[Advaita-l] HH Sri Paramananda Bharathi Swamiji attained mukti

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Venkatraghavan prabhuji
Hare Krishna


  *   Sorry, I am late in my reply as usual.

The point of this discussion is not to convince anyone of the rightness of one position and wrongness of the other, but merely to explain one's position so that even if we don't achieve agreement on the issues, we can at least achieve an understanding of what the other person is saying.


Ø     Yes, I am completely agree with you.  We both, for that matter whoever put-forth their view points do not have any personal hidden agenda as such to doubt or belittle other’s understanding.  All these discussions are ultimately boils down to how these multiple view points on the same siddhAnta would comply the obligation of mUla bhAshya. If somebody comes forward and say, no, it is not mandatory to stick only to mUla bhAshya, the later vyAkhyAnakAra-s have their full rights to propagate their own prakriya in the name of Advaita as they donot have to parrot the mUla!!  Then there is an end of all these discussions with the famous saying : “ agree to disagree” 😊


>     So, shankara is saying abhAva vilakshaNa type avidyA which is neither bhAva nor abhAva rUpa but it is tattvAnyatvAbhyAm anirvachanIyam.  So, with this definition can we now say, abhAva vilakshaNam avidyA cannot be determined as brahman (tattva)  or abrahman (atattva / anAtma) since this type of avidyA is inexplicable!!??  Now the question is when we already conceded that something is anirvachaneeyaM, how can we deterministically  put forth our point that yatkinchit avidyA / abhAva vilakshaNam IS neither bhAva nor abhAva !!??  how can it become nirvachaneeya like this  ??
Because it is not anirvachanIya meaning inexpressible, it is tattvAnyatvAbhyAm anirvachanIya, meaning inexpressible as sat or asat.


Ø    Sorry could not get it.  See we can say : I cannot say whether it is rope (Atma - sat)  or snake (anAtma- asat) since there is saMshaya about it.  Do we have something external to Atma and anAtma to say it is not mere inexpressible but it is inexpressible as sat or asat !!??  Likewise, when we say : avidyA is abhAva vilakshaNaM which is also sadasat vilakshaNam and hence anirvachaneeyaM, anirvachaneeyatvaM pertains to sat or asat only hence I said avidyA is anirvachaneeyaM.  I don’t see any problem here. Please elaborate where I am erring here.

You can call agrahaNAtmaka avidyA as jnAnAbhAva if you want,

  *   Kindly let me know if you have any other definition for agrahanAtmaka avidyA other than jnAnAbhAva.
It is what we have been discussing - sadasatvilakshaNa rUpa / abhAva vilakshaNa rUpa / bhAva rUpa avidyA. If you want the definition of such an avidyA, it is anAdibhavarUpatve sati jnAnanivartyA.


Ø     It cannot be bhAvarUpa avidyA as per your own admission, you said instead of saying this it would be better to say it is abhAva vilakshaNaM.  I reckon labelling the yatkinchit avidyA as abhAva vilakshaNaM does not establish it is bhAvarUpa avidyA.  If you say one of the definitions of avidyA lesha is bhAva rUpa avidyA then it would not be in line with your subsequent justification that it is satasat vilakshaNam anirvachaneeyaM.  In the anirvachaneeyaM we cannot categorically conclude whether it is brahman (water) or abrahman (foam).


>     When paripUrNa jnana (pratiyOgi) is there ( like when the bottle full of pickle is there where is the room to put chutney in that ?? ) in the dharmee (buddhi) how can a residue of avidyA find place there in that dharmee ??  When the jnana  abhAva is completely filled by pratiyOgi paramArtha jnana where is the place to find the avidyAlesha in that same dharmee??  This is my doubt.
It is a sopAdhika bhrama, as long as the upAdhi (prArabdha / body /mind) is present, the appearance of illusion persists even if the ignorance is destroyed.


Ø     So, this ‘appearance of illusion’ is NOT part of this ignorance.  Even though ignorance completely annihilated,  due to upAdhi parichinnatva (for whom!!??) the sOpAdhika bhrama would continue to the custodian of that upAdhi.  Now the upAdhi bAdhita jnana would destroy this ‘appearance of illusion’ or literally the custodian has to meet with the physical death to get rid of this ‘appearance of illusion’ ??  If the latter is the condition what is required for complete emancipation of both ignorance and appearance of illusion then whatever he achieved / attained when he is with upAdhi is gaUna / amukhya as this is NOT free from ‘appearance of illusion’ though free from ignorance.  And please let me know this appearance of illusion is the lesha of ignorance you are talking about here which is abhAva vilakshaNaM and satasat vilakshaNam.

>     And jnAnAbhAva is kevala shabda vikalpa says somewhere bhAshyakAra.  Like we address parabrahma tattva as Atma, brahma etc.
I am not sure where this is, but without context, it is difficult to gauge its relevance. If the meaning is yathAshrutam then it would equally apply to the general definition of vikalpa vritti (whose objects are tucCha) in yoga sUtra - shabdajnAnAnupAti vastu shUnyo vikalpa:, but I doubt that bhAShyakAra would say ajnAna is tucCha in nature, because he talks quite often about how this world, Ishvara's Ishvaratvam, jIva's jIvatvam is avidyAkalpitam.


Ø     I was talking about visheshaNa-s in abhAva rUpa.  We do address brahman as satyaM jnAnam, Atman, brahman etc. as vishesha bhAva rUpa but these words donot point out THAT exactly (idamitthaM) but it is only shabda vikalpa since brahma tattva is yatO vAchO nivartante…Likewise we also say, brahman is astUla, anaNu, it does not have dharmAdharma, he is not hungry, thirsty these are all abhAva rUpa brahma definitions.  That which is absent in brahman is abhAva visheshaNa.  It is in line with bhAshyakAra said avidyA is abhAva visheshaNa in brahman.  Likewise when we say agrahaNAtmaka avidyA it is abhAva of his svarUpa jnana which is anAdi in jeeva and it is nepa mAtra for adhyAsa (vipareeta jnana) jnAnAbhAva is NOT bhAvarUpa just because of the fact that jnana abhAva rUpa ajnAna  does not have any corresponding vrutti in mana / buddhi.  And this type of jnana abhAva which does not have any vrutti in antaHkaraNa what exists in sushupti which anyway does not come in the way of ekatvaM in sushupti.  And if the avidyA / ajnAna is bhAvarUpa it cannot be destroyed completely.  Because of the bhAshyakAra’s words in sUtra 2.2.22.


In any case, if jnAna abhAva means presence of sAmAnya jnAna but absence of visheSha jnAna, how does one even know what these visheSha-s are? If one knows them, then how can one say there is absence of the knowledge of visheSha-s? If one doesn't know them, then how can one say what one doesn't know is absent?


Ø    To avoid  this complication jnAnAbhAva is shabda vikalpa the shabda is used to denote some thing that does not exist.


To avoid this, if it is said I have sAmAnya jnAna of viSheSha, but not the visheSha jnAna of viSheSha-s, how does one know what is the visheSha jnAna of viSheSha? For this, one would have to postulate another sAmAnya jnAna of the visheSha jnAna of the visheSha which is known, and a visheSha jnAna of the visheSha jnAna of the visheSha, which is not known. But how is that the nature of absence? It would need another sAmAnya and visheSha jnAna, leading to infinite regress and infinite number of jnAna-s. And even in the end, the question remains how does one know if that something is absent without knowing what that thing is.


Ø    jnAnAbhAva does not suffer from anavasthA dOsha, if somebody says 2x2 = 6, it is his vipareeta grahaNa due to absence of correct knowledge i.e. 2x2=4.  No sane person would ask how you donot know the correct answer..it is quite obvious that due to absence of correct knowledge only this person is giving the wrong answer.  We cannot ask kAraNa for not knowing, it is not rational.

Again, please only take this email as something for information purposes, it is not meant to disprove anything or convince anyone.


Ø     Ditto prabhuji 😊

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar