Qualification to talk philosophy

[Guest guest]

hare krishna,

 

traditionally Srutis were never written down on paper but passed on

orally and that is why they are called Sruti.

 

There are four stages in sadhana :

 

Sravanna - Studying scriptures.

Manana - Trying to understand them as a whole using logic.

Nidhidhyasana - Uninterrupted meditation[devotion] on brahman.

Darsana - This is where one gets vision of Supreme.

 

Sravana and Manana are aid to nidhidhyasana. and without

nidhidhyasana one cannot have darsana and hence no moksha.

 

Now Srutis were passed down from sages to sages, orally. So anyone

who was interested in learning them had to go to a sage who will

teach it to the student. While teaching the text, meaning of it was

also explained so that student may not speculate and any questions a

student had were answered. So basically without going to a guru no

one could have ever imagined to learn about Brahman. It is said "a

non knower of veda cannot know Supreme". Now the source of vedic

knowldge were sages, who would communicate the truth orally to their

disciples. Hence sravanna and manana without which nidhidhyasana is

impossible could not be performed had the student not seeked lotus

feet of a guru.

 

In kali yuga srutis were put down in writing for reasons already

known. Now following this the meanings of text were also put down in

writing by acaryas. Just as Sabda brahman vedas are representation of

Supreme so is the bhasya of an acarya repr. of him. So if we possess

Gita as it is in our house we actually have krishna and SP in our

house. Verse of Gita represents Krishna and words of purport

represent SP. Similarly Gita bhasya of ramanuja means we have Krishna

and ramanuja with us. So we are always in proximity of our guru. We

should not think guru always needs to be physically present before us.

 

Take for example Ramanuja. Who taught him Sruti in the formal and

traditional ways ? No one. anyone here familiar with his life knows

no one taught him all the upanisads in the traditional way as has

been mentioned at the starting. Yamunacarya didn't teach him Srutis.

Yet he wrote works like Sri bhasya and Vedartha Sangraha. Are we to

reject him saying you never learnt Sruti at Guru's lotus feet so you

are unqualified ? He didn't even teach him Gita. Yamuna had left a

work on Gita and Ramanuja faithfully followed it while writing bhasya

on gita. His Guru was always there with him in form of that work on

gita. For his VS bhasya he followed ancient authority called

bodhyana. Bodhyana never taught him VS but all that ramanuja did was

get his vritti on VS and expound vedanta philosophy accordingly.

Ramanuja went to Kashmir from almost the southern most part to find a

script of this vritti. That just shows the value of a written text.

Infact it is known that ramanuja objected to yadva prakasa

explanations of Chandogya and Taittariya without having been taught

vishistadvaita or any non advaitic interpretation of the texts

formally by a guru. It was considered to be unholy by Yadva but

ramanuja was right in his interpretations, though he had no formal

training in interpreting those texts in the traditional style, while

yadva was famous teacher of advaita in that area. This is what

happened:

 

http://www.gosai.com/chaitanya/saranagati/html/

vaisnava_sampradayas_fs.html

 

"A few days later a second incident occurred. While explaining a

verse from the Taittiriya Upanishad beginning with satyam jnanam

anantam brahma, Yadava said that Brahman was intelligence, truth, and

the infinite. Hearing this explanation, Ramanuja politely

added, "Brahman is endowed with the qualities of intelligence, truth,

and the infinite— this means that He is not covered by ignorance

as are ordinary living entities, He is never untruthful, and His

energies are unlimited, not limited. The Supreme Brahman is the

reservoir of all good qualities, yet He is superior to those

qualities, as the sun globe is superior to sunlight."

 

The agitation which Yadava felt within his mind made his voice

tremble. "You young fool!" he shouted. "Your conclusions do not agree

with those of Shankara or any of the previous masters! If you are

going to persist with this useless talk about a personal God, why

come here at all simply to waste my time? Why don't you start your

own school and teach whatever you like? Now get out of my classroom

immediately!"

 

 

So you need guru's training to understand Sruti but here you see a

person who later became celebrated vedantin contradicting a bonafide

persons interpretation even though he lacked proper training in a

traditional way. So how to reconcile this ?

 

Answer is look into SP's purports for gita 10.10 and 10.11

 

10.10 purport

"A person may have a bona fide spiritual master and may be attached

to a spiritual organization, but still, if he is not intelligent

enough to make progress, then Krsna from within gives him

instructions so that he may ultimately come to Him without

difficulty. The qualification is that a person always engage himself

in Krsna consciousness and with love and devotion render all kinds of

services. He should perform some sort of work for Krsna, and that

work should be with love. If a devotee is intelligent enough, he will

make progress on the path of self-realization. If one is sincere and

devoted to the activities of devotional service, the Lord gives him a

chance to make progress and ultimately attain to Him."

 

10.11 purport

"There are very, very learned scholars who have put forward the

philosophy of devotion, but even if a devotee does not take advantage

of their literatures or of his spiritual master, if he is sincere in

his devotional service he is helped by Krsna Himself within his

heart. So the sincere devotee engaged in Krsna consciousness cannot

be without knowledge. The only qualification is that one carry out

devotional service in full Krsna consciousness. The modern

philosophers think that without discriminating one cannot have pure

knowledge. For them this answer is given by the Supreme Lord: those

who are engaged in pure devotional service, even though they be

without sufficient education and even without sufficient knowledge of

the Vedic principles, are still helped by the Supreme God, as stated

in this verse."

 

And SP is not supporting speculation over here.

 

So the simple point is anyone who has devotion, will have knowledge

no matter what. And who has knowledge is qualified though he may not

look so according to traditional way.

 

Well this is not to give an impression that yeah i am a perfect

devotee so i have knowledge and i am qualified even though i haven't

learned Srutis in a traditional way. In cases of people like me one

can see it by comparing them with what predecessors like ramanuja and

baladeva have written. If asked i am willing to show that those

interpretation of Srutis are in line with ramanuja and baladeva and

**are not my mental speculation**. Unfortunately i am quite busy this

week but sure in near future[most likely coming week or this weekend]

i will get back to the topic of arca murti and brahman svarupa.

 

So in short i would just say, we have krishna and guru both in our

house in our proximity if we have gita as it is or any other version.

One must offer them all respects and in ones heart worship them as if

they were physically present. Just become absorbed in reading these

texts in mood of absolute self surrender and meaning will gradually

manifests itself. When one does this, one will realize how texts from

different scriptures are interconnected and will be able to

assimilate the truth with utmost ease by grace of guru and bhagavan.

 

Guru is the commentary or purport and vedic verse is krishna.

 

So yeah if one has gita with bonafide vaishnava commentary in house

one should never think he lives alone, rather he lives with Vishnu

and Sri Guru. This is how one should think.

 

Svetasvatara Up. VI-23: "Only to that seeker who has supreme devotion

to God, and an equal degree of devotion to the spiritual teacher, are

the truths of vedas revealed."

 

All glories to Sri Sri Guru and Sri Krishna.

 

 

Your Servant Always,

Sumeet.