Originally posted by: Mister.K.
Vishy, I will reply to your previous post at the first available opportunity. But you still didn't answer what I thought was an incongruous question posed by Gopal and why you agreed with it, knowing what you know about Advaita.
Even keeping Advaita aside for the time being, how could illusion be the ultimate reality? By definition, illusion is unreal and false. At best, it is a reflection or projection of something which is real.
I typed a lamba chauda response to this and ahem waqt par my laptop froze and I will have to recollect everything and type again... I make another koshish..
Mister K, I did reply to that question in my post with examples by quoting Adi Shankara, Chandogya Upanishad, Bhagavatha and Gita.
@ blue -
Are you quoting the definition of illusion and reality from dictionary? Then we need to leave the english dictionary outside the spiritual chambers. If your definition was true, can you show me your praan (consciousness, atman)? Dont tell me your body is your praan. Because the body dies. In your perception, what you can touch and feel is real. Such as your body. But you are in denial that what makes you feel your body is real is your consciousness or atman. Can you see your atma? no. Do you know its size? no. why do you discard the body when it dies? what is death? If what we can see and feel is real, why dispose off the body? why dont your kith and kin does not want your body when it dies? We are attached to the atman, so we love it not the body itself. So, what lives forever (atman/consciousness) is real in true sense and perishes is unreal or illusion. So, my answer to Gopal's question is therefore true. so @ red is true. If this is not true, then the sciences have to admit that energy is also not true. Because you can't see energy. The greater importance is not for the switch, but for the energy itself. So is atma/consciousness and body.
Now lets see the examples whether they map with the facts above...
Adi Shankara ' "Brahma satya jagat mithya, jivo brahmaiva naparah" ' Brahman is the only truth, the world is an illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self
Chandogya Upanishad ' "Sarvam khalvidam brahma" - When everything is Brahman, the question of superior and inferior reality is irrelevant or does not exist.--- If the human consciousness and ultimate consciousness are one, then the bodies we are differentiating is false because the body dies.
Krishna clearly states in Gita that bhakti and the worship of the unmanifested (Brahman) both lead to the same goal. In Gita, Krishna also adds that the meditation on the unmanifested Brahman (Advaita) is very difficult and thus recommends the path of Bhakti (Dvaita) to Arjuna. Even while recommending path of bhakti Krishna throughout the Gita, mentioned several times that he is omnipresent and omnipotent. That clearly indicates he was preaching advaita through dvaita. So, we can interpret that Bhakti leads to brahmajnana or realization of god. ----- when you examine the above underlined statement from Gita, it qualifies as an EXCEPTION only to make it easy.Here again we can conclude that the world is illusion or Maya. The only reality is Brahman. Atman/Consciousness. What is the essence of Gita? Not to attach importance to body. why? because it perishes and anything and everything that perishes is unreal, illusion or Maya. Here again, the answer to Gopal's Q is True/Yes.
Bhagavata the scripture for Dvaita which propagates bhakti tatva, also speaks about Advaita in the 11
th skandha. I think it is called Uddhava Gita (I will check with my guru).
The obvious difference is that Jiva and God are held to be eternally different by the Dvaitins, while the Advaitins believe that Jiva is identical with Brahman and the realization of this identity is the ultimate experience. We can map this theory to Gita and Bhagavata? Advaitins regard the world as vyavaharika satya. Meaning, as long as Brahmasakshatkara or Brahman experience does not take place, the world is real. Once the paramarthika satya or Brahman is experienced, the empirical world with all its diversity seems unreal. It is in this sense that we say the world or jagat is mithya. This also can be mapped to Gita because one would go through dvaita to reach the state of Advaita the true consciousness. vyavaharika satya is real to the Dvaitins. ---- when you examine the above underlined, the answer to Gopal's Q is still True/Yes. Because we are yet to experience brahmasakshatkara, the world seems real to us. Otherwise, we are living in Maya.
Brahma Sutra (II.2.28)"nabhaava upalabdheh" ' (not proved or obtained in the absence of something else) The things in the external world are not nonexistent because of our perception and consciousness of them.
This is apt for scientist who can't accept anything other than what is already proven. If this were true, NASA and world over astronomers wouldn't be spending millions of dollars on new space discoveries.
