[Advaita-l] Advaita Vedanta and Ignorance

[Mahesh Ursekar]

Pranams:

My two bits (however naive):

The below analogy is erroneous when viewed from the jiva-jagat-ishwara
viewpoint, but it is addresses the ignorance angle of the question to
some degree:

Advaita:
Brahman is the magician, the magic is Maya, the audience represents
the deluded souls who percieve the magic to be real while the jnani is
the soul who can see through the magic as a sleight of hand on the
part of the magician

VishishtaAdvaita:
A jeweller uses molten gold to make ornaments like banlges, bracelets,
necklaces, etc. The deluded souls are those ornaments who think they
are individual entites (different from gold) while the jnani is one
who knows his/her true nature as gold.

Dwaita:
Brahamn is the shephard. The sheep that stray away from him/her is the
condition of the lost souls while those that return to him/her and
live in joy with him/her are the jnanis.

And so, as mentioned by an earlier post, the ignorance in all cases is
in the jiva and not Brahman.

Pranams, Mahesh



On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 15:02:11 +0000, Krunal Makwana
<krunalmakwana at hotmail.com> wrote:
> || Namo Narayan ||
> || Jai Sri Krishna ||
> || Ram ||
> 
> Dear Jaldharji,
> 
> Firstly my adoration for your knowledge on Advaita Vedanta and the mere
> grasp of such a hard but flawless philosophy.
> 
> I have always had one enquiry which i have waited for an answer for a long
> time thinking someone else will ask the question but unfortunately no one
> has and i am left with small but very important doubts.
> 
> A few days ago i was talking to a few Satsangis about Advaita and Vashishta
> Advaita (I myself a follower of Advaita) and during the conversation an
> interesting conversation started about the cognition of this exterior world
> and what is seemed to be real, is it or isn't it. Ramanujacharya's view on
> the world is that the world is real and so is Ishwara, but Adi Sankaracharya
> says that only Brahm is real and the world is false, till then the
> conversation was okay and the two merely philosphies are correct in their
> views.
> 
> But gradually as the conversation progressed some interesting views were
> made that  began to interest me in what were the views of Advaita Vedanta.
> Firstly the discussion that started off this stimulating conversation was
> that, if Adi Sankaracharya's philosophy was flawless then why can't it
> describe how the cognition of this world started, one of the answers given
> by myself was that it is because of ignorance, but then the question is, if
> Brahman is pure and all knowing then how can ignorance even come into the
> equation. If Paramatma is pure then how can this world (or creation) be a
> part of ignorance, as only ignorance can arise from not knowing, saying this
> if Paramatma was all knowing ignorance would have no leg to stand on, or if
> ignorance is the cause then Brahma is flawed.
> 
> Ramanujacharya overcomes this problem by saying that Jiva and Ishwar and
> Prakriti are all equal but not the same, so for ignorance to prevail that is
> the fault of Jiva and not Ishwar. What are the views  by Advaita Vedanta on
> this issue?
> 
> Please could you correct any miss understandings and explain the above in
> regard to Advaita Vedanta
> 
> Krunal Makwana
> Hindu Youth UK
> 
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