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Re: Lots of hogwash!NOT!!!!!!
This debate is seemingly endless. What I object to,
however, is the matter-of-fact-ness with which many
people claim that Vedanta teaches that the world is
illusory, without accepting that there are strong
counter-arguments, and without defining what they
mean by the term, and without studying all sides
before coming to a conclusion.
Sankar Jayanarayanan <kartik@Eng.Auburn.EDU> writes:
>
> What if nothing else other than the Self is experienced, and then it is
> seen that all "other" experience (any experience of duality) is an illusion?
Why is it that the experience of a homogeneous Self is also
not an illusion? Why is it that the unitive experience
sublates the diverse experience and not the other way around?
Experience cannot *prove* that the world is illusory.
>
> If so, people could actually question the reality of their dreams
> and then come to the conclusion that the dream is unreal.
>
So, life is just a dream? Dear friend, even Sankaracharya
explicitly disagrees with you! [see Sankara's Brahma-Sutra
bhashya, ii.2.29].
>
> It is very much possible that someone "perceives"
> a book in his dream and reads a statement from the book,"This is an
> illusion". The book has stated its own unreality, and the truth of this
> statement is verified on waking up.
>
But what makes the person wake up from the dream?
Certainly not the fact that a book in the dream has
stated that the individual was in a dream. Something
else, beyond the individual's immediate control has
waken him up.
The analogy does not correspond to our real-world
experience. Orthodox advaita teaches you that the
knowledge gained from the sacred word *by itself*
causes one to ``wake up'' to the Self. It is entirely
different from the dream state.
So once again, illusoriness is not easily proved.
Mani