[Advaita-l] A lucid explanation of Advaita

[V Subrahmanian]

On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 10:23 AM, Jay Kumar via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Hari om
> I am  a visually challenged person and not in face book etc
> Can anyone help me to get the matter of "A Lucid explanation of Advaita"
> by Proof V K ji
>


QUOTE OF THE DAY : 9 - 5:
248. ADVAITA DIALOGUE
GURU: Let us get on with our analogies. Water in mirage and Silver in
mother of pearl are both of one kind.
SISHYA: In both cases the appearance is well-known and repetitive. In both
cases there is no medium involved.
G: But in the case of the reflection in a mirror the mirror happens to be
the medium.
S: Am I allowed to do some more analysis of these analogies?
G: Go ahead.
S: Rope appears as a snake. Better lighting shows it as only rope.
G: So also Brahman appears as the universe. A Guru gives the better light
by pointing out the Truth.
S: OK. After you have told me the Truth and I have understood it, still I
see only the universe, not Brahman. Why?
G: To see this you have to go to the analogy of the water in the mirage or
the silver in mother-of-pearl.
S: I see. In both cases even after knowing the Truth, the same wrong
appearance stares me in the face.
G: But even here there is an objection. You can’t use either the water in
the mirage or the silver in the mother-of-pearl.
S: You mean the water will not quench my thirst and the silver will not get
me any money?
G: Yes. But the water in the universe quenches my thirst. And the silver in
the universe gets me money.
S: Well, that means the analogies are not perfect.
G: In fact there is no perfect analogy. Still let us continue our study.
Now go to the dream analogy. In the dream, there is (dream) water which
will quench your (dream) thirst.
S: I think I am missing something.
G: If the universe, which is only an appearance, satisfies many of your
needs, the dream also is of the same kind. Whatever thirst you have within
the dream, there is water in the dream that quenches your thirst. The
silver in the dream gets you money in the dream. So the dream analogy is a
fairly close analogy to the reality or unreality of the world-appearance.
S: Is it why there is so much talk about the operational world being just a
dream from an absolute point of view? Are there other features of the dream
analogy?
G: There is something unique. That the dream is not real dawns on us when
we wake up from the dream. The dreamer, when he dreams, takes it to be
totally real. There is no guru coming in the dream and telling you that it
is all only a dream and that you should better wake up from the dream into
the outside world. On the other hand, in the operational world of reality,
though we take the universe to be real and existing. we have our guru
telling us that this is a dream from the absolute point of view and we have
to wake up from this ‘dream’ of a world! He himself lives beyond the
‘dream-of-the-world’ stage, yet he comes ‘down’ from his absolute level
into our ‘dream’ and talks to us in this ‘dream’ of ours about the Truth
that is beyond this ‘dream’! Without the dream analogy in our culture, it
would be almost impossible to comprehend the Guru’s teaching that the Truth
is beyond this visible operational world of reality!
S: Fantastic! There is so much about the dream analogy!
Extract from the 1008-piece dialogue on Advaita, from V. Krishnamurthy’s
Website, and also available in the book: “Live Happily the Gita Way”

>
> Regards,'
>
> jayakumar
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Advaita-l [mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org] On
> Behalf Of V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l
> Sent: 04 September 2017 20:58
> To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta; Advaitin
> Cc: V Subrahmanian
> Subject: [Advaita-l] A lucid explanation of Advaita
>
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/smartha/permalink/1681334228544879/
>
> Thanks to Prof.VK ji.
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