[Advaita-l] Who is Ishwara? He is NARAYANA only. Beautiful and soothing Narayana Bhajan

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Visit the searchable, hyperlinked, online archive and do some research of
your own. You know which archive I'm referring to here.

Vidyasankar



On May 25, 2017 7:35 AM, "Kalyan via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Please give reference for the second Sanskrit quotation, so that I will
> know where exactly to look for.
>
> Regards
> Kalyan
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Thu, 5/25/17, Venkatraghavan S <agnimile at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Who is Ishwara? He is NARAYANA only. Beautiful
> and soothing Narayana Bhajan
>  To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
> vedanta.org>, "Kalyan" <kalyan_kg at yahoo.com>
>  Date: Thursday, May 25, 2017, 10:54 AM
>
>  On
>  25 May 2017 9:47 a.m., "Kalyan via Advaita-l"
>  <advaita-l at lists.advaita-
>  vedanta.org> wrote
>
>  Now, if the Atman is appearing to be affected
>  by ignorance, to whom does it appear that the Atman is under
>  ignorance? Who is under the impression that the Atman is
>  under the ignorance? It should be to the Atman itself for
>  the Atman is the only conscious entity.
>
>  Please note that in saying that Atma
>  is the only conscious entity, you are already arguing from a
>  pAramArthika viewpoint - you have therefore admitted that
>  there are no divisions within it. If Atma is the only thing,
>  and it happens to be divisionless how can it know anything,
>  when the very act of knowing requires a division between the
>  knower, known and the instrument of knowledge? Which is
>  precisely why Gaudapada says that there is neither mukti nor
>  bandha, neither a seeker, nor  the sought, neither creation
>  nor destruction for such an Atma. न निरोधो
>  न चोत्पत्तिर्न बद्धो न
>  च साधकः । न
>  मुमुक्षुर्न वै मुक्त
>  इत्येषा परमार्थता
>  ॥
>  Therefore, the
>  Atman thinks that it is under ignorance when it is not
>  really under ignorance. But, this is a contradiction since
>  such a thinking itself is a real ignorance as the Atman is
>  thinking mistakenly.  So the Atman is under ignorance and
>  free from ignorance, simultaneously. Thus, the advaitic
>  position leads to a contradiction.
>
>  The moment you talk of Atma being
>  under the impression that it is ignorant, you are already
>  presupposing that it has a mind with which to form such an
>  impression. You have already come to vyavahAra. The question
>  becomes, is Atma aware of its own ignorance (even
>  mistakenly)? Your argument is based on Atma being under the
>  impression that it is ignorant - therefore Atma must know
>  that it is ignorant.
>  It is precisely because you say Atma
>  is aware of ignorance (even mistakenly) that ignorance
>  cannot be its own dharma. Just as fire cannot burn itself,
>  nor can the eye see itself, the partless conscious
>  principle, Atma, cannot know an ignorance if it really
>  belonged to it. Hence Shankaracharya says in the kshetrajna
>   bhAshya in the Gita
>  संवेद्यत्वाच्च तेषां
>  प्रदीपप्रकाशवत् न
>  ज्ञातृधर्मत्वम् —
>  संवेद्यत्वादेव
>  स्वात्मव्यतिरिक्तसंवेद्यत्वम्
>  ; सर्वकरणवियोगे च
>  कैवल्ये सर्ववादिभिः
>  अविद्यादिदोषवत्त्वानभ्युपगमात्
>   ।
>  Therefore, the
>  very premise of your question is incorrect. NirguNa Atma
>  cannot know ignorance for two reasons - it lacks the
>  instrument with which to know anything, let alone ignorance.
>  Secondly, even if it does have an instrument, ignorance
>  cannot be a property of the partless Atma - if it knows an
>  ignorance, then ipso facto, that ignorance is not a property
>  of the knower, but the known.
>  Regards,Venkatraghavan
>
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