Still Confusion regarding Shankara’s co

[Cameron Reilly]

At 00:47 28-01-97 -0500, "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at braincells.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, Cameron Reilly wrote:
>
>> Inferior? Are you saying that advaita recognises one 'mental concept' to be
>> of a higher order than another 'mental concept'?
>>
>
>Certainly.  A pot is far more real than a three sided square isn't it?
>
>A basic misunderstanding people seem to have is the idea that in Advaita
>the world is not real.  Actually we say it is real but misunderstood.

No, I disagree. The pot and the three sided square have equal reality -
both are nothing more than concepts in your mind. Advaita does NOT say the
world is real at all. Advaita sayd the world is a mental concept. What is
real is the Brahman. Everything else is sensory illusion.


>
>> Certainly the word 'advaita' itself means 'non-duality', does it not? Not
>> two.
>>
>
>It is the jiva and Brahman which are not two.  I  don't see why what we're
>talking about should affect that in any way.

That's exactly it. This has EVERYTHING to do with it.

>> This inability to see beyond the pairs of opposites is due to a fixation
>> with dualism. The 'one-ness' of things must first be apperceived before the
>> words of the Masters will become clear.
>
>The words of the masters are clear.  The problem is a lot of people don't
>bother to read them.

I think people DO read them but rarely investigate for themselves and thus
get trapped in trying to understand words - which again are concepts. And
the truth will never be found in concepts.

Regards,

Cameron Reilly