Namaskar Ganesh Prasad Ji,
Discussing with you, I always learn something of value.
Originally Posted by
Ganeshprasad
Surely pure knowledge is an attribute, how can someone be just the knowledge?
Where is that some one? When scripture says, beyond day and night, only the auspicious, which is neither being nor non being, remains, who is that some one?
The some one you are talking about is the same indescribable Atma, having acquired a body using Maya.
Originally Posted by
Ganeshprasad
How can I control Maya? Krishna says
daivi hy esa guna-mayi
mama maya duratyaya
mam eva ye prapadyante
mayam etam taranti te
My divine Maya consisting of three Gunas or states of mind is difficult to overcome. Only they who surrender unto Me cross over this Maya. (7.14)
Jai Shree Krishna
Yes this helps to harmonize the understanding, since Shree Krishna also says:
Shrutivipratipannaa te yadaa sthaasyati nishchalaa;
Samaadhaavachalaa buddhistadaa yogam avaapsyasi.
2.53. When thy intellect, perplexed by what thou hast heard, shall stand immovable and steady in the Self, then thou shalt attain Self-realisation.
And pure samadhi, without a tinge of I remaining, alone is total surrender into the Self, which Shri Krishna truly is. A person/personality has a boundary that can only define the personality. Brahman has no such boundary.
The main point of this discussion, however was the verse: All beings are in Me, but I am not in them, which apparently contradicts the following verses (and many others):
13. 17. And undivided, yet He exists as if divided in beings; He is to be known as the supporter of beings; He devours and He generates also.
13.23. The Supreme Soul in this body is also called the spectator, the permitter, the supporter, the enjoyer, the great Lord and the Supreme Self.
18.20. That by which one sees the one indestructible Reality in all beings, not separate in all the separate beings—know thou that knowledge to be Sattwic (pure).
On this I wish to write a few lines more.
It is Indra in Vedas who is famed for His act of separating Mother and Father and having kept them separate. It is not a cruel act. Indra, helps us to know the time unlimited infinite unchanging Atma and its play with ever changing Prakriti within consciousness that is us.
Sanatana Dharma upholds that Lord is transcendental and fully immanent and exhorts us to find the transcendental part in us. So, Atma is said to be unchanging and unborn. Atma invested with an I sense is Purusha, who may reamain aloof from Prakriti (as in the case of Ishwara) or may go down trapped by Prakriti (as in Jivas). All through Atma still remains untarnished. As Lord says: Atma Na Lipayate.
Lord says: know this Atma. Mandukya Upanishad says: know this Atma.
Buddha, for some particular reason perhaps, did not mention anything about a non-changing SEER of this dance of Prakriti. He recognised only the ever changing flux. Though He asked devotees to find the shantam within.
This is the suble difference, wherein the particular verse "I am not in beings", comes into play. The same knowledge is imparted by Upanishad in the verse:
Om ! That is infinite, and this is infinite.
The infinite proceeds from the infinite.
(Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite (universe),
It remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone.
There are unlimited forms that arise from Sarvesvara Pragnya, which is known as Sarvasya Yoni. But the Turiya Self remains Turiya Self --- shivoadvaitam, whether one sees forms or not. With the consciousness settled in the Self (without movement of thoughts as in samadhi), only the self effulgent infinite remains.
The forms that teach us about dharma are different in different cultures. But the Self is ONE AND SAME. AND IT HAS ONE PRAGNYA.
Regards (and YMMV, which I respect),
Om Namah Shivayya
Om Namah Shivayya
Om Namah Shivayya
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