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Aham Brahmasmi 3



>Coming back to sat, chit and ananda aspect,  no pramana is necessary for me
>to know that I exist i.e I am sat, and I am consciousness i.e.

But you do need a pramana to know if your existence is eternal. We see
practically from our pratyaksha that people are constantly dying.
Therefore there -MUST- be some pramana to indicate that we are indeed
eternal - sat. 

>I am chit. 

But what are you conscious of? Are you conscious of the body or conscious
of the soul. Therefore Pramana is again required if you want to establish
what is the true cit

>Neither Sruti nor smriti is needed for me to know that I am sat and chit.  

Yes they are, because sat means eternal and cit means conscious, not
temporarily conscious of the material body. 

>(Pragyanam Brahma) behind the creation, that is He is chit.
  
Why is there a creation if it is nondual?

>Manishji, I do not know if you are familiar with the old testament- when
>Moses approaches the Lord on the Mount  in the burning bush - Oh Lord! What
>should I say who you are.   - the Lord replies - RI am that I amS   This is
>beautifully depicted in the movie - Ten commandments.  He does not say I am
>the Lord of Abraham or I am Krishna, Narayana, Siva or this or that. He
>identifies as I am that I am. i.e. I am the existence and the consciousness
> - that is the Sat and Chit aspects of the Lord.  
 
Amen. We should note that neither did God say "I am that you are" or "you
are that I am" or "I am that which you are neither not". Since when did
this become our Sruti anyway? 

>Then, what is the scripture as pramana for, if I already know that I am sat
>and chit? 

Because it is the word of God. In the begining was the word and the word
was God and the word was with God and on the seventh day the Brahman got
tired and went to sleep. 

>What is the scripture as pramana for, if I already know that I am sat and
>chit - is the question that  I posed. 

You are in illusion as to the nature of your sat and cit, therefore they
are both useless informations. You need Sruti from the begining. 

>Only to point out to me that I am ananda too. 

Only to point out that advaita is andha

>Why do I need to know that?

Because otherwise you may think that advaita is "so scientific".

>Nobody is searching for sat and chit.

Do you know what everyone is searching for? "Nobody is searching" means
you are not searching, not that everyone is not searching. Hare Baba! The
Buddhists are searching to become nothing, so how can you make such a
statment "nobody is searching". Is this the scientific analysis of
advaita? 

>In fact, everybody is searching for happiness.

No, some are searching for an end to suffering, which is _not_ dirrectly
happiness. 

>All pursuits in life from birth to death has been
>classified under two categories - pravrutti and nivrutti - trying to
>acquire things I like and getting rid of things I dislike.  - Why I am

What about one who is free from all material desires?

>doing that far? - So that I can be happy.  So bottom line in all our
>pursuits is the pursuit for happiness. Whether one is a believer or
>non-believer, Krishna devotee or Siva devotee, yogi or bhogi, everyone is
>longing for happiness and searching for it. Why do I want even Moksha for? 

The devotee of Krishna does not care about happiness. They simply want to
serve Krishna, but I won't expect you to understand it because you
consider service to Krishna a "gold chain". 

>I want Moksha because I want to be free from all my inadequacies so that I
>am absolutely happy with no more wishing and wanting mind.  So everybody is
>looking for ananda. 

The devotees don't even care about MokSha, as I said above, they simply
want to serve the Lord. 

>Vedanta says that everybody is looking for Ananda in the wrong place -

Like, perhaps within advaita?

>a) Ananda is not an object to acquire  and 
>b) Ananda is not in any object that is acquired. 

Agreed. Ananda is inherent within the living entity, just as sat-and cit
are inherent qualities of the jIva. That is the constitutional nature of
Brahman, sat-cit-ananda. No one is disputing these facts. 

>In the Tat twam asi declaration, Vedanta declares that what we are
>searching for -that (tat), that Ananda is twam asi - you are.

This is an incomplete analysis of "tat tvam asi". There was a very nice
article posted on alt.hindu some time back explaining the situation in
which the aphorism was spoken, etc. It is very clear that the above
meaning is not complete. 

>too. By implication, I am infiniteness too. Since the Lord is infiniteness,
>I am infiniteness

Where is this logic comming from? Oh, this must be more of your scientific
advaita. Just state what you want and say it must be like that, neither
Sruti no Nyaya. 

>Now how can we prove that I am ananda and infiniteness alone is ananda and

You said you cannot understand such things by intelligence, it is only in
experience. At least that is what I read in your advaita-vAda. 

>Sitting comfortably in a lazyboy's chair in an air-conditioned room, after
>a delicious dinner, I started watching a very tragic movie. Suddenly I
>started to cry unable to withstand the suffering of the hero and heroin,

The individual is real, the chair is real, the room is real, the
television is real, the ions shooting onto the television screen are real,
the actors making the film that is being shown on television is real, and
none of them are the same, they are all different. The only illusion is
the person identifying with the real television movie. This is a useless
analogy to try to explain non-duality. 

>Similarly, my identification with my body, mind and intellect- the upadhies
>- are so intense that their limitations I take it as  my limitations and

And, carrying out the analogy, the body is _real_, the world is _real_,
etc., etc. 

>Coming back to your statements - If you realize (not just saying) Aham
>Brahmasmi and Vidya also realizes Aham Brahmasmi - does not that mean that
>there are two Brahmans.  

Yes, because if there is actually one, then Brahman can not be
compartmentalized into two. 

>gold.  Suppose a bangle feels I am a limited bangle that I am searching for
>that Lord because of which I am what I am, and without which I do not exist
>- that upadana karana - that gold (Au),- {and the very search of the gold
>by a bangle implies the dwaita} -  and when it realizes its true nature -
>it realizes the gold (Au) in me is the same Au that pervades all the gold
>ornaments independent of names and forms.  I am the same gold in the
>nugget, in the gold bar, in the coin, in the ring etc.  It was gold before

A gold ring is same in quality to the supply of Gold (the gold mine) but
the gold ring never becomes the gold mine, even after realizing it is
gold. And if a gold ring realizes it is gold, and if a gold bracelt
realizes it is gold, the two never become on e. The ring remains as gold
ring and the bracelet remains as gold bracelet, one in quality but
different in quantity. 

BTW, this analogy violates Brahmans nature as not being able to be
fragmented. (That is if you do not accept the world to be Brahman and if
you accept the Brahman to be purely non-dual.)

>When the bangle realizes that I am that Brahman, gold, does that mean the
>ring has realized too?

When they both realize, then are they both the same? Only in quality.
SaNkara's own analogy fully shows how the jIvas are eternally individual
living entities. 



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