraNa"
is the very definition of a mithyA vastu according to me - it is not by
itself real, but it is real depending on Atma (sat).

The key sentence in your email is"akAra does not deviate from its astitva,
and even when you are looking at it satyameva"

Lets break this into two parts: "AkAra does not deviate from its astitva"
and "hence when you are looking at it satyameva"

1)  "AkAra does not deviate from its astitva" - AkAra never has one AkAra
(form), it is constantly changing. So when you say that AkAra and its
astitva never deviate, what is the "it" that you are talking about? There
is no one unchanging bit about AkAra that you can point to and say that
"that" and astitva do not deviate. For example - take the birth, growth,
old age, death, cremation of a body - at no one point is that body
constant, it is constantly changing. Cells are constantly being born, they
die, new ones come up, they die etc. So it is not the same body because it
comprises different cells from previously. After the cremation of the body,
the smoke has astitva, the ashes have astitva. But the AkAra of the smoke
and the body are not the same.

2) "hence what you are looking at it[sic] satyameva"

Therefore there is no one AkAra that has astitva. The only thing in the
body example that has unbroken astitva, is astitva itself - that is, sat is
an independent principle that pervades the ever-changing AkArAs. So when
you say that "when you are looking at it satymeva", the "it" that is
satyameva (i.e does not change) is that independent principle, sat, not the
AkAra (that keeps changing).


> Ø   Can we able to perceive the ‘akAra-less existence of satya in this
> jagat??
>
No, we can never perceive AkAra-less existence. As I told Sri Aurobind,
pure existence needs a medium for it to be perceived. But does the lack of
perception of pure existence mean that it doesn't exist? No, we cannot say
that. Shruti pramANa, which is stronger than pratyaksha, emphatically says
"satyam jnAnam anantam brahma" and in the same breath says its beyond
indriyas - "yato vAco nivartante, aprApya manasA saha". So whether we can
perceive brahman or not, it exists. It alone truly exists.

Also, I have never said that shAstra pramANa destroys bAhyAkAra - I have
only said it destroys the notion of the AkAra's satyatva and reinforces the
notion that the astitva is the only satya.


> If the true nature of jagat is accepted as existence only, then jagat is
> satya. If you insist that the form+existence mixture is satya by itself,
> then we cannot agree.
>
> Ø   If you could show me the existence of this jagat without name and
> form then I would accept your position prabhuji J
>
> Pure existence is not perceptible, so I can never show you pure existence,
without the medium of name and form. However, that name and form by itself
has no existence, only sat does. Such a name and form that is real because
of sat, and unreal on its own is categorised as mithyA.

Anyway, with that I rest my case. Thank you for the discussion - it took
many twists and turns, but I'm happy that there was some form of agreement
in the end.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan


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