[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Mandukya bhashya. Ignorance seed in sushupti (fwd)

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: H S Chandramouli <hschandramouli at gmail.com>


Dear Dennis,

Really do not want to spoil your holiday mood. But felt compelled to just
draw your attention to one point made by you.

//  Ignorance means lack of knowledge, a bit like darkness means lack of
photons in the visible electromagnetic spectrum //.

This is not the position taken in the Shrutis as explained by Sri
Bhagavatpada.

BU 3-7-13

//  यस्तमसि तिष्ठंस्तमसोऽन्तरो यं तमो न वेद यस्य तमः शरीरं यस्तमोऽन्तरो यमयत्येष त
आत्मान्तर्याम्यमृतः ॥ १३ ॥//

//  yastamasi tiShThaMstamaso.antaro yaM tamo na veda yasya tamaH sharIraM
yastamo.antaro yamayatyeSha ta AtmAntaryAmyamRRitaH || 13 || //

Bhashya thereon

//  योऽप्सु तिष्ठन् , अग्नौ, अन्तरिक्षे, वायौ, दिवि, आदित्ये, दिक्षु, चन्द्रतारके, आकाशे,
यस्तमस्यावरणात्मके बाह्ये तमसि, तेजसि तद्विपरीते प्रकाशसामान्ये — इत्येवमधिदैवतम्
अन्तर्यामिविषयं दर्शनं देवतासु । //

//  yo.apsu tiShThan , agnau, antarikShe, vAyau, divi, Aditye, dikShu,
chandratArake, AkAshe, yastamasyAvaraNAtmake bAhye tamasi, tejasi
tadviparIte prakAshasAmAnye — ityevamadhidaivatam antaryAmiviShayaM
darshanaM devatAsu | //

Translation (Swami Madhavananda)  // He who inhabits water,fire,the sky, the
air, heaven, the sun, the quarters, the moon and the stars, the ether,
darkness – the external darkness which obstructs vision, and light, light in
general which is the opposite of darkness //.

AntaryAmi Devata is mentioned in respect of Darkness as well. This is the
Shruti PramANa for darkness as BhAvarUpa, an existent entity.

Please do not bother about responding  immediately or even early. I am
posting now since I am most likely to forget about it later. You may like to
respond on your return from the holidays.

Have a nice and enjoyable holiday.

With Best Wishes

Chandramouli


On Wed, Jun 28, 2023 at 1:11 PM <dwaite at advaita.org.uk> wrote:

       Hi Bhaskar-ji,

        

       Just a quick response.

        

       Up until writing this book, I considered myself a VivaraNa
       Advaitin. But I found a number of so-called ‘translations’ of
       Ṥaṅkara bhAShya-s which imposed prior (mis-)understanding of
       some topics and did not translate the words that were there.
       This habit seems to continue into later writers – a bit like
       ‘Chinese Whispers’! Hence we end up with ideas like AvaraNa and
       vikShepa. Also later writers seem to spend inordinate amounts of
       effort trying to explain and argue their mistaken views.

        

       Ignorance in deep-sleep:

        

        1. Ignorance means lack of knowledge, a bit like darkness means
           lack of photons in the visible electromagnetic spectrum.
        2. Knowledge takes place in the mind.
        3. There is lack of knowledge in deep-sleep because the mind is
           resolved.
        4. It is only in this sense that there is ‘ignorance’ in
           deep-sleep. There is no actual entity called ‘ignorance’.
        5. On awakening or going into dream, the mind becomes active
           again and continues the related activities (external
           perception in waking; internal, memory-related in dream).
        6. If the mind was unenlightened before going to sleep, it is
           still unenlightened afterwards! No surprise there, then!
        7. You don’t ‘become Brahman’ in deep-sleep – you are already
           Brahman, all of the time! You just lack the knowledge.

        

       Best wishes,

       Dennis

        

       From: 'Bhaskar YR' via advaitin <advaitin at googlegroups.com>
       Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2023 6:54 AM
       To: advaitin at googlegroups.com; 'A discussion group for Advaita
       Vedanta' <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
       Subject: RE: [advaitin] Mandukya bhashya. Ignorance seed in
       sushupti

 

praNAms Sri Dennis prabhuji

Hare Krishna

 

Just for the record, I would like to register my membership of the 1%
brigade!

 

Ø     Me too 😊

 

to clarify Ṥaṅkara’s stance on them, principally using quotations from
shruti, GIta, Gaudapada, Ṥaṅkara and Sureshvara to counter the many
quotations expressing contrary or conflicting explanations.

 

Ø     Happy to note that you are choosy here and picking ONLY shankara
bhagavatpAda and one later follower of shankara ( vArtikakAra Sri
Sureshwara) to share your observations.  Just curious what makes you
to think like this when plenty of later vyakhyAnakAra-s from their
respective schools of thought contributing heavily on this issue in
their respective works like bhAmati, paNchapAdika vivaraNa etc. !!??

 

In this volume, one of the aspects that I specifically address is the
notion of avidyA as a really existent entity and I am afraid that I
have to conclude, using reason and common sense, as well as the
quotations, that what is meant by ‘ignorance’ is simply ‘lack of
knowledge’.

 

  *  Those who are from 1% camp saying that ‘nobody would get
     realization by sleeping’ to say that sushupti is itself mOksha 😊
     bhAshyakAra would not say that either.  But even though you are
     one with brahman ( there are variant explanations with regard to
     this ikyam based on 6th mantra of kArika) you are not aware of
     that ikyaM / ekatvaM, that lack of knowledge is called
     ‘jnAnaabhAva’ which is the avidyA in abhAva form that exists in
     sushupti. 

 

Essentially, it is a language problem. So, yes, there is certainly
ignorance in the deep-sleep state, simply because the mind is resolved
and incapable of having knowledge about anything. But there is no
mUlAvidyA, I’m afraid.

 

  *  But mUlavidyAvAdins have some explanations to this to justify
     their stand on the existence of bhAvarUpa mulAvidyA.  One of the
     main argument is, if you say in sushupti there is no avidyA,
     without any effort of our own you will become brahman so without
     any shAstra janita jnana avidyA on its own completely annihilated
     and you will become brahman !!  this leads to shAstrAnarthakya
     dOsha so we have to accept mulAvidyA is there in avyakta rupa even
     though vyakta adhyAsa (kAryAvidyA) is absent  there. 

 

And I hope that many WILL be convinced if they read all of the
arguments. Unfortunately, it will almost certainly be next summer at
the earliest before it appears.

 

  *  Would like to read more on these clarifications from your desk.

 

 

(Incidentally, I do not consider myself to be an SSS adherent, even
though I agree with him on these topics. There are quite a few others
where I disagree!)

 

Ø     That is OK no problem prabhuji, just saw even Sri Kathirasan
prabhuji also saying the same thing 😊  We, the socalled,
asampradAyavAdin Sri SSS followers would happy to know even not so
good friend of Sri SSS’s shuddha shankara prakriya in agreement with
this very important aspect of Advaita vedAnta and saying mUlAvidyA as
propagated by vyakhyAnakAra-s is not in line with shankara. 

 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!

bhaskar

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