Promotion of Ramanuja's Vaishnava Philosophy .

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna!, Dear Dr. Sarojamji ,

My humble thanks to your for your sincere attempts to enlighten us on Visishtadvaita . I am sure that this will strengthen the faith of Vaishnavas . I firmly believe that , it is Bhagavan Sri Krishna Himself who has prompted you and your sponsors to take up this mission which is badly needed by the ardent followers of Srimad Bhagavatham ; as they are absolutely fed up with the negative influence of Advaita philosophy .It is notable that, Adi Shankara has not written any commenatary on Srimad Bhagavatham because it is not compatible with his Advaita Philosophy.

In this regard, I wish to mention the following :

Sri Ramanuja Acharya differed from Adi Shankara's Advaita philosophy because he acknowledged the existence of differences, and believed that the identity of an object as a part was as important as the unity of the whole. The Visishtadvaita philosophy espoused by Ramanuja points out that Brahman is not devoid of attributes but is expressed as a Personal God, full of infinite good qualities, as Narayana .

Differences with Adi Shankara's Advaita Philosophy

Adi Sankara had argued that all qualities or manifestations that can be perceived are unreal and temporary. They are a result of ignorance. Ramanuja believed them to be real and permanent and under the control of the Brahman. God can be one despite the existence of attributes, because they cannot exist alone; they are not independent entities. They are the modes, accessories, and the controlled aspects, of the one Brahman.

In Sri Ramanuja's system of philosophy, the Lord (Narayana) has two inseparable modes, viz., the world and the souls. These are related to Him as the body is related to the soul. They have no existence apart from Him. They inhere in Him as attributes in a substance. Matter and souls constitute the body of the Lord. The Lord is their indweller. He is the controlling Reality. Matter and souls are the subordinate elements. They are termed Viseshanas, (attributes) . God is the Viseshya or that which is qualified.

History shows that the followers of Sankara are answerless till date to the strong arguments of Ramanuja (in his sri bhashya) and his followers(satadushani of desika,...). In a bid to escape strong objections raised by Ramanuja and his successors, most advaitins take a disguised route where they argue that Vaishnavism is one another path to realise brahman. Ironically, the very brahman of Ramanuja and Sankara are different .

Ramanuja questions the position of the Advaitins that understanding the Upanishads without knowing and practicing dharma can result in Brahman knowledge. The knowledge of Brahman that ends spiritual ignorance is meditational, not (as Advaitins seem to presume) testimonial or verbal .

In contrast to Sankara, Ramanuja holds, There is no knowledge source in support of the claim that there is a distinctionless (homogeneous) Brahman. All knowledge sources reveal objects as distinct from other objects. All experience reveals an object known in some way or other beyond mere existence . Testimony depends on the operation of distinct sentence parts (words with distinct meanings). Thus the claim that testimony makes known that reality is distinctionless is contradicted by the very nature of testimony as a knowledge means. Even the simplest perceptual cognition reveals something (Bessie) as qualified by something else (a broken hoof, "Bessie has a broken hoof," as known perceptually). Inference depends on perception and makes the same distinct things known as does perception.

Against the Advaita contention that perception cannot make known distinctness but only homogeneous being since distinctness cannot be defined, well, sorry, perception makes known generic characters (cowhood and the like) that differentiate things. If what Advaitins say were true, why should not a person looking for a horse be satisfied with a buffalo ? Remembering could not be distinguished from perceiving, because there would be only the one object (being). And no one would be deaf or blind. Furthermore, Brahman would be an object of perception and the other sources .

Ramanuja also holds, The Advaitin argument about prior absences and no prior absence of consciousness is wrong. Similarly the Advaitin understanding of avidya (no-Knowledge), which is the absence of spiritual knowledge, is incorrect. "If the distinction between spiritual knowledge and spiritual ignorance is unreal, then spiritual ignorance and the self are one."

Ramanuja's Seven objections to Adi Shankara's Advaita

Ramanuja picks out what he sees as seven fundamental flaws in the Advaita philosophy for special attack: he sees them as so fundamental to the Advaita position that if he is right in identifying them as involving doctrinal contradictions, then the entire Advaita system collapses. He argues :

 

The nature of Avidya . Avidya must be either real or unreal ; there is no other possibility. But neither of these is possible . If Avidya is real, non-dualism collapses into dualism. If it is unreal, we are driven to self-contradiction or infinite regress .

The incomprehensibility of Avidya . Advaitins claim that Avidya is neither real nor unreal but incomprehensible, {anirvacaniya.} All cognition is either of the real or the unreal: the Advaitin claim flies in the face of experience, and accepting it would call into question all cognition and render it unsafe.

The grounds of knowledge of Avidya. No pramana can establish Avidya in the sense the Advaitin requires . Advaita philosophy presents Avidya not as a mere lack of knowledge, as something purely negative, but as an obscuring layer which covers Brahman and is removed by true Brahma-vidya. Avidya is positive nescience not mere ignorance . Ramanuja argues that positive nescience is established neither by perception, nor by inference, nor by scriptural testimony. On the contrary, Ramanuja argues, all cognition is of the real.

The locus of Avidya. Where is the Avidya that gives rise to the (false) impression of the reality of the perceived world? There are two possibilities ; it could be Brahman's Avidya or the individual soul's {jiva.} Neither is possible. Brahman is knowledge ; Avidya cannot co-exist as an attribute with a nature utterly incompatible with it . Nor can the individual soul be the locus of Avidya : the existence of the individual soul is due to Avidya ; this would lead to a vicious circle .

Avidya's obscuration of the nature of Brahman. Advaita would have us believe that the true nature of Brahman is somehow covered-over or obscured by Avidya. Ramanuja regards this as wrong : given that Advaita claims that Brahman is pure self-luminous consciousness, obscuration must mean either preventing the origination of this (impossible since Brahman is eternal) or the destruction of it - equally wrong .

The removal of Avidya by Brahma-vidya. Advaita claims that Avidya has no beginning, but it is terminated and removed by Brahma-vidya, the intuition of the reality of Brahman as pure, undifferentiated consciousness. But Ramanuja denies the existence of undifferentiated {nirguna} Brahman, arguing that whatever exists has attributes : Brahman has infinite auspicious attributes. Liberation is a matter of Divine Grace : no amount of learning or wisdom will deliver us.

The removal of Avidya : For the Advaitin, the bondage in which we dwell before the attainment of Moksa is caused by Maya and Avidya ; knowledge of reality (Brahma-vidya) releases us. Ramanuja, however, asserts that bondage is real . No kind of knowledge can remove what is real. On the contrary, knowledge discloses the real; it does not destroy it. And what exactly is the saving knowledge that delivers us from bondage to Maya? If it is real then non-duality collapses into duality; if it is unreal, then we face a conflict .

Ramanuja , the great

Ramanuja was critical of the caste system. He said, "Does the wearing of a sacred thread make one a Brahmin? One who is devoted to God (Narayana) alone is a Brahmin."

His Sarangati philosophy emphasises that anyone, irrespective of colour, creed, caste, sex and religion can surrender their mind, body and soul to the Lotus foot of Lord Narayana and the God would accept him/her.

Once some kids were playing on the road pretending to construct a temple, installing an Archa Vigraha of the Lord, offering fruits and flowers etc all the time using the dust on the road for the purpose. They offered some mud as prasadam to Ramanuja who was passing along , he received it with due respect. He remembered in this connection the words of Alwar who said that the Lord took whatever name and form his sincere devotees wished and in the instant case though the kids were only playing, they sincerely believed in what they were doing.

Sri Krishnaya Namah!!!

Krishnadaya.

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Saroja Ramanujam @ sarojram18 wrote …,

The explanation of advaita by Balagopal is very good and for those who wonder what do I know about advaita being a visishtadvaita follower, I am also an advaita vedantha siromani in sanskrit while my subject for thesis for my doctorate was sribhahya of Ramanuja, avirOdhAdhikaraNa, the criticism of Ramanuja of the thoeries of nonvedantic schools on causation, for which i had to study nonvedantic schools as well.

Balagopa has commented that in visishtadvaitha you are a part of God's dream which is not correct. This will be clear if one reads my posting on the philosophy of Ramanuja. According to visishtadvaita Brahman,thatis, Narayana, the world and theindividual jiva are all real and thereis no question of dream concept enterin g into the philosophy at all.What is said is that everything is a leela of the Lord. In fact the dream concept occurs only in advaita according to which 'brahma sathyam jaganmithya jivao brahmaiva naaparah' jiva or the individual soul is brahman who imagines himself as different due to anaadhi, beginningless avidhya and when the avidhya is removed through brahmajnana the jiva realises his true nature and the bondage experienced so far was like a dream. In fact in Mandukyakarika by Goudapadha and in Panchadasi .a treatise on advaita mentions the life as a dream and gives plausible reasons for it.Actually the example of bubbles given in the posting of Balgopal can be found in the Atmabodha of Sankara.

In the example of waves and the ocean both waves and the ocean is real but the waves are only a modification of the ocean which is not permanent.So too the world of sentient and insentient beings are in Brahman in their subtle state and become manifested in their gross state. This is wahat is meant by youare in God but Heis not in you, meaning that He being like akasa and wind which is everywhere so that everything can be said to be in them but the space and wind are not in anything because nothing is in contact with them.This is also explained in the Gita.

The philosophy of Ramanuja is not well understood generally because of two reasons. One, the works of Ramanuja and Desika were kept secret by the vaishnavites due to orthodoxy on account of confusing the philosophy with the religion and two, the works of sankara has been made wll known by the Ramakrishna Mission and other swamis like Sivananda, chinmayananda and others and became well known all over the world and today the term vedanta is applied only to advaita especially by the western world. mainly due tothe abundance of literature on the same.There are only few works on visishtadvaita ,that too, in English and even what is available is beyond the grasp of an ordinary intellect. actually my aim in staring varios groups and webpages is to make known the visishtadvaita concepts to all so that even those who do not know sanskrit or not a vaishnavite should come to know about it. I was acclaimed by other vaishnavite enthusiasts like Dr. Sadagopan who has asked me to write a e book on Sribhashya of Ramanuja which will be ready on Sundarasimham website in two months time.Chinna jeeyar, known as thridhandi jeeyar has also approved of my work saying that this is what we badly in need of. I am not saying all this as self - aggrandisement but to show the real state of affairs regarding visishtadvaita works.

Sankara ,though advocated advaita has written sthothras on all deities and has been a primary force in professing bhakthimarga. His concept of advaitamaya , though not his own concoction but following Goudapada and others before him was neceesitated by he force of circumstances when buddhism was virulent in India and there was the danger of extinction of the following of vedas.So he argued along the samelines as the budhists in order to establish that eventhough the world is mithya, unreal, like adream there is an absolute reality to be realised by removal of maya, a permanent reality which did not exist in buddhism . Later this maya concept was devoloped furtehr by the post- sankara advaitins so that advaita has become an intellectual exercise in modern times. While it satisfies the intellectual curiosity, as long as you are in embodiment you will continue to see duality and hence the path advised by Ramanuja is more practical. because it emphasises unity as well as claiming the diversity as real.

Finally the word leela of the Lord does not mean that it is aplay for Him to create this world and make us suffer but it only means that the creation is as effortless as aplay for Him.I will write separately on the agency ship of the jiva and certain other points that usually come for discussion. I refer the interestd readers to my webpages where there is a section on Questions and answers for further information .

http://www.geocities.com/sarojram18

Sarioja Ramanujam

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Balagopal @ ,com wrote;

VishiSThadwaita: Sri Ramanujacharya, founder of Vishistadwaita school of thought, in hiscommentaries over 10 upanishads, says that "God is not a separate entity. Indeed, you are in him, but you are not him." This is pointed out even in Bhagawad Geeta. "Like the waves are in the ocean but ocean is not in thewaves." How does one understand this?... Here is an example.Before entering into the deep sleep state we experience a state called dream state. In this state we dream a lot of things. If suppose, I wanted people around me should not disturb me and I should put this article in a more apprehending way. Since, I did not do it in the waking state in dream state I dream "the same computer, the people around me, the article I am writing" everything... as a part of me. That is, I can see everything inside me... I can see airplanes flying inside me. Logically, how can an airplane fit in a 5 foot 9 inches individual?... It is only possible during the dream.In the same way, Vishistadwaita teaches that you are a part of God's dream. You are a character that what ever he is dreaming. You are as if a small bubble in the Ocean called God. Hence, each and everything in this universe is a part of God.Here the question arises: Why is God dreaming? If he is dreaming, why should he dream differentcharacters? Where is he? Where am I? Etceteras...

May god bless you,