Response to Chittaji's comment

[Guest guest]

Ref. Message No.1 of Advaitin Digest 2751

Dear Chittaranjanji:

You wrote after quoting me:

 

 

> When I was thinking of the so many many places both in the

> Gita and other scriptures and Shankara's own works like

> Sridakshinamurti stotram, vivekachudamani, etc.etc. where

> the mention of the creating power Avidya occurs, it would

> be no wonder if soon we are informed that the Gitaacharya,

> Vyasaachaarya and the Shankara of the prakaranagranthas -

> all must be post-Shankaran for none of them has understood

> Shankara correctly!!

 

 

 

 

I had always thought before now that it was in the nature of vidya to

 

make it possible to create and in the nature of avidya to make it

 

possible to obscure and make things go awry. I thought I knew that it

 

was through vidya and not through avidya that I had learnt how to

 

drive a car and how to make an airplane. I also knew that by having

 

avidya with regard to the aforementioned arts and sciences, I could

 

neither drive a car nor build an airplane though I could very well

 

have the result of the car being banged into something that I had not

 

intended to bang, or to have a jumbled piece of many things that

 

together could neither fly nor do anything else of use to me. But

 

what I knew then is now in doubt after you have presented your post

 

to us.

 

 

My Response:

 

Namaste. Thank you for that response. I think the reason for your obvious

discomfiture on reading my tailpiece was caused by your reading the word

creating power as creative power. I was careful in choosing my words. The

creative power has to be nurtured and no one can complain against it. But what

I was meaning by creating power, sometimes referred to as 'srjanaatmikaa

shakti', of Avidya was the carrying in its womb the seed of the to-be-manifested

variegated world. This avyakta state was what I was meaning. Surely this is

not a very desirable state for otherwise the Mandukya would not have gone on to

teach the Turiya as prapanchopashamam shantam shivam advaitam and the one to be

realised as liberating knowledge. The Avyakta carries within it the possibility

of shanta-vilakshanam, shiva-vilakshanam and advaita-vilakshanam. What I meant

was the need to recognise a causal state prior to adhyasa which was what was

taught in the various verses that I was referring to. And

someone who does not recognise this causal Avidya was going against the

teaching of the scriptures.

 

CRN:

 

I do not also understand the mystery of how this thing you call

vikshepa comes to be posterior to this thing that you call avarana. I

with all sincerity beg you to enlighten me on how this is so. I have

always been thinking that once vikshepa is there, the viksheped thing

could be mistaken or obscured, but I am even now unable to think how

mistaking no thing at all can come to be. It would then be a case of

there being no mistake since no thing is mistaken. But I am now

puzzled in my mind because you said in your post that the mistake is

there before any thing is there to be mistaken. Again, as I have said

earlier hereinabove, all

 

Response:

 

I think you are referring to my possible mention somewhere of the

avaranashakti obtaining in sleep state as the cause for the subsequent vikshepa

that the waking and dream states are. For the Gaudapada karika 13 of the

Agamaprakaranam:

 

Dvaitasya agrahanam …..

Bija-nidra-yutaH PrAjnaH…

 

Shankara comments:

for the second line, bija nidra-yutaH = tattva-apratibodho nidra = the

non-apprehension of the Truth is nidra. Saiva cha

vishesha-pratibodha-prasavasya bijam = that alone, the nidra, is the seed for

the state characterised by the perception of particularities. Saa biija nidra,

tayaa yutaH praajnaH= the praajna is endowed with this non-apprehension.

 

This is called the avaranashakti as a result of which the vikshepa occurs.

Regarding the 'no thing' that you say about the nidra, I am not very familiar.

This may be perhaps of my normally being 'friendly' with the Sanskrit

terminology. Pl. tell me what it is that you mean, in a way that I can

appreciate it.

 

Warm Regards,

subbu

 

 

 

 

 

 

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