[ramakrishna] Qualified Nondualism

June 5, 2000

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<jaguarxox

04 June 2000 02:29

> Could someone explain to me the qualified nondualism of Ramanuja?

Response from jay =========

All philosophies have to tackle the question of relationship between

'God' 'Universe' and 'individual souls.'

Advaita (non-dualism) says that there is just 'one' appearing as many.

Hence the question of relationship does not arise--

-- the division is just an appearance.

(this takes away a very serious problem that: Any relationship we suggest

between these three will be to a certain extent arbitrary).

To explain Ramanuajacharya's philosohphy of 'Qualified non-dualism'

(which is also the Philosophic basis of the 'Swaminarayan movement')

I will quote from the lecture on Atman given by Swami Vivekananda in

Brooklyn.

"Qualified non-dualist' say

That God, Nature and souls, constitute Reality.

God is, as it were, the Soul (of the other two)

Nature and (all of us) souls are the body of that God.

Just as I have a body and a soul, so the whole universe and all souls are

the body

of God. God is the Soul of the souls. Thus God is the material cause of the

universe.

<snip> Now both the dualists and qualified-non dualists admit that the soul

is by its nature pure, but through its own deeds becomes impure. The

qualified non-dualists express it more beautifully than the dualists by

saying that the soul's purity and perfection become 'reduced' and

'remanifested'. Every wicked deed contracts the nature of the soul and

every good deed expands it.

<snip> And all these souls are parts of God.

"As from a blazing fire fly millions of sparks of the same nature, even so

from the Infinite Being these souls have come"

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