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Re: ARTICLE : Just say no to "Hinduism" (was Re: ARTICLE : On
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To: ghen@netcom.com
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Subject: Re: ARTICLE : Just say no to "Hinduism" (was Re: ARTICLE : On
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From: Pradip Gangopadhyay <pradip@lism.usc.edu>
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Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1996 14:37:51 -0700 (PDT)
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.
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?
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 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. Only if you
accept this position can you accept masters of both Jnana marga and Bhakti
marga. 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.
Regards
Pradip
