Some Q & A

Iam posting the posts by Rajit ji, in the forum.

These are some questions which were put to Swamiji, and He kindly answered them. Though these are being posted   under the topic Vedanta, occasional references are made to other darshanas also.
1. Firstly as far as I understood, in Advaita there is a Sat, Asat and Mithya.Now theMandukya karikas does not seem to differentiate between the last two. In the Bhasya of the karika also it seems as if Bhagavan Bhasyakar is not differentiating between Asat and MithyaHowver later Advaitins were bent on proving that Mithya and asat are different.Almost 75% of advaita siddhi is dedicating to defending the mithya position against the dualists. Specifically does the karika believe that the world is asat or mithya?
answer: Iam not sure, are you sure ?  because if so, then how did the association of sat and asat happen. and how will it go. it will be very complicated to explain advaita. and alatashanti itself means this mitya.
2.What is the difference between Shivadvaitabada ,Shaktadvaitabada and Advaita.? Is avidya of advaita the shakti inthis sysytem?Then why on earth should one worship avidya(which is not Ishwara) as the Divine mother? If Saguna Brahman of Advaita is Shakti then who is Shiva ?
answer :even for argument sake, if we accept, shakti to be avidya, it is ofthe shiva, and the shakti and shaktiman (weilder of power) are notdifferrent. therefore, worshipint the power means worshipping the shiva. and, they accept anava, karma, maya malas too. and these malasare synonymous to our avidya.
3.What is the difference between Hiranygarbha and Saguna Brahman?As far as I have understood the former is aJiva.But Bhagavan Bhasykara does not seem to differentiate between them in some places of His Brahmasutra Bhasya
answer:hiranyagarbha and saguna brahman are not differrent. both are jiva,in the sense, they are both created. this is what is accepted in yogawhen it is said, vishesha purusha ishwara.
4.Can there be liberation (in advaita) for a person who has not done Shravana etc, by simple Bhakti and through the grace of Ishwara? Or is the highest phala of bhakti is lokprapti?
answer:ofcourse bhakti will lead one to moksha. but the culmination ofbhakti will be to see who is the bhakta and what is the one he/sheworships, and this knowledge will be invariably be given to him by the iswara, directly or mostly thro a guru. this is what is said bykrishna, ananyas chintayanto mam. and bhagavan bhashyakara also saysthe same thing in the bs bhashya, but he attaches a string saying, that it happens very rarely to only some. if it does not end in knowledge itwill be giving the result of lokaprapti.

Doshas of Hetu

What is the difference between sadhyavikalata and sadhanavikalata dosha ?

Before answering this, let us understand that these doshas are often used to point out to the logical fallacy. There are others like bhagasiddhi, vyabhichara etc. too.

To understand these doshas, we have to understand the avavaya – limbs, of the tarka – syllogory. Generally, the logicians accept five limbs in a tarka, we vedantins accept only three, either the first three or the last three of the five limbs.

Pratigna, hetu, udharana are the important limbs.

Pratigna is the aim, where the sadhya – the one we want to prove in the paksha – the place where it needs to be proved is specified. Ex. Parvato vahnimaan, the mountain has fire. Here the mountain is the  

Hetu is the reasoning we give to prove the aim.  Ex. Dhumaat / dhmavatvaat, since it has smoke. Smoke is the pointer which always co-exists when there is fire.

Udharana is the example to prove the reasoning is correct with respect to the aim. Ex. Mahanasavat, like the kitchen. The concomitance ‘where there is smoke there is fire is gained’ from different places, like, kitchen, sacricial fire etc.

In sadhya and sadhanavikalata doshas, vikalata means handicapped or absence (abhava).

If the hetu does not fit in with the sadhya then it is sadhyavikalata dosha.

If the hetu does not fit in with  the udhaharana it is sadhanavikalata dosha.

If the hetu fits only in a portion of the sadhya, it is bhagasiddhi. Bhaga – portion, assiddhi – is not proven. In a portion of the sadhya the reason does not fit.

If the hetu misses the sadhya completely, it is called vyabhicara dosha.

No Confusion

In an earlier blog, I had said that the puranas are for the people who are less qualified. Now on reading this we (some of us :) ) have these doubts,

What exactly is the role of puranas?You wrote in your blog it is the means of realization for less qualified people .But somehow it seems that to understand the puranas one has to have more maturity than the shrutis.why I am saying this is because puranas often contains stories which areenough to confuse people ,sometimes Shiva or Shree Hari are shown to behave in such a manner that is not expected from a morally elevted person. we do find puranas extolling one God over the other. To reconcile them is rather diffiult.So less qualified people won't they get more confused?

The question is from a not-so less qualified. The less and / or lesser qualified person will not think like this. And if at all these questions arise than understand he is not the less ualified person we are talking about.

And as for the contradictions in the smrti, they are not like prastanatrayi, where one reads all, they select one of their favorite hero, and his one drama and generally stick to it, without bothering much about the difficulties you face :).

It is like the story we say, when the acharya was explaining bhagawad gita for more than an hour, one layman asked him to stop, when asked for the reason, he said, since bhagawan is turning around to teach arjuna he will have ache in his neck.

So, no confusion. OK :)