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ARTICLE : Saguna and Nirguna Brahman (was Re: ARTICLE : Just say no ..)


Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vidya@cco.caltech.edu> wrote:


>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|"


	In page after page of his commentary on Brahma Sutra Sri Sankara 
clearly states that the unitary experience of Brahman is Mukti. He has to
take this position as in his view the relative world is unreal from the stand
point of paramarthika. He does talk of kramamukti for the Bhaktas. Kramamukti 
is not mukti. Kramamukti just means that the Bhaktas reach the highest level 
of relative existence and can strive for liberation there. In Brahmalok the
bhakta has to experience the Nirguna Brahman to be liberated since that is how
he defines liberation. Thus Bhakti Yoga does not lead to liberation. It only 
helps a person get to a higher level of relative existence. A person will have
to resume his effort from there. Krama Mukti is a polite way of saying that a 
Bhakta will not get liberation till he experiences Nirguna Brahman.

[..]



>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? 

Of course I was stating Swami Vivekananda's views. Why do I find his view 
compelling? Let me sketch his views here. First let me tell you why in Swami 
Vivekananda's views Jnana, Bhakti, Karma and Raj Yoga are prescribed.  Humans
have intellect, emotion, will and mind to unite with God. Jnana Yoga, Bhakti 
Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raj Yoga are just methods which employ intellect, emotion
, will and mind respectively of a human being. Why do we need a combination of
yogas for the best result? Let me give you an analogy. How should a person 
approach any work if he wants to do it well? If the person uses his intellect 
(Jnana Yoga), if he loves his work (Bhakti Yoga), if he concentrates on his 
work (Raja Yoga) and if he has great determination and will to work (Karma 
Yoga) then common sense tells us that he will succeed. Of course if a person 
has any one of these qualities he will do good. That is what all the 
traditional schools have prescribed. It is just common sense to see that 
combining all the Yogas will lead to an even more harmonious result. Actually,
even a Jnana Yogi employs all these yogas. He has to love to meditate, he has 
to will to meditate and he has to concentrate his mind to succeed in Jnana 
Yoga. This is true for a Bhakta also. Thus when a person is said to be a Jnana
Yogi, it is meant that the person is primarily using his intellect to fix his 
mind on God. 
	Raja Yoga is just concentration of mind. If a person can just fix
his mind without taking recourse to Bhakti, Jnana or Karma Yoga then there is 
no reason why he would not get liberation. However, this is extraordinarily 
difficult for most people. That is why most people are advised to use any one 
of the other three Yogas.



>"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? 

	When I say "accept" I mean that I find these great Masters of different
traditions as upright men with stainless characters. So just as Jnana Yoga has 
produced men of great character and moral standing similarly Bhakti Yoga has 
also led to men of great charcter and moral standing. My question was that if
this fact is true that both paths have led to persons of unusual moral stature
then on what practical basis can we discriminate between these 2 paths?
	I have no opinion about Sufi masters, Bahai teachers, the Christian
Gnostics or the Pope. I have not studied about them to sufficient depth to
venture an opinion.
	I was not saying that we should take all of them as Gurus.


>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. 

	You have not understood my position. Let me first write about the 
Kevala Advaita system. I know you know all this but I need to write it down as
I will use it to show you what I mean by Saguna Brahman and Nirguna Brahman. 

	Any Vedantin who wants to construct a model of Reality has to satisfy
two conditions:

(1) You can never connect the relative with the absolute.

	Why is this so? Try out a simple thought experiment. Imagine writing a 
small program in a computer to give you a value of infinity. Since infinity is
larger than any number that the computer can come up with, the program will 
never end.

(2) The Ultimate Reality can never change.

	Why is it so? Suppose the meter standard that is used to fix the length
of meter is allowed to change. Then you will have total confusion. How will you
know the true value of the meter?

Kevala Advaita
	Sri Sankara's model satisfies both conditions by making the whole 
relative world unreal from the point of view of paramarthika. This solves both
problems. Since there is no relative from the paramarthika point of view there
is no connection between the relative and the Absolute. There is also no real
change of Brahman only an apparent change. It seems that the Kevala Advaita
model is completely consistent. But is it? There are some consequences for
making the whole relative world unreal from the paramarthika level. It is at
this point that I can not accept Kevala Advaita system. Let me first spell out
the consequences:

(1) If the whole world is unreal then our cognition is defective at the very
roots due to Avidya. I have no problem with that.

(2) If the relative is unreal then Maya Shakti of Brahman is also unreal from
the paramarthika point of view. This has serious consequences on the very 
concept of Brahman. After all in Kevala Advaita only Brahman is. Thus if Maya
is unreal then Brahman is unreal. It is at this point Sri Sankara introduces
the device of anirvacaniya Maya to rescue Kevala Advaita model from collapse.
If Brahman is unreal then there is no point of studying Vedanta. I have not 
been able to accept this point of KevalAdvaita system.

Sri Ramakrishna's Advaita	

	This system seems to me to be far more logical and reasonable than the
Kevala Advaita system. The Ultimate Reality is assumed to have a static part
and a dynamic part. The static part is beyond thought, mind and speech. The
dynamic part of the Ultimate Reality called Divine Mother gives rise to the
relative world. Thus both the relative world and the absolute are equally real
. Otherwise Brahman becomes unreal. Thus this system does not have to invoke 
any "neither sat nor asat but anirvacaniya" maya to save Brahman from the 
taint of unreality. This system automatically satisfies condition (1) as the 
relative is also due to the Ultimate Reality. Doesn't the change in the 
relative world affect the Ultimate Reality? The answer given is no. The 
Dynamic Ultimate Reality, theologically called Divine Mother, can remain the 
same although the relative world changes through her Maya shakti. It is not
that Maya is anirvacaniya. It is just that we can not logically understand how
Maya operates in the world. This system says that it is not the world that is
unreal. It is our perception of the world that is unreal. The liberated person
sees in agreement with the Upanishads that only Brahman is. Then he realizes
that the world is real because Brahman sports as the world.

Saguna Brahman and Nirguna Brahman

	Now I am in a position to discuss this topic. In Sri Ramakrishna's
view Jnanis experience Brahman as Nirguna and Bhaktas experience Brahman as
Saguna. You may raise the question why Jnanis experience Brahman as Nirguna?
The answer is as follows: A person who experiences Nirvikalpa Samadhi looses
his "I" sense and thus experiences Brahman as beyond thought, mind and speech.
After all our thought, mind and speech can operate only when our "I" sense
operates. Thus when the "I" sense is lost Brahman is experienced as without
attributes. There is no "I" left to experience any attributes. A Bhakta on the
other hand maintains his "I" sense when he experiences Brahman. That is why
he experiences Brahman with attributes. Both these experiences are equally
valid and lead to mukti. Thus there is only one Brahman experienced by 
different people in different ways. I hope it is now clear that I did not say
that Saguna Brahman is "true" at the Paramartha level. Thus all the Bhakta 
Vedantic schools are correct when they say that Bhakti leads to mukti. The 
Kevaladvaita school is correct when it says that Jnana Yoga leads to mukti. 
However,they are wrong when they claim that only their paths can lead to mukti.

	I appreciate your suggestion of Madhusudana Saraswati's book. I will
certainly read through the book if I can get hold of it. I am, however,
skeptical if my views will change. After all I have come to this view after
reading through the Sankarabhasyas of Gita, BrahmaSutra and the Upanishads.
	
	Let me make it clear here that I am just presenting my view. It is all
right with me if there are no takers for my view.

Regards

Pradip
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