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Real and unreal

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bindinganavale suresh • April 20, 2000 


Respected Bhagavatha,
                     In my previous mail i had written
about the above states from the point of view of
Svarupa gnanam and Dharma-bhuta gnanam of jiva atman.
There i had briefly mentioned about the object of
consciousness in dream and waking state.Now,the topic
seems to have shifted to the terms real and unreal and
its relevance in the philosophy of Sri Ramanuja.Let me
try to present my understanding of the same.

According to visista-advaita,there are three
realities,which are Isvara(brahman),jiva and prakriti.
The latter two are inseperable from the Isvara(except
for the purpose of analysis of their true nature) and
form the body or modes of Isvara.

Now,all the three are "real" in the sense that their
true nature in the aspects of both svarupa and
guna(attribute) are eternal(indestructible)  and
reality of one type cannot become either of the other
two i.e jiva cannot become isvara tattva or prakriti
tattva(except ofcourse by ignorance),though there are
modifications of jiva(at Dharmabhuta gnana level
during bondage) and prakriti(both at substance and
attribute level) in themselves.

Even,shankaracharya in his vivekachudamani defines
real in the above sense.
The term "unreal" is applied to all kinds of mistaken
notions about the three basic realities(which is the
case in bondage),which ultimatley is proved false by
the understanding of their true nature(as in the case
of moksha).

In the state of bondage due to karma, the jiva is not
aware of its true nature and imagines itself as either
prakriti(body) or Isvara.The true nature of
realities are understood partially by the jiva atman
leading to ahamkara and misapprehensions of the
realities as in the rope-snake case.Such wrong
identification and corresponding values of desirable
and undesirable is the root cause of all the
experiences of fleeting pleasure and pain in the
waking and dream state and is also a fitness of the
jiva to experience its karma, the fruit of which is
given by the Lord by creating appropriate
circumstances in waking and dream states.

In short,the experience of bondage on the part of jiva
is a fact as long as it is not aware of the three
realities in the true sense or as long as it persists
in the realm of unreal.

In the state of release from karma,the attributive
consciousness is not obscured and the Jiva is awake to
its own true nature and the true nature of the other
two realities.


I hope the above analysis satisfies the doubts of
Sri.chandrashekaran in a broader sense.

Sri Krishnaarpanamasthu
Suresh B.N.


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