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ARTICLE : Saguna and Nirguna Brahman (was Re: ARTICLE : Just say no ..)
Pradip Gangopadhyay wrote:
>
> Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vidya@cco.caltech.edu>wrote:
>
> [some parts snipped]
>
> >I am afraid you are quite misunderstanding Sri Sankara's position. It is
> >because of the necessity of the logic of advaita that he says the
> >Personal Forms are at the vyavahAra level.
>
> I have problems with the logic of Advaita as propounded by Sri Sankara for
> the following reason:
> Since Sri Sankara accepts Saguna Brahman only at the vyavahara level,
> he only accepts Jnana Yoga for liberation. Bhakti Yoga is only good for
> purifying the mind. A logical consequence of such a position will be that
> all the Giants of the Bhakti tradition must have failed to achieve liberation.
First, define liberation. Second, read Sankaracharya's Brahmasutra
bhashya carefully. Note that he does not say bhakti yoga is good only
for purifying the mind. When Sankaracharya talks of cittasuddhi, he
always talks of karma yoga, not of bhakti yoga.
I quote from the last section of the Brahmasutra bhashya, "samyagdarSana
vidhvasta-tamasAm tu nityasiddhanirvANa parAyaNAnAm siddhaiva anAvRtti:|
tadASrayaNenaiva hi saguNaSaraNAnAmapi anAvRttissiddhiriti|"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Here, Sankaracharya clearly says that worship of saguNa brahman ensures
non-return to the cycle of rebirths. If liberation = no rebirth,
Sankaracharya agrees that bhakti yoga gives you that. So, what you think
to be a logical consequence of his emphasis on jnAna yoga, is not
supported by Sankaracharya himself. Nor has any post-Sankaran advaitin
said so. Orthodox advaitins hold that saguNopAsanA leads to kramamukti.
Worship of saguNa brahman takes one to brahmaloka, where as the Sruti
says, "brahmaNA saha te sarve samprApte pratisancare| parasyAnte
kRtAtmAna: praviSanti param padam|" How so? Sruti again gives us the
answer, "te brahmaloke tu parAntakAle parAmRtAt parimucyanti sarve|"
> Do you think it is likely that Sri Ramanuja, Sri Madhva, Sri Chaitanya, Sri
> Tulsidas, Sri Tukaram, Sri Ramakrishna, to name only a few, only succeded to
> purify their mind?
>
Please, let us not argue by assertion or probability here. I am not
competent to say that these bhaktas were not liberated. Nor am I
competent to say that they were. And I have no wish to talk of
likelihoods, based on loose assumptions.
> I also have problems with the other Acharyas. If you accept Sri Ramanuja, for
> example, then Jnana Yoga only leads to sthitaprajna. You have to follow Bhakti
> Yoga to be liberated. That would imply that all the celebrated masters of the
> Jnana Marga like Sri Sankara, Sri Sureshacharya, Sri Padmapada, Sri Vidyaranya,
> Swami Vivekananda or Sri Ramana Maharshi only managed to reach the state of
> sthithaprajna. Do you think these masters were not fully Self-realized?
>
I do not know what the teachers of bhakti yoga would say, if asked
whether Sankara, Suresvara and Vidyaranya actually were liberated or
not. So, I'll let some follower of those traditions answer this.
> I feel that I can not accept either position in toto. The truth is that both
> Bhakti Marga and Jnana Marga lead men to liberation. Actually any combination
> of Raj, Bhakti, Jnana and Karma Yoga will lead men to liberation.
How do you know that? Why do you need a combination of different yogas?
And where does Raja yoga fit in? Is it part of every yoga, or is it a
separate thing, other than jnana, bhakti and karma? What exactly is
liberation, in your analysis?
> Only if you accept this position can you accept masters of both Jnana > marga and Bhakti marga.
"Accept" as what? I "accept" Bhaskara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Nilakantha,
Vallabha and others, along with Sankaracharya, as teachers of their
respective vedAntic traditions. Those teachers who carry on these
traditions today may be considered to be their representatives, in some
sense. However, why should I (or anybody else) accept all of them as my
gurus? I can only accept one guru, from only one tradition. I cannot
accept all of them as gurus. You cannot say, "all of them were correct."
They themslves did not think so. Ramanuja and Madhva did not think
Sankara was correct about anything. So, how exactly does one "accept"
all of them? And by what criteria? What then of Sufi masters, Bahai
teachers, the Christian Gnostics and the Pope? Must one accept all of
them too?
Finally, as a lay aspirant, what do I hope to gain by accepting masters
from all traditions? Won't I only get even more confused by all the
disagreements among the various teachers that I am supposed to revere?
Won't I have much better spiritual progress if I accept only one of them
as my guru and follow his instructions in word and spirit?
> A consequence of this position is, however, that Saguna Brahman can
> not be considered to be true only at the vyavaharika level. I think the most
> logical position is that Brahman appears as Nirguna Brahman to the Jnani and
> Saguna to the Bhakta.
>
So, what is brahman then? Is it nirguNa or saguNa or both or neither?
Have you known brahman, to tell me what It is? Your argument about
nirguNa/saguNa brahman and paramArtha/vyavahAra works both ways.
Applying your argument to everybody equally, all the followers of bhakti
yoga teachers have to accept that brahman is truly nirguNa at the
paramArtha level. But strangely enough, followers of Sankara have to
accept that saguNa is true at the paramArtha level. In effect, you are
asking everybody to completely reverse their positions. Either that, or
you are asking each school to reject its own logic in favor of a
synthetic/syncretistic argument made up of mutually contradictory
elements taken from all the schools. I doubt if there are going to be
any takers.
I get the feeling that you are looking at the word nirguNa, as if it
were a guNa itself. That is not what advaitins mean by nirguNa. Brahman
is said to be nirguNa because any attempt to describe It by means of
guNas fails. This is the basis of the entire paramArtha/vyavahAra scheme
in advaita. It seems to me that this has not been properly understood by
you. It is impossible, from the advaita point of view, to talk of guNas
when there is only One. "yatra tvasya sarvam AtmaivAbhUt, tatra kena kam
paSyet?" says the bRhadAraNyaka. At the paramArtha level, there is only
the One Atman and none other, so that the question of guNas does not
even arise. Read Madhusudana sarasvati's advaita-siddhi. He was a great
kRshNa-bhakta, but he was one of the most vigorous defendents of the
advaita view of nirguNa brahman and paramArtha vs. vyavahAra
distinctions. If you find any logical problems with his statements,
maybe we can discuss this further.
Regards,
S. Vidyasankar
