[Advaita-l] avidya is Agantuka

[Venkatraghavan S]

Namaste Sri Chandramouli ji,

I'm somewhat confused. I thought you were saying earlier that the
manifestation of कारण शरीर is limited to सुषुप्ति. However, the latest
emails indicate that you agree that कारण शरीर is manifest in all three
अवस्थाs. I agree with this btw, but it appears a change to your earlier
position (of course, I simply may not have understood what you were saying
earlier).

Coming back to the topic at hand, we are in agreement that the
manifestation of अविद्या occurs in all three states. The manifestation is
of the nature of association with a body शरीर अभिमानं (this you may not
agree with, see next paragraph). It is this manifestation that is आगन्तुकं.
If this is the interpretation of Sri Anandagiri AchArya and Sri
ShankarAchArya, I am in agreement.

If शरीर अभिमानं is taken to be the meaning of अभिव्यक्तं, that implies the
inclusion of both आवरण रूप अविद्या and विक्षेप रूप अविद्या as the objects
of the adjective आगन्तुकी. However, here it may be argued the context of
the बृहदारण्यक मंत्र is सुषुप्ति, and hence only आवरण is being described as
आगन्तुकं - as विक्षेप isn't present then. I'm ok with that too, but would
still contend that it is possible to explain विक्षेप as आगन्तुक in the
manner described above, if the context isn't सुषुप्ति.

The purpose of the example about the awareness of "I" in the waking/dream
states was merely to establish the presence of आवरणं in those states.

The example is a diversion from the main topic, but since you had some
objections to the example, I thought I will clarify.

The attribution of "I" the sAkshi Atma to "I" associated with the sharIra
(which is the object of the awareness) is indeed विक्षेप, but it requires
that साक्षी/आत्म अज्ञानं be present for that विक्षेप to happen.

The mind should not have known that what is denoted by the term "I" is the
sAkshi the Atma (आवरणं), and falsely believes "I" to be the 2 sharIras.

The awareness of "I" is विक्षेप, I wasn't implying that the "I" that the
mind is aware of is Atma.

That was what I was trying to say in shorthand - but the important thing
was to establish that आवरण was very much present in the waking state. It
appears from your latest email that you agree with that.

Regards,
Venkatraghavan