2016-12-03 Srimad Bhagavatam 10.87.36 - Imaginary World and Real World (download mp3) by Damodar Prabhu at ISKCON Chowpatty www.iskcondesiretree.com SB 10.87.36sata idam utthitam sad iti cen nanu tarka-hatam vyabhicarati kva ca kva ca mrsa na tathobhaya-yukvyavahrtaye vikalpa isito ’ndha-paramparaya bhramayati bharati ta uru-vrttibhir uktha-jadan Translation: It may be proposed that this world is permanently real because it is generated from the permanent reality, but such an argument is subject to logical refutation. Sometimes, indeed, the apparent nondifference of a cause and its effect fails to prove true, and at other times the product of something real is illusory. Furthermore, this world cannot be permanently real, for it partakes of the natures of not only the absolute reality but also the illusion disguising that reality. Actually, the visible forms of this world are just an imaginary arrangement resorted to by a succession of ignorant persons in order to facilitate their material affairs. With their various meanings and implications, the learned words of Your Vedas bewilder all persons whose minds have been dulled by hearing the incantations of sacrificial rituals. Purport: According to Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, the Upanisads teach that this created world is real but temporary. This is the understanding that devotees of Lord Visnu adhere to. But there are also materialistic philosophers, like the proponents of Jaimini Rsi’s Karma mimamsa, who claim that this world is the only reality and exists eternally. For Jaimini, the cycle of karmic action and reaction is perpetual, with no possibility of liberation into a different, transcendental realm. This viewpoint, however, is shown to be fallacious by a careful examination of the Upanisadic mantras, which contain many descriptions of a higher, spiritual existence. For example, sad eva saumyedam agra asid ekam evadvitiyam: “My dear boy, the Absolute Truth alone existed prior to this creation, one without a second.” (Chandogya Upanisad 6.2.1) Also, vijñanam anandam brahma: “The supreme reality is divine knowledge and bliss.” (Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad 3.9.34) In this prayer of the personified Vedas, the materialists’ argument is summed up in the words sata idam utthitam sat: “The visible world is permanently real because it is generated from the permanent reality.” In general, this argument goes, that which is produced from a certain thing is composed of that thing. For example, earrings and other ornaments made from gold share gold’s substance. Thus, the Mimamsa logicians conclude, since the world as we know it is a manifestation of an eternal reality, it is also eternally real. But the Sanskrit ablative expression satah, “from the eternal reality,” implies a definite separation of cause and effect. Therefore, what is created from sat, the permanent reality, must be significantly different from it — in other words, temporary. In this way the argument of the materialists is flawed because it proves just the opposite of what it is intended to prove (tarka-hatam), namely that the world as we know it is all that exists, that it is eternal, and that there is no separate, transcendental reality. In defense, the Mimamsakas may claim that they are not trying to prove nondifference per se, but rather trying to disprove the possibility of difference, or in other words, the possibility of any reality separate from the known world. This attempt to support the Mimamsa argument is easily refuted by the phrase vyabhicarati kva ca: that is to say, there are counterexamples that deviate from the general rule. Sometimes, indeed, the source is very different from what it produces, as in the case of a man and his young son, or of a hammer and the destruction of a clay pot. But, the Mimamsakas reply, the creation of the universe is not the same kind of causation as your counterexamples: the father and the hammer are only efficient causes, whereas the sat is also this universe
