[Advaita-l] 'aham Brahmasmi' in Bhagavatam

piyali palit piyali_ju at yahoo.co.in
Wed Feb 23 14:21:30 CST 2011





Namaste

I shall give reference with Brahma sutra adhyaya and adhikarana of Adi
Sankara’s bhasya after I clearly understand what you stated here.

Kindly give reference with Brahma Sutra Adhyaya and
Adhikarana of Adi

Sankara's Bhashya. As far as I know he said God Brahman is cause of

Universe but Universe is like a illusion on him.

Where did Adi Sankara spell ‘God Brahman’? As far as I know, he referred
to either ‘Ishvara’ or ‘Saguna Brahma’.

What type of cause he is for the Universe – ‘abhinna-nimitta-upadana-karana’;
without cikirsa and kritimattva one cannot have the status of nimitta-karana;
and, without possessing dharma-dharmi-bhava nothing can be assumed as upadana
karana. Hence, Ishvara or Saguna Brahman is assorted with qualities and
activities as illustrated by Adi Sankara.Universe is like a illusion on him - who is/are illusioned?

 Advaita is the only philosophy
to answer why there are bad things in the world like cruel men, people suffering poverty, hunger and all this if Perfect God created it.
All this bad things are not real. This is a most comforting answer given by
Advaita. We can not feel bad about the bad things in life. If God created real Universe this question cannot have a
comforting answer to those suffering.  

All the moksa-shastra-s, philosophy as you may call them, namely, Nyaya,
Vaisesika, Samkhya, Patanjala, Purva-Mimamsa, also deal with eradication of ‘ajnana’,
the root cause of all sufferings. How do you claim that Advaita is the only
philosophy to answer why there are bad things, etc.?

More importantly, what are the ‘good things’ for an advaitin, opposite of
cruelty, poverty, hunger, etc.? is there really any good/bad thing in Advaita?

And God is Atma also.

What type of Atma is God for you and for an Advaitin?

 He cannot have
'transcendental activities and qualities' because there will be Duality.

What did you mean by ‘transcendental activities and qualities’ ? Please
make it clear for me.

This is against Sruti.

Against which Sruti ? There are many Sruti which tell about duality and
even plurality and which have been taken up as pramana for non-advaita astika
philosophy.

 Only Advaita is
finally true.

‘Only Advaita’ is a tautology. And, if you claim something as ‘finally
true’, that indicates there are more things to be accepted as true to reach before the final one.

The activities like dancing with Gopis are true in Vyavahara but not in
Paramartha.

Let us first decide how should we differentiate between ‘true in vyavahara’
and ‘true in paramartha’; it is only after that that we can discuss about dancing
with Gopis.









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