[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Kilogram not yet concluded after all

[Bhaskar YR]

In another thread, Venkat Ji had raised this issue and Bhaskar Ji was just responding. But it seems to have hit a hurdle on an extraneous point, and unfortunately not progressing as of now. I do wish you could persuade someone to do so.
praNAms
Hare Krishna
I really very badly wish to spend sufficient time on these discussions and would like to participate  more actively but what to do!!  I am getting salary not to discuss vedAnta but for doing some officially assigned work to me at office 😊 Coming back to the subject, I would once again reiterate that Sri  SSS IMO is NOT jnAna abhAvavAdi and he primarily insisted that adhyAsa is the main cause for all these samsArik turbulations.  So, we can easily term him as ‘adhyAsa vAda’ pratipAdaka and not mere and only jnAnAbhAva pratipAdaka.  According to him all vidyA – avidyA methodologies adopted by shruti etc. is just a basic prakriya i.e. adhyArOpa-apavAda as in brahman there is no vidyA-avidyA vyavahAra.  Now what is avidyA according to him??  I don’t think here he is emphasizing on jnAnAbhAva but he is time and again saying avidyA=adhyAsa and this adhyAsa (ahamidam mamedaM eti nasargikOyaM adhyAsaH mithyApratyaya rUpaH sarvalOka pratyakshaH) is the main / foremost cause for our suffering and to eradicate this adhyAsa all loukika and vaidika teachings are  there.   So, as per SSS avidyA is equal to adhyAsa and mAya is adhyArOpita due to this avidyA.  avidyAkalpita, Again in short, as per Sri SSS bereft of adhyAsa there is no place for adhyArOpa (he feels something else i.e. his mind’s adhyArOpa)  and adhyArOpita (sees a thing which is not there actually -adhyAropita).  And it is also to be noted that though pre-dominant avidyA= adhyAsa only,  after the dawn of jnAna all the three types of avidyA will get eradicated at once as per him.  As you know he quotes bruhad bhAshya (yadi jnAnAbhAvaM….jnAneneva navartate)  and geeta bhAshya 13.2 to substantiate his stand on adhyAsa vAda.  More importantly as per Sri SSS, this avidyA (all the three types) just mere karaNa dOsha and it (avidyA) does not find any place in Atman / brahman / kshetrajna / jeeva as he is trishu kAleshu Shuddha Chaitanya only for which there is no transactions like ignorance or knowledge etc.  It was / is / will ever be absolute consciousness. And from the empirical standpoint ignorance pertains to mind (antaHkaraNa) and that should be as it is as knower has no ignorance. Therefore, what we have been seeing here from the desk of mUlAvidyAvAdins i.e. avidyA is beeja shakti or potency of the self, it has the capability of concealing brahman, it is material cause for the jagat, it is bhAvarUpa/dravyarUpa/existing entity, its Ashraya, subject matter etc. etc. not at all acceptable to him as these new topic introductions is ‘bAshya bAhira’ and not anubhava sammata.
Now the main question whether Sri SSS accepts agrahaNa (jnAnAbhAva) is the main one or adhyAsa is the pre-dominant one??  Sri Venkatraghavan prabhuji seems under the impression that Sri SSS is primarily advocating jnAnAbhAva and there is no place for adhyAsa in his works!!  I am afraid this is gross misunderstanding of his position.  He never ever denied adhyAsa in empirical transactions infact he argued that in a day-to-day transactions ‘adhyAsa’ is the pre-dominant one.  (simply for examply when one first see the snake in rope, he never ever thought due to lack of knowledge of rope right now I am seeing snake, his first cognition of snake (which is adhyAsa) does not surrounded by these jnAnAbhAva notion.  Hence in the transactional world ‘the misconception’ is the pre-dominant one.  He often quotes adhyAsa bhAshya vAkya :  tametaM avidyAkhyaM AtmAnAtmanOritaretaraadhyAsaM puraskrutya sarve pramANaprameyavyavahAraa loukikA vaidikAshcha pravruttAH sarvANi cha shAstrANi vidhipratishedhamOkshaparANi.
Finally for Kannada readers I would like to quote this from one of Sri SSS’s Kannada works :  avidye endare AtmAnAtmara parasparAdhyAsave endu heLiddeve.  Adare avidye emba shabdavu adhyAsavemba shabdakkinta hecchu vyApakavAgiruttade ekendare vidyeyinda endare AtmAnAtmara vivekada beLakininda yaavayaavudu tolaguvudO, vidyeyuntaaguvavarege yaavayaavudu vastuvannu tiLiyagodade musukikondiruvudO antha tAmasapratyayavellavU avidye emba hesarige takkaddaagiruvudu.  Addarinda tappaagi tiLiyuva, athava saMshayavannu taNdOdduva athavaa vastuvannu ariyadiruva pratyayavellavU E arthadalli avidyeye aagiruttade.  …….edarante Atma svarUpada bagge eruva agrahaNa, saMshaya, vipareeta pratyaya E mooru avidyegaLu Atmaikatva vidyeyindale tolaguvudu.  Adare echina kelavaru vyAkhyAnaprasthAnada vedAntigaLu E moorakkinta bereyaagi mattondu avidyeyuntendu kalpisiruttaare.
If one closely observes Sri SSS emphasis in all his works it is quite evident that Sri SSS accepts that adhyAsa is the root cause of saMsAra and through vidyA when adhyAsa is eradicated simultaneously other two also will go!! As per him there is no time gap between (a) eradication of wrong knowledge and (b) knowing / realizing the right knowledge.  Effort is required just to efface the wrong knowledge about rope once it is done rope knowledge dawns automatically.  As Atma jnAna is not jnAna kArya and it is self-luminous.
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar