[Advaita-l] ***UNCHECKED*** Re: World is mind alone: Shankara

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Namaste Sanjuji,

On Sun, Jul 30, 2017 at 5:30 PM, Sanju Nath via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> The following questions still come to mind:
>
> 1. Hiranyagarbha, the cosmic mind, projects the universe
> or
> 2. the individual mind projects the universe because the universe
> disappears during sushupti.
> or
> 3. Both of the above are valid and are two different prakriyas of
> overcoming our ignorance of Brahman?
>

​Both are equally valid on what your tilt of mind is; the first for an SDV
follower and 2nd for the DSV. The former merges all the vyaShTis into the
samaShTi and the latter the samaShTi into a single vyaShTi who is himself.
​

> To understand the samashti cosmic mind, it helps to understand the
> vyashti individual mind, but question remained for me: both cosmic mind and
> individual mind have the same functionality of projecting the universe,
> since the universe resolves in our sushpti?
>
​In either case, the individual is equated with ​the projector.


> But we also have the view that functionalities of both the cosmic samashti
> and vyashti mind are different - cosmic mind projects, individual mind
> perceives the projection.
>
​That is in SDV, which is perfectly fine. One sees the creation as created
by Ishvara and finds oneself a tiny insignificant part ​
of it.​ With the help of shAstra and the guru, one realises that although
the functionalities are different between Ishvara and himself, they are
only upAdhikRta, caused by adjuncts. When these are dropped on both sides,
one's essence is no different from the essence of Ishvara. One doesn't have
to think that he is the projector of the universe, but he is in essence
non-different from the projector Ishvara.


> Is it not possible to answer these questions with the limitation of
> vocabulary as highlighted below?
>
​The limitations of vocabulary indicated were for questioning and finding
faults with each statement. Such "faults" can be found within Shruti
itself, let alone in verbose discussions and debates online.​ One has to
understand the tAtparya of the discussion before just throwing some random
high-flying lines which almost ridicule those having the discussion; the
choice can instead always be to stay out of uninteresting discussions and
remain in one's niSHThA, if that.

Kind rgds,
--Praveen R. Bhat
/* येनेदं सर्वं विजानाति, तं केन विजानीयात्। Through what should one know
That owing to which all this is known! [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */​