Sankara's Advaita = truth ?

[Guest guest]

Dear A.C

I beg to differ with you Sir.

Sri Adi Shankaras philosophy was never made to put down other forms of

worship in Hinduism. Infact it was all based on Vedas and Upanishad and he

did the work of restablishing the Sanatana Dharma. He organized and

streamlined all those different sects and form of worship and not oppossing

or supressing any of them.

And thats why He is the MahaAcharya or JagatGuru(Universal Guru) and

accepted by all. And even those who opposed him has to do them were based on

his teachings.

And not only that,the condition that exists during that time was one of the

dark ages of Hinduism.. Here is what Swami Vivekananda has to say about Sri

Sankara..

GREAT MINDS ON THE GREAT MASTER

Swami Vivekananda

 

I have neither the time nor the inclination to describe to you the

hideousness that came in the wake of Buddhism. The most hideous ceremonies,

the most horrible, the most obscene books that human hands ever worte or the

human brain ever conceived, the most bestial forms that ever passed under

the name of religion, have all been the creation of degraded Buddhism.

But India has to live, and the spirit of the Lord descended again. He who

declared "I will come whenever virtue subsides", came again, and this time

the manifestation was in the South, and up rose the young Brahmin of whom it

has been declared that at the age of sixteen he had completed all his

writings; the marvellous boy Sankaracharya. The writings of this boy of

sixteen are the wonders of the modern world, and so was the boy. He wanted

to bring back the Indian world to its pristine purity, but think of the

amount of the task before him... The Tartars and the Baluchis and all the

hideous races of mankind came to India and became Buddhists, and assimilated

with us, and brought their national customs and the whole of our national

life became a huge stage of the most horrible and the most bestial customs.

That was the inheritance which that boy got from the Buddhists, and from

that time to this day his whole work in India is a re-conquest of this

Buddhistic degradation by the Vedanta. It is still going on, it is not yet

finished. Sankara came as a great philosopher and showed that the real

essence of Buddhism and that of the Vedanta are not very different, but that

the disciples did not understand the Master and have degraded themselves,

denied the existence of the soul and of God and have become atheists. That

was what Shankara showed and all the Buddhists began to come back to the old

religion.

 

The greatest teacher of the Vedanta philosophy was Shankaracharya. By solid

reasoning he extracted from the Vedas the truths of Vedanta, and on them

built up the wonderful system of Jnana that is taught in his commentaries.

He unified all the conflicting descriptions of Brahman and showed that there

is only one infinite Reality. He showed too that as man can only travel

slowly on the upward road, all the varied presentations are needed to suit

his varying capacity. We find something akin to this in the teachings of

Jesus, which he evidently adapted to the different abilities of his hearers.

First he taught them of a Father in heaven and to pray to him. Next he rose

a step higher and told them, "I am the vine, you are the branches", and

lastly he gave them the highest truth: "I and my Father are one," and "The

kingdom of Heaven is within You" Shankara taught that three things were the

great gifts of God: (1) human body (2) thirst after God and (3) a teacher

who can show up the light. When these three great gifts are ours, we may

know that our redemption is at hand. Only knowledge can free and save us but

with knowledge must go virtue.

 

Books cannot teach God, but they can destroy ignorance; their action is

negative. To hold to the books and at the same time open the way to freedom

is Shankara's great achievement.

 

Shankaracharya had caught the rhythm of the Vedas, the national cadence.

Indeed I always imagine that he had some vision such as mine when he was

young and recovered the ancient music that way. Anyway, his whole life's

work is nothing but that, the throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas and the

Upanishads.

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

I was reading something the other day about an Advaita bias which

commentators have taken on unquestioningly due to the coincidence of this

reading of Vedanta becoming the first to dominate outside India. Something

similar to what happened with Chinese food in America -- it is almost

exclusively the provincial style of the coastal region from which most

immigrants to America came. Chinese food in mainland China is more varied

than most westerners know. Get the idea?

 

Let me give you an example... we routinely speak on this list about the

ontological status of individuals and the world *as if* the Advaita

interpretation was the Absolute Truth itself whereas Hindu philosophy

covers a wider field including other equally appetizing readings (in my

opinion) of the same Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, etc. It seems many

interested westerners assume moksha necessarily means seeing things the way

Sankara described them but this need not be true. It is something of a

relief for me personally to realize this. While Sankara's *vision* may

have been absolutely true, his subsequent description and philosophical

judgements may be seriously flawed. The fact I may not agree with some

aspects of his description does not by itself mean anything about the

vision of either of us.

 

I suspect Ramanuja, for instance, has the same kind of fervent following as

Sankara -- with eminently well read and equally brilliant votaries prepared

to argue Visistadvaita is the "high water mark" of Indian philosophy , etc.

 

My conclusion is Sankara's Advaita is one means among many with moksha

happening on many paths inspiring differing commentaries on its wonders and

the paths to its realization. Isn't that what happened in India ?

 

-A.

[Guest guest]

Namaste Ganesh,

>

>I beg to differ with you Sir.

>Sri Adi Shankaras philosophy was never made to put down other forms of

>worship in Hinduism.

 

I never said it was.