Mukti/Moksha is not an experience

[kaisersose]

This is Advaita by Sankara. This is not to start an argument about who is better or who is correct. This is simply to clarify the Advaita position, which no one here appears to be clear about.

 

Mukti is *not* an experience. It cannot be imagined, it cannot be visualized. Obviously then, it cannot be any of

 

1. Singing Bengali Bhajans among cows and grass.

2. Sitting around Vishnu in a group surrounded by an ocean of milk*

3. Dancing with Shiva in Kailasa

4. A western style heaven with pearly gates

 

The Kena Upanishad (Sama Veda) is very explicit about it.

 

That which cannot be apprehended by the mind, but by which, they say, the mind is apprehended — That alone know as Brahman and not that which people here worship - 1.6

 

That which cannot be perceived by the eye, but by which the eye is perceived — That alone know as Brahman and not that which people here worship - 1.7

 

Also read the Gita verses (2.72, 5.24-26). Note the repeated usage of the words Brahma-Nirvana in these verses. And of course, Gita 7.18 requires a special mention too in this context (Note that Prabhupada translates 7.18 incorrectly).

 

The Gaudiya Vaishnavas take a confused approach here. Sometimes Mayavada is false and some other times, it is apparently correct as Mayavadis will atain what they like to call the impersonal Brahman. So is Mayavada true or false? GVs are too confused to know. In any case, the "multiple destination" claim is incorrect too as there can only be one truth (or none at all) leading to one destination as explicitly clarified in the Gita in the first few verses of chapter 12 and elsewhere. There is no scripture that I know, which allows multiple ultimate destinations as the GV's claim.

 

* Used to be whole vitamin-D for a long time, but now with recent health fads, it can be imagined to be 2% or 1% or even skim. It is magical milk without an expiry date, something that would be of greater use on planet earth than in Vaikunta.

 

Cheers

[primate]

Mayavada (Advaita) is true.

 

Regards

[RamanaDasi]

A liberated soul can not only "sit around with Visnu" but what is more, like Krishna, she can eat and ride in carriages and be rejoicing all the time. Krishna's associates do that. They rejoice, while existing in their abode of Param Padam, Vaikuntha.

Thus does that serene being, arising from this material body, appear in its own form, as soon as it has approached the highest light, the knowledge of Higher Self. In that state the awakened self is a fully liberated person (uttama purusha). He moves about there, laughing or eating, playing, and rejoicing in his mind, be it with women, carriages, or relatives, never minding that bodily form into which he was born.

- Chandogya Upanishad 8.12.3.

[RamanaDasi]

नित्योऽनित्यानां चेतनश्चेतनानाम् एको बहूनां यो विदधाति कामान् ।

तमात्मस्थं येऽनुपश्यन्ति धीराः तेषां शान्तिः शाश्वती नेतरेषाम् ॥ १३ ॥

 

Katha Upanishad 5.13.

"Among all the eternal beings there is One who is the Supreme Eternal Being. Of all conscious living entities, there is One who is the Supreme Conscious Entity. That Supreme Living Entity maintains the others and fulfills their desires according to their merits. Only saintly persons, who see the Supreme Lord within and without, actually attain perfect and eternal peace."

This verse explicitly says that a multitude of living beings exist forever. The word “nityanam” in this verse indicates plurality, meaning that all souls exist forever. The meaning expressed in this verse is clearly opposed to various doctrines taught in other systems of thought: The Advaita Vedanta theory that formless Brahman alone exists and that individual souls and not not everlasting or are an illusion; the Theravada Buddhist notion that there is no eternal individual soul; the Biblical notion that souls were created at some point in time by God.

Sri Madvacharya, furthermore, states:

There is no possibility of any destruction of the Ultimate Consciousness of the Supreme Lord. The same similarly applies to the individual consciousness of all living entities. The Supreme Lord is the supreme eternal among the many eternal, the Ultimate Consciousness among all individual consciousness, the One Who, so desiring, manifests as the many. The connection and disconnection from a physical body is what is known as birth and death. Such is this reality for all living entities suffering in illusion.

[RamanaDasi]

Svetasvatara Upanishad (1.1.1-3):

Sages, discussing Brahman, ask, is Brahman the cause? From whence are we born? By what do we live? Where do we dwell at the end? Please tell us, O you who know Brahman, under whose guidance do we abide, whether in pleasure or in pain? Should time, or nature, or necessity, or chance, or the elements of nature be regarded as the cause? Or He who is called the Purusha, the Higher Self? The sages, absorbed in meditation through one-pointedness of mind, discovered the creative power (devatmashakti) belonging to the Lord Himself, hidden in its own qualities. The One Lord Who is non-different from his Power (devatmashakti) rules over all other causes (time and the rest). This, they discovered.

Svetasvatara Upanishad 6.10:

The Supreme Being surrounds Himself with the products of nature, just as when a spider builds a web and walks on threads spun from its own body. May that Supreme Being grant us liberation in Brahman!

 

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.1.20:

As a spider brings forth a web from within itself, so also it is with this world created by Brahman.