NIGGLING RESERVATIONS ABOUT ADVAITA

 

NIGGLING RESERVATIONS ABOUT ADVAITA

PROFANE QUESTIONS

1.     We say that Atma is self-luminous, axiomatic, self-evident. While one can grasp that there is a base for continuity that is felt by us, how are we to know that it is not a flash in the pan?

2.     Why association with ladies taboo? Why not association with men for ladies?

3.     Satyam and Rtam (सत्यं ऋतं)

I am confused between the two words.

Are they synonyms?

When Sruti says सत्यं वदिष्यामि ऋतं वदिष्यामि is it repetitive for emphasis?

When it says सत्यमेव जयते नानृतं it leaves one in no doubte that it uses the two words interchangeably.

I presumed that ऋतं means the rhythm or order in nature like planetary motion, heart beat, breathing, etc. which make life as we know possible. ऋतं may apply to the phenomenal reality and सत्यं to noumenal.

4.     The worldview that we normally entertain is due to adhyasa. When we train our mind to identify with Brahman (mind is not familiar with both Atman and Brahman), is it not another type of adhyasa? In other words, what would remain after the present adhyasa is removed is emptiness (one strand of Buddhism) with no scripture to guide.

5.     If Vyavaharika plane is mithya from Paramarthika view, is Parmarthika view theoretical from Vyavaharika plane?

6.     Is Maya real or unreal? If real, Brahman has a rival, and if unreal, the world must be real!

7.     If the worldly existence is mithya and rebirth also mithya, why bother about liberation or avoidance of the cycle of births and deaths?

8.     When we say that Advaita is not a religion, not a dogma, but insist that Advaita in a particular take is the ultimate, does it not reduce to a dogma?

9.     The world of objects is susceptible to the senses and is interpreted through mental images and comparison with previous images. Is it not truism that if the body-mind-imtellect is not there, the world also is not there? That cannot be a patent of Advaita. What Advaita affirms is the independent existence of awareness, independent of the 'container' (a false notion) and the objects (non-existent). This is the tough part to understand. If Sruti is not there, how does this truth become evident? Is Advaita also reduced to faith?

10. SSS in Karika: 'ln the beginning Brahman alone existed; thereafter, Hiranyagarbha and Virat - these were born". Therefore, what has been stated viz. "Vishwa, Taijasa etc. which already existed came into being" - is proper, justified.

He also suggests that nama rupa existed in avyakrita and manifests due to avidya. In trying to explain nothing new ever comes, we fall into the trap of unmnaifest/manifestation, which does not really save the day.

Any better way to understand this?

11. If science finds one day that deep sleep is only continuation of faint dreams that fade like Higgs boson, would Avastha-traya-vichara become futile?

12. Are the exegetes, learned scholars of siddhantas, and heads of mutts jnanis?

13. Do the Upanishads directly say jiva and Iswara are one and the same? (I see a difference between Brahman and Iswara in that Iswara is Brahman + maya).

14. Sankara is clear that Sruti is pramana only where the other pramanas are not applicable, i.e. regarding Atman/Brahman. But, Sruti contains a lot of passages that seem speculative. For instance, the accounts of creation, which differ from one text to another, do not strike as sound or verifiable by analysis, logic or experience. Why should we not ignore them and take only the instruction on Atman/Brahman? Adhyaropa Apavada becomes necessary, because we take Sruti to be sacrosanct. It is the core message of Sruti that is sacrosanct, not what all it says.

15. Why is tatva-vichara on Brahman to be frozen with Sankara, with exception for Sureswara? After all, they also have only interpreted the Upanishads, adding some ideas which are not directly evident in the Upanishads. Why can’t the later seekers/interpreters try to fill the gaps?

16. What is anirvachaniyam? Beyond words? ‘Don’t know’? Neither real nor unreal (sadasad-vilaksananirvacaniya)? Open to speculation?

17. If an uttama adhikari can get jnanam with just sravanam, why can’t a super-uttama adhikari get it without even sravanam?

18. Are ‘jijnasu’ and ‘mumukhu’ synonymous since jnanam = moksham?

19. If correct jnana can result only from Scripture and Guru, is it not indoctrination? 

20. Is Advaita for everyone or only for the elite – that is reserved for those who can do the intellectual exercises of reading seemingly abstruse passages and the learned criticism of such passages and arrive at the truth with any conviction?

21. Advaita as a solution to overcoming misery and repeated births (samsara) does not make practical sense. Suffering and mental agony go with body and mind.

22. Swami Paramarthananda’s opening discourse on Upanishads begins with nitya-anitya-vastu-vichara as viveka. What is Nitya is Sat (Atma), what is anitya is Anatma. Why is any further clarification of Atma/Brahman necessary?

23. Atma cannot be defined and Sruti does not define Atma. Then, why look for its definition?

24. Avidya is simply mental block to viveka. It is abstract and is undefinable as I understand. Why bother about its definition and some bhava rupa for it? I need not define myself to cognise me. The things of avidya are available for sense perception and not difficult of identification. Why go with this esoteric description of avidya?

25. The Sankara method is decluttering the concepts which are superimpositions. By going threadbare into the concepts, do we not complicate the matter? We get more and more enmeshed in concepts and travel west while we want to travel east. The mind is prone to attachement wiith its associations and brain is ready to question and confuse. Should we not fix the mind on Atman and discard the concepts without bothering about these?

26. The world is illusion. It is mostly space (nothing), and the characters and incidents are impermanent. A little thinking makes us appreciate this fact. But, our life, however short, meaningless or illusory it may be, is in this illusory world. We have to cope with it. Advaita is a good stance from which we can manage it better, but we have to manage it. We cannot treat it as trash. Our relationships are incidental and evanescent. But, they matter so long as they last. We have to care for it. We cannot be aloof. We must partake in joys and sorrows with maturity. The body is significant and must be taken care of. The soul has to be realized, it does not require to be taken care of. We must do all that it takes to tend the body and keep it fit.

This world is real or false, or a mere void into which we breathe life and weave forms and give names, a dream that will be falsified on waking up, but do we not love it all the while? Do we not wish the pleasant dream to last and feel angry if woken up?

I am gone when the body goes, the Soul is One and lasts, and the false ‘I’ was never there, there is nothing to lose. Why lose the body and mind even when they are intact?

There is a catch – I am attracted to Advaita as to the non-existent world, and fall between the two stools.

27. Sankara advocates fiercely sanyasa for liberation. That is understandable. Liberation by definition calls for snapping ties with what is insubstantial. But, the division of life into learning, earning, withdrawing and giving up totally makes better sense than jumping to giving up after learning.

28. Sankara stresses knowledge of scripture outside in (sravanam, mananam, nidhidhyasanam of BU) as vital for jnanam. Does it mean that one cannot get it from his inner self, which is nothing but Brahman? Will it not weaken the case of Brahman? Does he possibly address the multitude which left to itself will move in the rut of samsara and not turn to the inward eye?

29. Is Advaita a philosophy born of despair?

30. I read Roger Penrose expressing the view that the objective world is a reality, but it does not appear to be shared by all scientists. It does not satisfy me that we should not compare science and Vedanta. Science cannot say anything on Brahman and Advaita cannot say anything on the working of the world, but the reality of the world is an overlapping subject (or object). We need to align with science to the extent that there is no proposition in Vedanta which is blatantly violative of a truth of science.

 

Samadhanam:

Science comes up with theories as describe the phenomena known till the time and never claims that the end has been reached. It deals with the observed world and admits that it does not have a precise view of the world. For example, it became necessary to assume existence of dark matter/energy accounting for 95% of the universe, about which no evidence or clue is available.

Advaita is about a basic state that undergoes no change and is unaffected by the superimposed changes. If Advaitic truth is dependent on the outcome of worldly knowledge or the discoveries of science, it would be an evolving thing, something that runs counter to the very basics of Advaita.

This does not provide a direct answer, but as knowledgeable people say, Advaita stands on its own and science has nothing to do with it. But, I have a burning interest to know what science comes up with on ‘Reality’ on its terms.

31. Deep Sleep (DS)

How will we meet an argument like this?

‘DS is a state when the brain is at rest and the external world is not comprehended with brain not functioning. When we wake up, the brain and the senses become active, and the memory stored in the brain (or in each cell, as I read somewhere) is revived so that we indentify readily with the person that went to sleep. There is no need for soul, avidya, etc.’

32. February 14, 2014

'I am Brahman'

If 'I am Brahman', then why do I not realise it? Is it perhaps like even though all atoms have enormous power, for a nuclear device we have to use U232 or plutonium? (That is, only a person who has attained a critical level of enlightenment can realise it.)

33. Can animals attain Mukti? Mukti is relevant to a Mumukshu. Without Mumukshutvam, Mukti is not possible. Can an animal be a Mumukshu? I do not know. A jnani may know.

But, jnana is that state where no distinctions are possible. So, a jnani talking of Mukti to an animal may not bother about such intellectual exercise.

 

34. If the Soul Supreme (pure consciousness without attachment to physical and mental states and deeds and rewards) sheds light to enable the active soul (jiva) to do what it does, and remains as passive witness, is IT not an abettor and an accomplice?

Advaita does well to discredit the idea of creation by god, and explain creation as an inexpressible and evanescent appearance in paramarthic sense. But in being the source of the apparent worldly strife (for nothing can be outside IT), how can IT avoid being tainted?

In a way, we start with scripture (a pramana many may not accept) and end in intuition (which seems to leave us where we started).

 

35. The question how reliable intuition is troubles my mind.

How is my personal experience of ‘I am’ reliable and a pointer to something that is unborn and undying, and a whole that is all-inclusive?

That Sruti says so is taken on faith and seems to persist as an article of faith. A mere feeling of my existence does not seem to result in conviction.

 

36. In the bhashya *Bh G), this passage occurs:

“न, विषेष्याभवात् i सद्बुद्धिः विशेषेण-विषया सती विशेषेष्याभावे विशेषणानुपत्तौ किंविषया स्यात्, न तु पुनः सद्बबुद्धेः विषयाभवात् !

—You cannot say so, for there is no substantive (viseshya) present. The consciousness of existence corresponds to the attributive; and as there can be no consciousness of the attributive without that of the corresponding substantive, how can the consciousness of the attributive arise in the absence of the substantive? —Not that there is no objective reality present, corresponding to the consciousness of existence..” (Sri Mahadeva Sastri)

Does it not suggest that there is an objective reality?

37. Is there anything in Sruti by way of explanation of avidya/maya/mithya?

Why has Sankara not elaborated upon it – because it is indeterminate, insignificant, or by oversight? Looking at the Pandora’s box such an analysis  has led to, was he perhaps wise not adding his name to it?

Is there any possibility of verifying the propositions in experience? It looks like a catch 22 situation whatever way you interpret these ‘concepts’. Why not accept that it beats the best of brains?

Is it just a matter of philosophical debate with itself as an end, or has it a bearing in acquiring jnanam?

38. Why is Ramana’s simple method of enquiry inadequate for jnanam for ordinary people who cannot read and understand such minute differences and abstruse concepts that go well over the head?