[Advaita-l] nAsadIya sUktam

[Venkateswaran N E]

Namaste Durga Prasad mahodaya.

Thanks for pointing to Swami TattvavidAnanda's talk on nAsadIya sUkta.

I quickly listened to the parts relevant to my 2 questions.

This is the summary.

1. Regarding  "न असत् आसीत् न सत् आसीत् तदानीं " the Swami says the sat and asat mentioned here are the pair of opposites which constitutes creation, and as brahman is beyond creation, these pairs of opposites does not exist in Brahman. He says the same idea of negating the opposites is continuing in the second R^ik viz., न मृ॒त्युरा॑सीद॒मृतं॒ न तर्हि॒ न रात्र्या॒ अह्न॑ आसीत्प्रके॒तः।
So the sat here is not the "Sat" which is the svarUpalakShaNa of Brahman.

2. Regarding the R^ik "यो अ॒स्याध्य॑क्षः पर॒मे व्यो॑म॒न्त्सो अ॒ङ्ग वे॑द॒ यदि॑ वा॒ न वेद॑॥ " Swamiji's explanation aligns with that of Aurobind Padiyath, who responded to my question yesterday as follows :

Quote 
If you "accept" the creation then the creator as a witness to his creation need to witness the creation. As the creator of the snake on the rope, I am creating the experience of the snake by creation of a non-existing snake. But I was not knowing how I created the nonexistent snake at the same time I experienced the apparent reality of the snake too. For that experiencing to happen did a real snake come up and vanish? No. But the experience was real. So can you tell I knew how I created that snake? The Rishi is asking a similar doubt.

Unquote

It's just that instead of the rajju-sarpa example Swamiji uses kanaka-kundala as the example. 

He says "does the gold upholds the world of ornaments? It does not. The ornaments are just a vRRtti in the observer's mind. If we ask gold whether it is the  ornament, it would say no, it is gold. If you tell gold that you are the cause of the necklace and you have become the necklace, it could say "did I ? When did I become, I don't know !!"
Or it could say that "oh...ok, I got what you are saying. Yes, I am in the necklace, and I'm upholding it."
Swamiji also quotes Sri Krishna from the gItA 4.13 - "tasya kartAramapi mAm viddhyakartAramavyayam"

Warm Regards
Venkateswaran N E

> On 11-Feb-2016, at 9:42 AM, Durga Prasad Janaswamy <janaswami at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hari Om,
> Namaste.
> 
> Swamy Tattvavidananda Saraswati gave talks (in English)  on Naasadiiya Suktam in 3 sessions.
> 
> Please go to url
> 
> http://www.avgsatsang.org/hhstvs.html
> 
> and search for 'Naasadiiya'.
> 
> It would be nice if you can write down (and circulate within this group) as to what Swamiji was saying about your doubts. 
> 
> thank you and regards
> -- durga prasad
> 
>> On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 7:16 PM, Venkateswaran N E via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>> नमस्ते
>> 
>> I have couple of questions on nAsadIya sUktam of R^ig veda, and request the list members to clarify.
>> 
>> 1. The sUkta begins with नास॑दासी॒न्नो सदा॑सीत्त॒दानी॒म् for which the anvaya is "तदानीं न असत् आसीत् नो सत् आसीत्"
>> How do we reconcile नो सत् आसीत् with the famous advaitic dictum that Brahman is "त्रिकाल आभादित सत्" .
>> 
>> 2. Again the sUkta ends with - यो अ॒स्याध्य॑क्षः पर॒मे व्यो॑म॒न्त्सो अ॒ङ्ग वे॑द॒ यदि॑ वा॒ न वेद॑॥ - "How did this universe come to be? Perhaps the Lord of this universe, who lives in the highest heaven, surely knows. Or perhaps he too does not!"
>> 
>> Here whom does अ॒स्याध्य॑क्षः indicate ?
>> Is it hiranyagarbha / Ishvara or brahman itself?
>> If it is brahman, it would mean that brahman does not know how this universe came by? Is this an acceptable position on advaita?
>> 
>> At the same time we consider Ishvara as omniscient. So how could Ishvara not know how the creation happened.
>> 
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Venkateswaran N E
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