In my last post – The Barren World – Venkat and Michael made some comments about the status of the jñānī after enlightenment and I suggested that we make this the subject of another post so as not to confuse the issues.
Conicidentally, Sri V Subrahmanian has just made the following post to the Advaitin List. In it he lists numerous quotations from the scriptures and Shankara which clearly indicate the continuance of the world and the jñānī ‘s continued activity in it. I thought that this could form the basis of any further discussion on this aspect and Subbu-ji has kindly agreed for me to post it here.
There are many instances across the Upanishads where an Aparoksha Jnani is seen to be teaching, discussing, etc. the Atma vidya proving that a post-Jnana life is indeed there. Here are a few such instances, though not exact references are given here:
1. At the end of the Prashnopanishad, the six aspirants who have now become Jnani-s, as per Shankara, offer their gratitude to Sage Pippalada, their Guru, for having bestowed that Jnana to them: tvam hi nah pitā (thou are our father)..for having taken us to the other shore of samsara. Shankara says, they worshiped the Guru with flowers and obeisance. He says the Guru is father because he has given birth to the brahma shariram and put an end to the taking of repeated births.
2. The Kenopanishad has the statement where an aspirant, undergoing the Atma vidya teaching, goes out for a while and returns to the class to declare with humility his enlightenment.
3. This Upanishad also says in the Yaksha episode that Indra got the Jnanam through Umā which he further taught the other devata-s.
4. The Brihadaranyaka 1.4.10 is a very clear statement of gaining Aham Brahmasmi jnana and attaining sarvatmatva.
5. In the same upanishad Yajnvalkya confers on Janaka ‘abhayamvaik Janaka prāpto’si’ – Janaka, you have attained the Fearless Brahman. (The word ‘vaik’ is to be read as vai, without the k.)
6. Yajnavalkya, himself an enlightened teacher, engages in discussions, teaches the Brahma vidya to many and at the end renounces home and hearth.
7. In the Chandogya 7th ch. Sanatkumara, the enlightened sage, instructs Narada who becomes enlightened.
8. There is the famous Vāmadeva case of him declaring his enlightenment from the mother’s womb.
9. The Ishavasya upanishad gives expression to the Universal Oneness vision of the Jnani.
The Bhagavadgita in several chapters gives the traits of a Jnani: sthitaprajna, bhakta, guṇātīta and so on.
The Gita 4th chapter says: One must seek a Jnani and put questions on Atman, etc. be submissive and serve him. A Tattvadarshi (aparoksha jnani) will impart the knowledge to such a one.
Shankara while elaborately commenting on all the above, has of his own accord said, sometimes even giving unmistakable expression to his own enlightenment: Brahma sutra bhashya: 4.1.15:
अपि च नैवात्र विवदितव्यम् — ब्रह्मविदा कञ्चित्कालं शरीरं ध्रियते न वा ध्रियत इति । कथं हि एकस्य स्वहृदयप्रत्ययं ब्रह्मवेदनं देहधारणं च अपरेण प्रतिक्षेप्तुं शक्येत ? श्रुतिस्मृतिषु च स्थितप्रज्ञलक्षणनिर्देशेन एतदेव निरुच्यते । तस्मादनारब्धकार्ययोरेव सुकृतदुष्कृतयोर्विद्यासामर्थ्यात्क्षय इति निर्णयः ॥ १५ ॥
Shankara says here:
A Jnani will have the aparoksha anubhava of (1) being Brahman and (2) at the same time be in a body too. No one can deny this, continues Shankara, ‘This alone is spoken of as Sthitaprajna lakshana in the shruti and smritis.’
The corresponding verse in the Bh.Gita for no.2 above is: सर्वकर्माणि मनसा संन्यस्यास्ते सुखं वशी।
नवद्वारे पुरे देही नैव कुर्वन्न कारयन्।।5.13।। 5.13
The embodied man of self-control, having given up all actions mentally, continues happily in the town of nine gates, without doing or causing (others) to do anything at all.
Interesting that in BSB4.1.15, liberation for the person who has acquired knowledge is put off until the death of the body. And he says that knowledge has to wait for its results until the ‘medium’ – the body that is produced by the residual results of past actions – exhausts itself.
Shankara comments on BG5.13 more thoroughly in BG2.21, wherein he says that the one who has knowledge rests in the body without performing actions – mentally, but therefore also physically (as a physical action is not possible without a mental action).
One then can ask how could Shankara go about writing and teaching? Either he is not enlightened (in which case his commentaries carry no value) or he is logically incoherent.
Or that this is a teaching appearing in the dream, to turn attention back onto itself rather than going out into, and acting in, the world, such that the mind / ego attenuates. And that turning within is the point, rather than the semantic details.
Is it not just that enlightenment brings the knowledge that ‘I am Brahman’ and Brahman does not act? One of my favorite verses fromn the Gita:
naiva kiñcit karomīti yukto manyeta tattvavit ।
paśyan śṛṇvan spṛśan jighran aśnan gacchan svapan śvasan ।। 5.8
pralapan visṛjan gṛhṇann unmiṣan nimiṣann api |
indriyāṇīndriyārtheṣu vartanta itit dhārayan || 5.9
In truth, I do nothing at all. The body-mind carries on exhausting its prārabdha karma and the witness observes.
Many years ago I found myself in the presence of the sage of Kanchi. There was a small group taking his darshan. I had no idea of his eminence in the world of Vedanta. From behind the picket fence where he sat with his entourage he took questions. Then one of them addressed me saying ‘announce yourself’. I thought he said ‘enhance yourself’ and showing my puzzlement it was explained that I should tell my name and country. Which I did. ‘Have you a question for Swami? I asked: ‘Should I continue my studies? (of philosophy). Swami replied: Please continue.
Now I was several yards away from where he sat and when he made that gesture peculiar to Indian body language of turning the upheld palms of his hand outward meaning ‘carry on’ I felt a distinct push against my chest which made me almost stumble backwards.
Many here will probably regard the Shankaracarya as an enlightened person. I suppose my point is that he was certainly emanating his power and therefore ostensibly on the mundane plane to some degree.
Not really Dennis.
1) There cannot be a witness that observes, as it means duality. It is your mind that thinks it is the witness, whilst it also seeks to act out its prarabdha karma. That is new age Advaita. I can continue to pursue all my desires, because it is my prarabdha, whilst ‘knowing’ I am just the witness.
2) Sankara expressly dismisses your ‘objection’ in BG2.21:
(Objection) :-Let us then construe the passage thus: Neither acting nor causing another to act, he, the disembodied soul of the enlightened man, deposits (sam+ nyas) all activity in the body ( i. e., knows that all activity belongs to the body, not to the Self) and rests happily. Let us not, on the contrary, construe, as you have done, ‘he rests in the body,’ etc.
(Answer) :-No: Everywhere (in the sruti and in the smriti) it is emphatically asserted that the Self is immutable. Moreover, the act of resting presupposes a place to rest in, whereas the act of renunciation does not presuppose it. And the Sanskrit verb sam+nyas’ means ‘to renounce,’ not ‘ to deposit.’
So we are back to either Sankara was not enlightened by his own definition or his teaching was logically incoherent. Or it is just a dream, which is pointing out its own illusory-ness.
I can’t help thinking that you are trying to ‘have your cake and eat it’, as the saying goes, Venkat.
In the end, you either have to (try to) speak from a pAramArthika standpoint or you acknowledge the inherent contradictions in discussing Advaita from the necessarily vyAvahArika standpoint.
Did you read the Manjushree Hegde paper (beginning https://www.advaita-vision.org/adhyaropa-apavada/)? ALL of advaita is obliged to follow this, since we can say nothing at all about Brahman. The best we can do is to acknowledge that life and the world appears to be real and follows logical rules but we also accept that everything is really Brahman.
Au contraire Dennis, you are the on who is picking and choosing which bits of Sankara fit your hypothesis. I have simply pointed out what appears to be clear logical inconsistencies in Sankara’s passages that you have cited.
You have not actually been able to respond to either of my two numerical rejoinders. Instead you appeal to adhyaropa – apavada hand-waving, and that from another author.
So please explain to me, for each of my two rejoinders, what is adhyaropa and what is apavada, and why so. And then we can have a discussion.
PS The point of philosophy is to explain our experience. If the explanation is simply, “well it is all vyavaharika”, and not really “paramarthika” that explains nothing. It simply puts a name on something, to convince yourself and others that you have understood, without really getting us any further. “Vyavaharika” in Mandukya according to Gaudapada is simply part of the dream, no different in essence from the sleeping dream; hence his focus was on waking people up to the paramarthika, NOT continuing to be distracted by the Vyavaharika.
I agree. In essence you are right. But there is no way out (that will satisfy you, apparently). If you accept Advaita, then ALL of our experience, and ALL of the teaching about it is going to be inexplicable ultimately. The best that you can do is have interim ‘pseudo-explanations’ that temporarily satisfy a confusion and move us forward a little towards ajAti vAda. If you want to equate waking and dream states, that’s ok, although I do not. (And neither does Shankara in BSB 2.2.29, if it comes to that.)
You are always going to find logical inconsistencies when you are trying to talk about how things really are. AdhyAropa-apavAda is the only way of coping with this as far as I am aware. Please tell us another way if you know of one.
I went and read B.G. 2:21. If you consider action as being driven by desire its motive force then when the spring of action is no more it is as though nishkama karma becomes nishkarma karma. The jnani remains still, his mind does not move. “Enlightenment does not belong to the body and the senses”. The jnani knows the mind to be jada/inert.
So when the enlightened one appears to act what is happening? Pure spontaneity evoked by the predicament of the devotee. Perhaps. Or is it that what is presented is the possible action by the devotee. What is impossible is never suggested only the next achievable step by the devotee; what you might call a sublation involving the whole personality.
The apparent action is really your own action. Everything is after all happening within the jnani.
B.G. 4:20—Commentary: In reality, actions done by a man of Knowledge are certainly inactions…..this being so, even though, he remains engaged as before, in actions – getting out of those actions being impossible – , either with the intention of preventing people from going astray or with a view to avoiding the censure of the wise people; he really , does not do, anything, because he is endued with the realization of the actionless Self.
Finally it might be said that jnani maintains the cosmos through his oneness with Being. Even mundane action is a limitation of being.
So the gist of BG4.19 and 4.20, is that a man of knowledge: no longer has any desire / fear => and therefore has no motive to act. Hence he does not act (either mentally or physically) – he renounces all – UNLESS it is for the good of the world.
The logic of that is clear. If a person has knowledge of non-duality, he is no longer impressed by the illusion, and has no desire to gain anything from it. Hence he does not act, which is equivalent to renunciation. Renunciation is the physical manifestation of neti, neti.
Sankara’s point is to turn within, away from the world and focus inwardly, like a continuous flow of oil – to attenuate the vagaries of the mind. The giving up of actions is an inevitable manifestation of this knowledge and focus.
Hi Venkat,
Is not the acknowledgement of renunciation with a loka saṅgraha ‘proviso’ a recognition of vyavahāra as against paramārtha? How is this not the same as: <<<...simply, “well it is all vyavaharika”, and not really “paramarthika” that explains nothing.>>>?
I think you and I are really in agreement aren’t we?
Best wishes,
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
I take the meaning to be that the guidance in scriptures is to discriminate, detach, turn within; renunciation is an inevitable corollary of that. That is all that can be done, as far as “our” living goes.
Thereafter Sankara seems to imply (in different places) that:
– the world is regarded as no more than a dream / mirage and hence the attenuated mind does not go out to participate in it beyond the barest needs that come by chance (or for the Loka sangria proviso) OR
– the illusion dissolves (as a salt doll in water)
MK3.30: There is no doubt that in dream, the mind though one, appears in dual aspects; so also in the waking state, the mind, though one, appears to have two aspects.
MK3.31: All this that there is – together with all that moves or does not move – is perceived by the mind (and therefore all this is but the mind); for when the mind ceases to be the mind, duality is no longer perceived.
Brhad 4.5.15: When there is duality then one sees something . . . thinks something . . .But when to the knower of Brahman, everything has become the Self, that what should one see and through what . . . what should one think and through what.
Dennis, I am not particularly wedded to whether the world disappears or not on realisation – I will come back and tell you when I am realised. 🙂
However I think the gist of Sankara is that the impact of knowledge is to make the world (vyavahara) utterly redundant:
“In spite of the Truth being presented in a hundred ways, the Self, is arrived at through the process of ‘not this, not this’, nothing else is perceived either through reasoning or through scriptural statement; therefore the knowledge of this Self, by the process of ‘not this, not this’ and the renunciation of everything are the only means of attaining immortality”.
best,
venkat
Thinking about it Dennis, given that Sankara in BSB4.1.15 draws a distinction between knowledge and liberation (on giving up the body), perhaps his stipulation on renunciation or acting only for the good of the world, is meant more as guidance until one IS liberated.
This would be consistent with closing paras of Brhad Up3.5.1 where he talks about the knower of Brahman (who has mastered the teaching of the teacher and the scriptures), who then needs to renounce, to live on the strength of that knowledge, etc
“Strength is the total elimination of the vision of objects by Self-knoweldge; hence the knower of Brahman should try to live upon that strength . . .”
I always have problems with this assumed differentiation. Given that ‘aham brahmāsmi’, and the reality of ajāti vāda, I must already be liberated. Hence the expression of ‘accomplishing the accomplished’. There is nothing that I have to ‘do’ in order to be liberated, including ‘dying’. All I have to ‘do’ is to be ‘enlightened’ by obtaining Self-knowledge. See Brahmasūtra bhāṣya 2.3.19.
This is actually a good example of apparent contradictions in Śaṅkara’s teaching as we discussed earlier. In reality, there is no contradiction. All that is happening is that a crude explanation of something is being supplanted by a more sophisticated one. This is adhyāropa-apavāda. None of the explanations are actually ‘true’ in the end because Brahman cannot be described.
Ajativada is presented as the culmination of advaita, the ultimate adhyaropa apavada. This is the case even when historically the recension of Sankara seems to run counter to elements of MK. The idea of the impossibility of change because non-being cannot have traction to emerge into being is expressed in a startling form that had to be dealt with. This has its parallel in Greek thought where Parmenides proposed a similar idea and was countered by the Realm of Ideas in Plato and the dynamic theory of act and potency in Aristotle.
In short a powerful metaphysical thesis was incorporated and developed by subsequent thinkers. Its core was left but the epistemological aspects were modified.
Probably a subject for a much more extensive discussion which has likely taken place on this forum already.
I don’t think we have had that discussion. I’m afraid I tend to discourage the ‘intrusion’ of other philosophies, leaving that to academia. The aim of the website is very specifically to talk about issues relevant to the seeker who is (trying to) following traditional Advaita.
Sounds like Raphael would be right up your street! (That’s Raphael of Āśram Vidyā Order, not the painter.)
Yes ahem brahmasmi, but as Gaudapada tries to explain the mind vibrates and duality of the cognises and cognised emerges. So knowledge has to sink in to become self-knowledge, and that is what Sankara is saying in neti, neti and renunciation are the only means to immortality – essentially attenuation of the mind.
Any of these metaphors can be useful in moving the understanding of a seeker in the right direction. Alāta-śānti is a particularly good one. I agree that ‘knowledge has to sink in’. This is the stage of nididhyāsana. Renunciation is bound to help by removing one from ‘temptation’!
But none of these have anything to do with bringing about immortality. I don’t actually think that the word is helpful, since it implies a ‘person’ or ‘entity’ that was initially mortal. Death is a meaningless concept when (attempting to) talking about reality.
I think everyone understands that by immortality, Sankara means liberation.