[Advaita-l] [advaitin] Does SSSS subscribe to drsti-srsti vada?

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

The above highlighted observation is contradicted by Shankara and Gaudapada:


  *   No not at all really!!  Both shankara and gaudapAda clearly says jagat is NOT just jeeva mAnasa pratyaya…OTOH Ishwara hetuka srushti is vedAnta maryAda insists bhAshyakAra.  Seeing IT in ‘in’ and ‘out’ is what gaudapAda too emphasizes.


https://adbhutam.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/the-world-is-mind-alone-shankaracharya/   (the details of the bhashya are there in this post)

In both the Mundaka Upanishad bhashya and the Mandukya Karika bhashya, Shankara asserts that the world is dependent on the mind by default and even reasons: when the mind is active, the world is cognized and when the mind is not active, in deep sleep and samadhi, the world is not cognized.


  *   But don’t you prabhuji-s are the vociferous advocators of mithyA vastu darshana in sushupti also??  And unconditionally accepting the existence of bhAva rUpa / kAraNAvidyA in sushupti??  You have place for avidyA but you don’t have the place for Ishwara srushti!!??  Quite strange indeed!!  Please note shankara refuted the buddhist’s vijnAnavAda (the school which says ‘mind all” and nothing outside).  In one of his works Sri SSS clearly says :  the universe is NOT an illusion according to bAdarAyana as explained by shankara.  vyavahAra (human procedure in common life) has its own criterion for testing the reality and unreality.  It is the Buddhists who deny reality to external objects.  The vijnAnavAdin says that the object is identical with the idea, since both of them are experienced to gether.  But shankara draws our attention to the principle :  it is on the evidence or want of evidence of some valid means of knowledge that we have to determine the conceivability or the inconceivability of the existence of a thing and NOT vice versa.  (sUtra bhAshya 2-2-28).  It is no doubt bhAshyakAra every now and them insisted to realize the essential identity of the jagat with brahman.

Hence, cognition is creation - dristi sristi vāda - is explicitly accepted as the śāstra dristi by Shankara and Gaudapada. The loka drishti is denied by them as avidya kalpita and the shastra drsti is accepted as the one contradicting the loka dristi.  In fact in the Bh.Gita verse 2.69 bhashya says it all: the distinction between the loka drsti and sastra dristi, that is, the sastra dristi contradicting/negating the loka dristi. There are many more instances of such a view of Shankara.


Ø     There is nothing to prove in 2.69 geeta verse that world is mere construction, OTOH, how pramAtru, prameya and pramANa distinctions are avidyA Kalpita, how shAstra being the untya pramANa removes the very knowership etc.  there is absolutely nothing to prove Ishwara srushti is mental construction of tiny jeeva’s mind.  I am really surprised to see this totally irrelevant reference from geeta bhAshya!!.  It deals mainly about ajnAni-s rAga dvesha and jnAni-s dvandvaateeta stable mind.

Hari  Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar







Doherty observes, ‘[SSS’ argument] is all true, of course, from the absolute standpoint (pāramārthika-dṛṣṭyā) and Satchidanandendra’s opponents would not contest this’ (Doherty 2005, p. 227). The key point is that SSS’ sākṣin-stance is different from the PSA’s pāramārthikadṛṣṭi; the latter is achieved post-gnosis, and is not immediately accessible. The PSA posit the sublation of the phenomenal world as a future “event” of “awakening” to the ultimate reality (Hirst 2005, p. 92). In contrast, to take the sākṣinstance is to notice what is available in direct experience—the irrefutable absence of the waking world in the dream (svapne vipratipadyate) and deep sleep states—to understand its ultimate reality (tasmādādyantavatvena mithyaiva khalu te smṛtāḥ) (GKB 2.7). It is therefore that SSS argues—that Śaṅkarācārya argues—that the world is incontestably real from the vyāvahārika perspective; from the sākṣin standpoint, on the other hand, the vyāvahārika-world is illusory for its sublation (in dream/deep sleep) is directly cognised (Saraswati 2009b, p. 90). From the perspective of absolute non-dual reality, there is nothing to be said at all. SSS is clear that the śāstradṛṣṭi does not undermine the lokadṛṣṭi: it is an epistemic standpoint to understand the ultimate reality. Comans’ (and Doherty’s) criticism conflates the two.
This conflation/confusion stems from a very valid concern: how is the examination of the contents of awareness of the waking state—as experienced by the (contemplating) individual—not constrained by their subjectivity; how, in other words, a clearly subjective starting point of inquiry can be called as a universal, trans-personal perspective; for indisputably, it is an individual who must undertake the inquiry— the epistemic shift from lokadṛṣṭi to śāstradṛṣṭi—to examine the contents of awareness—of ‘their’ waking/dream/deep-sleep states—as the disinterested Witness. SSS argues that the stance of the Witness is a heuristic tool of inquiry that allows us to see that despite the appearance of the immediate point-of-access to awareness as subjective, awareness itself is prior to the I-notion, and also ‘subjectivity’, and is therefore, trans-subjective.41 The critical move from lokadṛṣṭi to śāstradṛṣṭi allows the critical insight that the very notion of individuality, the sense of ‘my’ experience, is itself a content of awareness. By rigorously analysing our ‘subjective’ experience from the standpoint of awareness, we are forced to re-evaluate ‘subjectivity’ itself; the inquiry progressively unravels the limitations of our habitual, individualised perspective and points towards a more fundamental reality; it employs our ‘subjective experiences’ to show their limitations.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "advaitin" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to advaitin+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com<mailto:advaitin+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com>.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAAz9PvF4Xzqva3f5dD25TNeX_7NmYrZ8%2B_Rjsuv0AAmK7T9Syg%40mail.gmail.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/advaitin/CAAz9PvF4Xzqva3f5dD25TNeX_7NmYrZ8%2B_Rjsuv0AAmK7T9Syg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.