[Advaita-l] shankara-SSS tradition & tatvamasi

[prem d p]

namaste...
   
  dear smt savithriji,
   
  i am very grateful for the detailed response from you.
   
  i am re-producing part of your own responses below. 
  i am also further explaining some of my queries,
  necessitated, no doubt, by the lack of clarity in my
original statements.
   
  prem had written:
   
  1. in a cognizer-cognized dual, the 'cognizer'cannot 
cognize without the support of Self(Atman), so also 
the 'cognized' is not cognizable if not supported
by Self(Brahman).
  2. that the above is a refutation of pure idealism.
   
  savithriji wrote:
   
  ...The substrate of all (seen, unseen, conceived,
misconceived) is brahman/Self, because you give
existence them. This Self or Pure Consciousness (of
the deep sleep) diversifies itself as the
subject-object of the waking, and dream states. You
can draw a parallel from the upanishadic 2-bird story
if you like, where one simply sees (Witness), while
the other enjoys the fruit...
   
  prem:
   
  thus perception is facilitated by the 'diversification
of the Self' into duality. thus Seer and Seen are both
of Self.
   
  savithriji wrote:
 
..Therefore, the object super-imposed in perception is
not meant by the term avidya, but is due to avidya.
And it is not that this misconceived object has got to
be removed by true knowledge, but just our own avidya
of it has to be removed. It is not that the apparent
silver in nacre has to be removed first by the true
knowledge of nacre, but one's own false notion of it...
   
  prem:
   
  from the above it is clear that the process of liberation
from ignorance is removal of the ignorance associated
with antah-karana by true knowledge. thus the problem
is avidya and solution is knowledge. again as you have
pointed out the best that antah-karana can achieve is
".......this discrimination separating the Self from
the non-Self is itself located in the non-Self, it
does not let the student go beyond the state of doubt
at best......". Hence it is evident that deliverance
is transcendence. it seems that the terms ignorance
and knowledge in this context has a significance
which exceeds the individual antah-karana, because the
truly-experienced (in other words the wise) goes
invariably thro' the stage of sub-ordination of his
individual littleness to the vastness holding the
mutiplicity. 
   
  prem had written:
   
  3. personally, to me (in my current state of 
knowledge/ignorance), multiplicity is not a problem
which necessarily demands a solution of the form of a
single primary jiva. multiplicity of view-points
(jivas) is the fundamental mechanism of
how the illusion of reality is created. so for a
real-like-illusion a real-like-multiplicity-of-cognizers is required. 
  and precisely for this reason a single cognizer will not do in the 
  realm of variety and its dimensions.
   
  savithriji wrote:
   
  ...I barely appreciate what you say here...
...Even the seen world with all its objects and unseen
worlds are inferred based on the false conception of
duality. This inferred potential of all phenomena
including the aggregate of the body and the senses is
called by the significant name of Maya - false
appearance due to ignorance...
   
  prem:
   
  my point 3 above is actually my own thoughts and not
directly based on any author or authority...hence very
much liable to be rejected by the reader.
   
  the instrumentation of antah-karana though is both the
instrument and its measurement, is incapable of being
exhaustive, the infinity of avidya is beyond 
antah-karana, and antah-karana has to multiply
infinitely to both participate in the creation and
exhaustion of the measured.
   
  however, notwithstanding above, i do understand
that the infinite variability of phenomena is
itself devoid of any potential to fulfill or
satisfy in any way and in the final analysis lacks
purpose absolutely. it is this realization that
transforms into the quest for 'that knowledge which
when known makes all else known'. on the other hand
our vision of the Absolute from within multiplicity,
time-space, and causation presents itself as that
ideal principle of omniscience, omnipotence,
omnipresence....creator, preserver, dissolver.
brahmasutra says that an individual jiva, who is an
upasaka of saguna brahman, has no chance of achieving
this status.
   
  prem had written:
   
  i also would like to request you to clarify, for
my benefit, the status with respect to each other 
of 'that' and 'thou' in the mahavakya 'tat tvam asi' 
according to the shankara-SSS tradition.
   
  savithriji wrote: 
    
  ...Then, when all else has been negated, and what is left is this 
  vestige "tvam" and the "tat", the student
  asks who is he then, to that the teacher says "tat
tvam asi". "tat" - which had been paroksha jnAna until
now, becomes aparoksha jnAna to the student...
   
  prem:
   
  the above is an excellent view of the mahavakya, from
the vantage point of sadhana/sadhaka. i believe, in the upanishadic context, 'tat' is paramatma and 'tvam' is the jivatman. 
   
  my query was that by establishing the
identity of paramatman and jivatman, is the
subsumption of one in the other meant? (i think not.)
   
  pranam.
   
  ...prem

       
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