[Advaita-l] The safe way

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Praveen prabhuji
Hare Krishna

First of all, you could have directly written to me with regard to my observations.  We are not entertaining any personal grudge here to talk indirectly when it comes to some general observations prabhuji.  I avoid talking / discussing  vedAnta with you is because I am not in the same league as your good self and Sri Subbu prabhuji.  You are all, unlike me full time vedAntins, living practically the life in a vedAntik way moreover your goodself a great  Sanskrit scholar with traditionally trained vedAntic mind. Hence I, being a purely materialistic vedAnti ( literally an arm chair philosopher, sometimes watching TV cricket matches, having dinner, holding Advaita books sitting on the sofa) always have the guilty (if not inferiority) conscious to do serious discussions with full time sAdhaka-s / jignAsu-s like your goodself.  I can only take lenience of talking vedAnta freely  with my higher ups like Sri Vidya prabhuji or Sri Jaldhar prabhuji or to the extent with Sri Anand Hudli prabhuji, since they know my background right from the beginning and they can easily understand my feelings and sentiments.  And again, citing all these reasons, I donot want to miss the satsangha with purified souls like your goodself.  Thence this mail.    Even if you want to  fire me directly, kindly do so, I really  don’t mind it.. because of the simple fact that  I deserve it.  So, I openly confess that, if at all  any observations of  yours in the below mail directed towards me, I completely agree with that.  I unhesitatingly admit that,   I have not fully studied bhAshya and understood ( I doubt in this life time it is possible) , nor a full time sAdhaka, nor a Sanskrit scholar (donot know even simple grammar rules where is the question of quoting ashtAdhyAyi :-) , a 'chalavAdi' to do debate with half-baked  little knowledge with a conservative mind set which is reluctant to open-up.  As a result, for the orthodox traditionalists my observations on shankara's Advaita vedAnta  are nothing but stupidity at its best.  I could have written all this directly to your personal ID, but writing this to the list deliberately, because it is high time to bring to the notice of this list that this alpa jeeva is a mediocre student of shankara's Advaita vedAnta. 

With this not so impressive background, I shall try to clarify my stand, which may not appealing to you.  

It was also strange to read that there were no Dvaitins during Bhashyakara's times!! These are the same people who voice that sub-commentators gave an opportunity to bring back Dvaitins who were demolished by Bhashyakara. What a contradiction! Anyone who has studied bhAShya properly should know that all of Bhashyakaras pUrvapakShas were Dvaitins. 

>  prabhuji, I said dvaita of the type that we see today ( like madhvA-s tattvavAda where there is permanent gradations among jeeva-s, permanent distinction between jeeva and brahma, prapatti, bhakti instead of jnana, anga-angi, shesha-sheshi bhAva etc.).  Shankara clearly observes that those who follow vedAnta / Upanishad there is an unanimous agreement with regard to identity of the jeeva and brahma.  It is somewhere in the bruhadAraNyaka bhAshya.  Sri Subbu prabhuji also quoted this bhAshya vAkya with the same intent.  Yes, there was dvaita like sAnkhya and the yOga, which almost follow the sAnkhya and other avaidik dvaita schools but those schools are not vedAntic and they are not Upanishad vAdins.  And for that matter Sri SSS observes that no vedAntin have accepted the distinction of the jeeva and the paramAtma even at the time of vedAnta sUtra by bAdarAyaNa.  Sri SSS cites  the examples given by bAdarAyaNa and commented by bhAshyakAra on AshmarAtya, AudolOmi, kAshakrutsna and clarifies though they are advaitins in their stand only kAshakrutsna comes near to vedAntic teaching that the paramAtma himself without undergoing any modification whatsoever, is the individual self and not another self.  

>  I shall try to dig out the exact reference to night you can make your own conclusion on that after reading the originals.  Because  I am afraid  whether what I said above, is another misunderstanding / misrepresentation  of shankara's stand from my side.  

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar