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Re: Siva as Yogi?
>On Fri, 5 Jan 1996 14:33:10 +0000, you wrote:
>
>> vis'iStaadvatins do not
>>believe themselves to be God,
>
>From "Bhakti Schools of Vedanta" by Swami Tapasyananda, in the chapter
>entitled "Sri Ramanuja: Philosophy":
>
>"In Ramanuja's system, apart from these inherent and essential
>attributes of God, His Svarupa and Svabhava, God has another kind of
>attribute -- the universe of Jivas (souls) and Jagat (changeful and
>manifold nature)."
>
This does not support your line of reasoning. The living entities are
considered to be part of God, or as Srila Prabhupada has often said, "part
and parcel" of the Supreme Lord. In order for God's universe to be complete,
His creation would have to include infinitessmal spirit souls, similar to
Him in quality, but subordinate to Him. These jivas are of the energy of
God, but they are not on the same level as God.
In Gita 7.5, the Lord states that the living entities (jivas) are of His
spiritual energy. Nevertheless He states in Gita 7.6 that He is the origin
of them all. Therefore, God is the source of the jivas. The jivas are not God.
>And, of course, Bhagavad-Gita-As-It-Is 15:7 :
>
>"The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal
>fragmental parts."
Very good. Now read it again, carefully this time: "the living entities...
are My eternal fragmental parts." You say that the jivas are God, but here
it says that they are only fragments of God, and they remain ETERNALLY
fragemented. Furthermore, although so many things may emanate from God,
still God remains complete, and this is confirmed in the invocation of the
Isopanisad (om purnam adam purnam idam... etc). So, the conclusion (once
again for the umpteenth time) is that the living entities are NOT God. Nor
do they ever become God, or merge into God. They remain eternally separate,
always with the choice of whether or not to serve their eternal master.
You are very fond of quoting Srila Prabhupada, apparently because you are
under the mistaken notion that his teachings support your theories. But
Srila Prabhupada has very clearly said, "I AM NOT GOD. YOU ARE NOT GOD. WE
ARE ALL THE SERVANTS OF GOD." He also said (in reference to the many Godmen
of the 20th century), that anyone who thinks he is God becomes a dog in his
next life. Now, for the vast majority of us conversant with the English
language, the above statements are quite clear, and there is no way of
reinterpreting them to say that actually we are all God. Still, you will try
to find a way of reconciling it with the mayavadi so-called Bhagavans,
because you don't want to believe that these fellows are monists, even
though they insist that they are.
>
>>nor do they accept that God only resides in
>>their hearts.
>
>I (nor any of the Bhagavans) never said "only" .
By quoting the verse on the Supersoul residing in the heart, and then saying
that we are all God in the sense that God resides in our hearts, you imply
that God is nowhere else. First of all, it makes no sense to say that, "we
are all God," is another way of saying that "God resides in our hearts." The
mayavadi so-called bhagavans don't teach the latter, except possibly as a
subordinate concept to the former; in other words they really do believe
that we are all God, not merely that God resides with us in our heart.
Because you are favorably disposed to such people, you are trying to
reinterpret their teachings in such a way so that you won't have to reject
them. Even worse, you try to claim that such teachings can be supported from
Srila Prabhupada's writings. This kind of attempt to reconcile two totally
contradictory philosophies is going to fail every time.
Secondly, God, by His inconceivable potencies, is simultaneously with us in
our hearts and also transcendental to our material universe. He is found
originally in the spiritual world in Vaikuntha. Therefore, again it makes no
sense to say that we are God, since there is more to God that we could
observe in our hearts.
Accepting one thing necessarily means rejecting another. If I am the
eternally subordinate to God, the Supreme Absolute Truth Who is the source
of everything, then that means that I am not God, the Supreme Absolute Truth
who is the source of everything. You can't accept this basic, common sense
idea, so in order to convince someone else that your philosophy holds water,
you would have to persuade them to give up all discriminative faculties and
just fanatically embrace your interpretations without question. But when
someone does ask questions, this hodge-podge philosophy rapidly falls apart,
because it rests on this one unverifiable sentiment that we are all the
Infinite, Omniscient, All-Powerful God, and simultaneously not the Infinite,
Omniscient, All-Powerful God. If I am the all-powerful, all-knowing God,
then why can't I suddenly just come out of ignorance and realize that? You
cannot provide a sensible answer.
-- HKS
