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Thread: A question about Maya/illusion and language

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    A question about Maya/illusion and language

    If the world and the distinctions within it are an illusion, does that mean that distinctions among words are also an illusion?

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    Re: A question about Maya/illusion and language

    hari o
    ~~~~~~

    namasté & hello Tom,

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom View Post
    If the world and the distinctions within it are an illusion, does that mean that distinctions among words are also an illusion?
    This notion of illusion is not spot-on as being the absolute truth on the notion of māyā.

    May I ask you to do the following... please do a search here on HDF on the word māyā, maya . You will find a wealth of information and reasonable discussion points.

    We then can address your questions properly as you will have gained more insight on this matter from the posts.

    praṇām
    यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

  3. #3

    Re: A question about Maya/illusion and language

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom View Post
    If the world and the distinctions within it are an illusion, does that mean that distinctions among words are also an illusion?
    Yes.

    However, I must add, I do not like the word illusion in this context as it is misleading. Unreal is perhaps a better choice.

    Many people do not get the concept of Maya in Advaita. The universe is unreal only at the point of enlightenment and not before. Prior to that, the world and everything in it is as real as it can be.
    http://lokayata.info
    http://shivsomashekhar.wordpress.com/category/history/

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    Re: A question about Maya/illusion and language

    Quote Originally Posted by Tom View Post
    If the world and the distinctions within it are an illusion, does that mean that distinctions among words are also an illusion?
    As pointed out, illusion in Advaita is probably not the best word to describe the world.

    It is better to describe the Advaita conception of the universe as "neither real nor unreal".

    As regards the ontological status of words/universe/matter, etc. there are two levels of reality - Paramartha [ultimate reality - Brahman] and Vyavaharika [our empirical reality].

    Within Vyavaharika, we still needs words and distinctions between them. The analogy provided for this is - one needs a thorn to remove another thorn embedded on the soles of our feet.

    In Paramartha, words and their distinction and other rules of grammar are meaningless. I could do much worse than quote from Adi Shankara himself:

    Quote Originally Posted by Bhajagovindam
    Samprapthe Sannihithe Kale,
    Nahi Nahi Rakshathi Dookrunj Karane
    "Seek him for when the hour of death approaches, the formula of grammar will not save you."

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    Re: A question about Maya/illusion and language

    We need to distinguish between the knowledge and what is required for transactions.

    I cannot say wood, wood and wood to chair, table and almirah. Then the transactions cannot happen easily. So I need words to distinguish and translate my feelings to something which the other person might understand.

    But the knowledge says that all the furnitures are basically wood and wood is the permanent feature and not the chair or table or almirah.

    Yes in absolute terms the words are also part of Maya but are necessary for transactions with clarity.
    Love and best wishes:hug:

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    Re: A question about Maya/illusion and language

    Quote Originally Posted by brahman View Post


    Loved seekers

    Inconceivable and ineffable reality cannot be subjected to critical enquiry. Transcendent, without form, invisible to all senses, it cannot be picked up or weighed and measured. It is possible, however, to examine the two conditioned views of it from two opposing perspectives. As it is possible to know the existence of the positive pole of a magnet by knowing its negative pole, so by knowing the conditioned, asat, the world, one may gain awareness of the unconditioned, sat, the worlds Reality.

    The question, “is the world existent or nonexistent” may be answered in two ways. We know it to be an emanation of the self and know that the self it is only existent substance. In that sense, it is real. We know it to have no existence of its own, apart from the self. In that sense, it is unreal.

    The Upanishad (Taittiriya II 6) tell us:
    **Having created it, into it indeed he entered**

    The creation of the world and the entry of the self into it does not take place in a temporal and sequential sense but simultaneously.

    The Sri. Narayanu Guru expresses this view when in his ‘brahmavidya panchakam(4)’ he says:
    **Having created this world thru prakriti, that which enters it and by which the created world is sustained from within**


    Ontologically, the self alone exists. Therefore the world, having no existence of its won, is considered unreal, asat. Yet although one may question the world’s existence once own existence is irrefutable. It is in fact the questioner’s undeniable existence that the questioning arises. He seeks to know reality by knowing what is real in himself and realizes that what is real in himself is the same reality in all entities. In that sense the perceived world is considered Real, sat.

    Even when understood in a philosophical sense to be illusory, the world’s existence is undeniable in actual experience. Like a sailors understanding that waves have no existence apart from the ocean does not lessen their force in a sea-storm. Even with the understanding that the world has no existence of its own, it continues to be perceived with all its actuality.

    The Sri. Narayanu Guru emphasizes this in his ‘advaitha deepika(9, 10)’ in the following verses.

    ** Even when, by the dawning of discriminating awareness, it is reduced to having no existence of its own, the world will still be perceived by the senses. As when the confusion about directions is clarified, the perceiver continues to see directions erroneously. **


    The world does not exist really, still all gleams as before even when destroyed by the clarity of discrimination. Even with the certainty that there is no water in a mirage; it continue to gleam as before.

    It is not through denial of the world’s actuality that the truth of existence is comprehended, but through a vision of those actualities as the natural expression of existence.


    My pranams to Sri. Gurdevan. (Vedanta Sutras- Swami Muni Naryana)

    For pondering alone . Love

    ॐ सत् एव तत्
    http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?p=60913

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