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Re: Move over Acaryas... Make Way for Ken Stuart!
On Sun, 14 Jan 1996 12:41:08 +0000, you wrote:
>I am getting too busy to carry on in this discussion because frankly I am
>finding it to be quite fruitless, and besides I have much more important
>services to be involved in. Let me end here with some concluding observations.
>
>1) Ken Stuart denies he is an advaitin. According to him, we are not all one
>now, but we do all become one in the end.
I never said this.
There is no "end".
>So basically, Ken's philosophy
>(which he claims is visistadvaita) is simply another incarnation of
>advaita/mayavadi philosophy. Ultimately, it denies the possibility of having
>a personal relationship with God, because it states that we ultimately get
>merged back into God at the time of liberation. It is an impersonalist
>philosophy.
Another statement that I never made.
We all have a personal relationship with God all the time.
For example, you may have an uncle that you never talk to or write to.
This does not mean that you do not have a personal relationship with
your uncle, it just means that the relationship is one of ignoring one
another.
Unfortunately, most people have the same sort of personal relationship
with God.
>2) Ken Stuart claims that his philosophy is visistadvaita. Perhaps he read
>some advaitin's description of visistadvaita, and decided that, just to be
>different, he would call himself a visistadvaitin. Well, the unfortunate
>reality is that the real visistadvaitins (the followers of Ramanuja) don't
>agree with his philosophy. They don't accept that Shiva is the same as
>Vishnu, nor do they accept that the plurality of jivas is only temporary.
Well I already quoted from Ramanuja about jivas in this newsgroup, so
I won't repeat that here.
So I'll quote from Swami Tapasyananda in "Sri Ramanuja: Philosophy"
concerning Shiva and Vishnu:
"Ramanuja too will not object to worship of various Deities provided
it is accepted that Narayana indwells every Deity and the worship done
to the Deity is really to Narayana [ which, by the way, is exactly the
teaching of my guru -Ken ] . This is the farthest limit of liberalism
he is prepared to accept. For Narayana and Narayana alone is that
Archetypal Form, and other Deities can only be His partial
manifestations. Narayana with the Archetypal Form described before is
Brahman. He is not an Impersonal Absolute. There is nothing above
Him."
It's very difficult to call this "impersonalist", I think. :-)
>3) In fact, Ken does not stop there. At several points, Ken has attempted to
>quote other Vaishnava acaryas and scriptures to support his philosophy. His
>attitude is not that of a humble disciple, who remains at the feet of the
>guru, but rather one who puts his feet on the guru's head in order to outdo
>the guru. For example, Ken tries to argue that his philosophy of the souls
>merging into one God is compatible with the philosophy of Gaudia
>Vaishnavism.
I have never stated that souls merge into one God, so I could not have
commented that it was compatible with the philosophy of Gaudiya
Vaishnavism.
I have yet to find one statement in any of your posts where you state
"Ken Stuart says ...." that is correct. It is clear that you
misunderstand what I am saying, so you should make specific quotes in
the future.
>But Srila Prabhupada has EXPLICITLY stated in his Gita Bhasya
>that the souls remain eternally individual (I have posted the relevant
>excerpts). What Ken is essentially trying to do is argue that he has some
>kind of higher understanding of the Truth than the acaryas do. But, in order
>to lend credibility to his philosophy, he does not want to say that the
>acaryas are wrong (this would be sheer hubris). Instead, he simply implies
>that his understanding is more complete.
I have never intended to imply any such thing. I merely quote or
paraphrase other "acaryas" who have different viewpoints than the ones
that you quote.
You have reason to follow your teachers and what they teach. This is
good and correct !
Others do likewise, and have different viewpoints than you. Then we
get together and discuss it in this newsgroup.
This is fine, and helps us understand what is meant by "God" and
"soul" and "jiva".
>Either way, Ken is still left with the problem of authenticating his
>philosophy. The points he is making (on the identity of Shiva/Vishnu, on the
>merging of souls, etc) have been EXPLICITLY refuted by the Vaishnava acaryas
>(including Ramanuja). So, Ken cannot claim that his philosophy is compatible
>with theirs. In that case, what makes him think he is right and the
>Vaishnava acaryas are wrong? Ken still has not provided the details of the
>parampara that he represents. He has simply been content to argue that there
>is more than one authentic parampara. But why should anyone accept that his
>parampara is authentic? Srila Prabhupada's parampara is given in BG As It
>Is. Where is the information on Ken Stuart's parampara?
>So, if Ken wants us to take his philosophy seriously, he has to at least
>provide the parampara. I certainly won't even consider further responses
>until his parampara is provided.
I am not a Guru or teacher. Therefore, my parampara is not relevant.
I am merely arguing philosophy based on what is stated in scriptures.
If a professor of comparative religion who was a Moslem, studied all
the Vedic scriptures, he would certainly be qualified to discuss these
topics, as is anyone who backs up his arguments using scripture.
>4) Fourth, and final point: I would like to address this ultra-new system of
>Vedanta argument which Ken has introduced. It is known as the Why/Why Not
>maneuver. Ken's way of making a point is to make some controversial
>statement. Then when I show how that statement can't be true by providing a
>counter-example, Ken simply asserts that both the statement and its
>contradiction are both true. When challenged about how this can be, he
>simply says "why not?" and pats himself on the back for his original thinking.
>
>The fact is that in any debate, the burden of proof falls on the person
>making an assertion that is not intuitively obvious. Ken says that Vishnu
>and Shiva are the same. But the Vaishnava acaryas say otherwise.
See above on Ramanuja's actual viewpoint.
>I have also
>shown Ken many places in the scriptures were Shiva is seen as subordinate to
>Vishnu, which Ken accepted.
Worshipping is not the same as subordinate. This is a prime example
of what you are not comprehending here about the nature of the
universe and God.
There are many actions taken by Krishna towards Radha that could be
taken as "subordinate".
You can't limit God by saying that his manifestations are restricted
in what they can or cannot do, and that worship is one of those things
they cannot do.
When Krishna performs activities that could be seen as "subordinate",
then you say that he is just providing an example, but then you won't
accept the same reasoning towards Siva.
>But still he ignores the obvious conclusion and
>says they are the same, and thinks it rests on me to show otherwise. This is
>foolish logic; using that same sentiment one could just as easily "prove"
>that all the other demigods are the same as Vishnu. Why does Ken insist that
>Shiva and Vishnu are the same when the Acaryas and the scriptures say
>otherwise? How is this that Ken can be right and Ramanujacarya and other
>greats are wrong?
See above on Ramanuja's viewpoint about the deities.
Also, note that Ramanjua is NOT in Srila Prabhupada's parampara.
>I don't know of any Vaishnavas who insist that we should
>all pay homage to the Ken Stuart parampara...
No one is saying that anyone should pay homage to anyone, it is just a
philosophical discussion.
I am saddened that, since you don't have time to reply to specific
arguments and specific scriptural citations [ especially the one where
Ramanuja quotes from the Antaryami Brahmana of the Brhadaranyaka
Upanishad (3.7) "All else but He is perishable" ], you resort to
personal attacks.
If there are any Vaishnavas out there who disapprove of this tactic
(not to mention the Subject line of his post), it would be nice if you
can post a response.
Cheers,
Ken
kstuart@snowcrest.net
"The ego arises from the mistaken notion that the light of consciousness
reflected in the intellect and coloured by objectively perceived phenomena
is the true nature of the Self. Thus, the personal ego falsely identifies
the Self with that which is not the Self and vice versa." - Mark Dyczkowski
References:
