[Advaita-l] Fwd: Re: Accounting for Brahman appearing as the world

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Namaste Raghavji,

On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 6:55 AM, Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> When अहं ब्रह्म
> is analysed, अहम् of the जीव is already understood as not having BMS
> upAdhis. So there is nothing left to do but ऐक्य।
>

​I was only giving a sequence of thinking that can help understand the
aikya, when both sarvaM brahma and ahaM brahma are taken together for
analysis and comparison.
​

> As per what you wrote in earlier posts, aikyasamAnAdhikaraNyam alone hold
> in *all* cases of analysing the aham brahma sentence irrespective of the
> depth of the ahaM pratyaya. (Let us restrict ourselves to only the nirguNam
> brahma case for now).
>
​Yes. brahma in the equation is always saguNa brahma. The depth of ahaM
varies at each level, as clearly seen in the upasaMhArabhAShya of 6th
chapter of Chandogya, where Bhashyakara starts with the tvam (aham here
from Shvetaketu's perspective) being uddAlakasya putraH before the 1 out 9
upadeshas and slowly changing to land in lakShyArtha.


> The difference in the depth of the ahaM pratyaya  ( that's a likeable turn
> of phrase! ) would only have a bearing on whether you would use
> jahallakShaNA or no lakShaNA at all to understand the sentence and not on
> whether aikya-sAmAnAdhikaraNyam or bAdhasAmAnAdhikaraNyam obtains between
> the two words ahaM and brahma. ( Since it's always aikya even in the
> chidAbhAsa case where there are some lingering adhyasta upAdhI-s  ).
>
Yes.​
​​

> This is a bit puzzling since no lakSaNa (where ahaM has already been seen
> as free of sharIra upAdhI-s ) would imply that aham brahma is just a
> tautology ? Then why even say it.

True, the statement would be unnecessary if you already have lakShyArtha on
both sides.​ The idea of the equation is to drive home the point that as
they are there is no equation.

It would follow that some upAdhi has to
> be assumed for ahaM , for it to be claimed that aham brahma generates
> knowledge?
>
The assumption here seems to be that there is a process as to what should
take place before the other does. There is no specific sequence on either
side of the equation as to which should be solved first. There is no
applies-to-all manual. So whatever is said in general, thats to show where
it should land. How-to is not exact.
​
​ It depends on the upAdhi that either side of the equation carries.​
​


> The other point... only restating what you said, to check.  In analyzing
> jagat as brahma , the kArya totally resolved in to the kAraNa to point of
> being absent finally ( in the abhAvam paSyati sense), in such cases alone
> it makes sense to talk of bAdhasAmAnAdhikaraNyam.
>
​Precisely so. That applies to ahaMbuddhiH in all upAdhis too, which is
really what sarvaM brahma also is, where sarvaM = jagat = all my sharIrAs
also and brahma = ahaM. Understanding sarvaM brahma = jagat IshvaraH eva
doesn't not help me any, as I opine it to be a selfish pursuit of the jIva
alone and any equation without ahaMpratyayaH is useless for the jIva.
​



> This is what I understand you to be saying.
>
> ​Yes, I am indeed saying that and more.
Finally, to stretch this idea, I will always use ahaM as a substitute for
any word brahma anywhere in the shAstras, adding upAdhis if required
​; to me, t
his is DSV.
​​
​gurupAdukAbhyAm
,
--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] */
​