[Advaita-l] Jagat mityam or satyam?

Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com
Mon Jul 12 14:04:23 CDT 2004


How does the Br. Up indicate that the world is real in the _absolute_
sense? As a matter of fact, the verse *clearly* indicates the world is
*not* real in an absolute sense by instructing that brahman is indeed
the material cause of the universe. The same word can be used in
different senses or have different shades of meaning in a single
passage. There is no rule prohibiting such usage. Another example -
satyam caan.rtam ca satyamabhavat in the taittiriiya upani.sad. Please
also see what context it occurs - the three states of the aatman. That
gives a big clue.

There are many such passages indicating the "creation" of the world in
many upani.sads. Why, the very second brahma suutram is janmaadyasya
yata.h. It would be best to read the commentary on that suutra and/or
the bhaa.sya for this passage and ask questions based on that.

Rama

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:36:54 -0700 (PDT), Aravind Mohanram
<psuaravind at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Members,
> 
> I came across two verses, one in Brhadaranyaka Up. (II.1.20) and another Maitri Up. (6.32) that seem to indicate that this world is not false (as understood from Brahma satyam jagat mitya phrase), but it is satya but in a derivative sense (satyasya satya or Truth of Truth). So, my question is, is there a contradiction here, if yes, how do we reconcile these?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Aravind.



More information about the Advaita-l mailing list