/lit/ - Literature

>>21892152

>What's the use of knowledge in face of brahman's so powerful Shakti and prarabdha-karma then?
As Shankara states "Because the potential power of the seed (to sprout up into a new life) is destroyed by the true knowledge - BSSB 1-4-3. Indeed, this answer is elementary and obvious—The use of Upanishadic knowledge is that it eliminates the specific delusions of the one particular jiva or intellect (buddhi) that is currently bound, which eliminates the cause of that particular one buddhi's further transmigration/bondage, despite maya-avidya persisting for other buddhis who are still deluded and transmigrating. This is why complaining about maya-avidya remaining as Brahman's power even after enlightenment is effectively an irrelevant non-issue and it also betrays Shankara's stated position.

The intellect is comprised of tanmatras (subtle elements) which are themselves a part of maya, and the vrittis (the most subtle and innermost type of mental modifications including all insight/realization) just happen when the translucent tanmatras receive and are lit up by the light of the Atman. The delusions inhering in someone's intellect and the ending of these are just a corresponding shift in tanmatras, it's all just a shift in the maya-avidya sakti of Brahman when the sublation of non-Self occurs, Brahmavidya is NOT a mysterious realization that is neither in the buddhi's tanmatras and nor in the Atman, it's just the Buddhi's tanmatra's shifting or unwinding in such way such that they don't have any more delusions (a unique type of configuration) anymore about the Atman's light that pervades it, this forever removes the impetus for further transmigration.

The Upanishads that impart this knowledge, the intellect that grasps it, the thoughts and vrittis that correspond to wrong beliefs and the subsequent mental actions involved in their correction, this all equally just phenomena made of the gunas (which are maya), it's only on the assumption that this process is crafted as an artful illusion by Brahman (on whom all of samsara depends) that gnosis can be conceived of as possibly leading out of samsara, because that gnosis is imbued into their minds by the same source as samsara instead of coming from a source that they schizophrenically imagine up out of ignorance but which coincidentally happens to be correct (lmao). The higher CANNOT come from the lower.