[Advaita-l] Accounting for Brahman appearing as the world

Raghav Kumar Dwivedula raghavkumar00 at gmail.com
Sun Sep 10 23:17:09 EDT 2017


Namaste Subbu ji
Thank you for the explanations.
You are saying that the resolution of jagat as brahma (by bAdha) is not
entirely different from 'conventional ahaM' resolving in to its
adhiShThAnaM brahma in the case where ahaM and brahma are having the
primary meaning of cid-avivikta-abhAsaH where the primary meaning is
*entirely* given up through jahallakShaNA and in such a case we could hold
that bAdhasAmAnAdhikaraNyam does indeed hold  in this 'second case' ?



Just need some more clarity about the word cid-avivikta-abhAsaH ... Or to
put it a little in detail below

On 10-Sep-2017 10:54 PM, "V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

Dear All,

I think the various views/understandings expressed in this thread can be
reconciled.  In the book 'Sridakṣiṇāmūrtistotram Vol.1, on page 506 us a
subtitle: 6.6.14 Interpetation of the Mahavakya - Jahallakṣaṇā. There the
method is stated thus:

//In the school which speaks in terms of the ābhāsavāda prakriyā, the
primary senses of 'That' and 'thou' are taken either as ābhā-aviviktam
chaitanyam, i.e, Consciousness as not distinguished from the apparent
consciousness or as chidaviviktābhāsaḥ, i.e., the apparent consciousness as
not distinguished from the Consciousness, as pointed out by the
Nyāyaratnāvalī on the Siddhāntabindu (1). In the first case, the Mahāvākya
is to be understood by having recourse to partial abandonment i.e., the
bhāgatyāgalakṣaṇā as has been delineated

In the second case,
however, it is to be understood by having recourse to the jahallakṣaṇā
i.e., the total abandonment of the primary senses of the words 'That' and
'thou' by pointing to the Consciousness that is the Substratum.


This second case is not clear to me ... Tvam pada primary meaning being
cid-avivikta-abhAsaH  'apparent consciousness not distinguished from
Consciousness' ,  is comprehensible  but what would be the primary meaning
of the word 'That' in the second case, 'apparent consciousness not
distinguished from Consciousness'? This phrase is not clear esp. in the
context of 'That'.

Also on a different note, isn't jahallakShaNA also used in the case where
'tvam pada' is still having paricchinatvaM while tat-pada is nirguNam
brahma?

On
sublation of what is illusorily regarded in parlance as the meaning of the
word 'thou', the Substratum that is the Consciousness, stands out. So also
in the case of the meaning of the word 'That.'//


It is this sublation, bādha, that is meant by 'apavāda' in the BSB 3.3.9
(that I had cited earlier). The Bhāṣyaratnaprabhā says:
बुद्धिपूर्वकाभेदारोपोऽध्यासः,
बाधोऽपवादः.  The wrong identity with body-mind complex is given up through
right knowledge and the substratum Chit becomes apparent. The contingency
of 'aham nāsmi' too does not arise.


This I understand is the same as sarvam
(jagat) brahma where the jagat is negated and the Substratum Brahman alone
stands out. The difference between bhāgatyāga.. and jahallak....is that in
the former the adhyasta part is given up, tyakta and the anandhyasta part
is retained. In the latter there is no recognition of parts (bhāga) and the
entire anubhūta vastu is given up which by itself gives place for the
substratum to come to the limelight.


Now my doubt is clearer...I can understand tvam-shabda the anubhUta vastu
being,  'given up for' / resolving in to,  its adhiSThAnaM but what would
it mean to say that tat-padam or brahma as *anubhUta vastu* is given up?

This is in agreement with what is
articulated by Sri SSS:  <<  The way the understanding of the nature “ this
stalk of a tree is a man only “ by a person completely negates the idea of
the tree stalk, the  understanding  “I am Brahman “ completely negates the
idea of “ I “( aham )  ( in anAtma, anything else ) >>.




Thank you
Om
Raghav



I think the difference between the two lakṣaṇās lies in the way the
Acharyas have presented the thought; the end-result does not changing


warm regards


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