[Advaita-l] Jagat and 'is-ness'

[Bhaskar YR]

The right meaning of the sentence "there is only jnAna", is as an akhaNDArtha vAkya, and thus "is" and "jnAna" refer to the svArUpa mAtra of That, and not to the samsarga between "jnAna" and "is"

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Though there is no direct relevance to above sentence by Sri Venkatraghavan prabhuji, his mentioning of 'is' and jnana and its saMsarga prompted me to write something on 'is' and 'jagat'.

We can see in bhAshya jagat is kArya and brahman is kAraNa and brahman is abhinna nimittOpadAna kAraNa of this jagat (let us keep aside theories like pariNAma and vivarta vAda for the time being).  And this jagat which is kArya Ananya ( trishu kAleshu i.e. srushti sthiti and antya) from kAraNa and kAryAkAra too from kAraNa svarUpa drushti  satyameva  na anrutaM.  How can it be possible??When :


  1.  Brahman is chetana, jagat is achetana/ jada,
  2.  brahman is nirvikAri/ changeless and jagat is ever changing/sakala vikArAtmaka,
  3.  brahman is nirguNa and jagat is triguNAtmika,
  4.  brahman is nitya and jagat meets its end hence anitya.

Under these circumstances how can it be legitimate to declare kArya jagat nothing but kAraNa brahman??  If at all you want to say both are Ananya you have to strike atleast some similarity between these two.  If not all atleast one single feature of brahman has to follow in the jagat to say that kArya prapancha (jagat) is nothing but kAraNa brahman.  What is that similarity??  First of all it is quite untenable and illogical to find out absolute similarity between kAraNa & kArya, if at all there is no difference whatsoever between these two no need to distinguish that there is kAraNa  and there is kArya and for this kArya, the kAraNa is upAdAna etc.  i.e. if all the features of brahman follow in the jagat invariably there would not be any distinction between these two, that means that jagat (kArya) is not even created and seen and there will always be brahman only without the tag of kAraNa.  But that is not the case here, we have been seeing multifarious  nature of jagat (which is pratyaksha gOchara) and we have studied that there is creation and Ishwara is its srushti karta and it is 'vedAnta maryAda' to consider it that way.  Now coming back to demanding  atleast one single  similarity between kAraNa brahma and kArya jagat to prove ananyatvaM, yes it is quite logical and reasonable demand otherwise the cause-ness of brahman cannot be established by showing the kArya jagat.  The answer to this single similarity in the lines of above contradictions between brahma and jagat is in the above observations itself  :


  1.  Brahman 'IS' chetana, jagat 'IS' achetana/ jada,
  2.  brahman 'IS' nirvikAri/ changeless and jagat 'IS' ever changing/sakala vikArAtmaka,
  3.  brahman 'IS' nirguNa and jagat 'IS' triguNAtmika,
  4.  brahman 'IS' nitya and jagat meets its end hence 'IS' anitya.

The above is self-explanatory to find out what is that striking similar feature between brahma and jagat.  It is nothing but 'IS-NESS' (astitva / existence) the is-ness of brahman is the feature that is what followed in the jagat.  One is kUtastha nitya another is pariNAmi nitya, bhAshyakAra in sUtra bhAshya clarifies this by saying :  brahmasvarUpAnugamAya cha AkAshAdyanamayAntaM kAryaM and more clearly : brahmaNopi sattA lakshaNaH svabhAvaH AkAdishU anuvartamAnO drushyate.  And therefore yathA cha kAraNaM brahma trishu kAlAleshu na vyabhicharati evaM kAryamapi jagat trishukAleshu sattvaM na vyabhicharati.  The methodically arranged jagat is not whims and facies of tiny soul called jeeva to declare jagat is jeeva's avidyA srushti.  It is parameshwara prasAdaM to which parameshwara himself upAdAna kAraNaM.  If the upAdhi parichinna jeeva is brahman na aparaH then upAdhi vishesha kArya rUpa jagat too brahma eva na aparaH.  If the jeeva's upAdhi is mithya and avidyA parikalpitaM but jeeva is brahma then jagat's nAma rUpa svAtantrayatvaM too avidyA parikalpitaM and mithyameva and jagat in its kAraNa svarUpa brahmameva na aparaH.  janmAdhyadhikaraNa saying this without any ambiguity.

Perhaps I may not get tired ever to repeatedly saying this.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar