Vrindavana Das
Active Member
Jīva is Brahman essentially, that is, from the standpoint of paramaarthika satyam, and jnanam. In the transactional reality, where ignorance predominates, Jīva thinks he is different from Brahman because he identifies the Self wrongly with the body/mind.
Exactly what I am saying. If ignorance is predominating, then it is covering the infinite Brahman (jīva). So, ignorance is superior to Brahman. By this logic, māyā becomes the cause of Brahman.
I don't equate Māyā with avidyā. Māyā is the unmanifest power of nama rupa, like the potential of clay to appears as multiple forms such as pot, cup etc. Avidyā is the ignorance in the minds of the Jīvas. Brahman is all-knowledge and consciousness, and when it is reflected onto the antahkarana it illuminates the whole body and sustains subjective experience. The defects in the mind partially cover the saakshin upon whose presence it depends, but not totally.
An advaitan just said māyā is avidya. You say it is not so. What is Brahman, jīva and māyā as per you. In easy and unambiguous language please.
Even if māyā is unmanifest power of nāma rupa, still it is covering the infinite jīva. So, it superior to Brahman in that case as well.
Jīva is Brahman because the consciousness of the living being, manifest as the knower, seer, hearer, smeller etc is Brahman. Jīva appears different from Brahman because of avidyā, which superimposes (ie identifies through a mututal juxtaposition) the nature of the ātman (consciousness, knowledge) onto the objects which are known by it (the antahkarana/body). The body is an object limited in space and time, it is finite, and perishable. The ātman which appears to inhabit the body due to the chidabhasa on the antahkarana, is infact nirvishesha and unlimited beyond time and space. People do not see this because they identify the Self as the body, and attribute consciousness to the mind. This wrong notion, which is the cause of suffering, occurs in the mind, and is resolved in the mind. At no point does the ātman, which is the core of the Jīva, ever really become afflicted by ignorance or bound by it, since the ātman is the very revealer of the mind and its ignorance.
How can something that has infinite knowledge and bliss (jiva or Brahman), identify itself with material body which is temporary, full of miseries and ignorance? If so, then, the knowledge and bliss of jīva is not infinite. Then, jīva is not Brahman.
Brahman is no more subject to Māyā than a magician is fooled by his own magic trick, or clay is inferior to the form of the pot which depends upon it.
All of us are magician who have been fooled by our own trick?!! Again, by this logic avidyā or ignorance (which fools us) is superior to our infinite knowledge. Does not make any sense to me. Sorry!
Because the explanation given is already sufficient. The cause of ignorance is the defective mind. The mind is nama rupa. Nama rupa is mīthyā, and mīthyā appearances depend upon the Sat Brahman. Sat Brahman is free from cause and effect, therefore there is nothing but Brahman, and so all such questions as ignorance, moksha, māyā, and Jīva can no longer apply. It is at this standpoint that Advaita teaching is aimed -anything else is accepted provisionally to help get to this point, but then later are no longer needed, and therefore only Brahman is being expounded, nothing else.
There is a logical fallacy in your reasoning. If Brahman is free from cause and effect, then it cannot be the 'cause' of mīthyā appearances. This logic ends here. The given explanation is not sufficient.
It's been explained, even if you don't accept the answer.
The explanation is not logical. Sorry!
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