bhakthi yoga-an interesting page

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HARI AUM

 

Found this simple & informative page in the net.

 

Hope it will throw some light on the on going

discussion on the different aspects of Indian

Spiritual Thoughts.

 

Regards

 

Balagopal

 

NARAYANA NARAYANA NARAYANA

 

 

 

 

The Upanishads and the three schools of thought

(Dwaita, Visisthadwaita and Advaita)

 

By Madhava Kumar Turumella

 

Any religion in this world survives for ages only

because of the profundity and richness it has gotten

in its philosophical thought. Religious philosophy,

in general, is nothing

but the inquiry of the privileged human being in to

the unknown. Here the unknown can be anything. Some

people have inquired in to the existence of God

some others

have inquired about themselves like " who am I,

where am I from, where am I going " etceteras.

Everyone, who ever inquired with

inquisitiveness, got separate

answers according to their own understanding. They

have taught their understanding to their disciples and

by the disciples to the others, thus forming a

separate school of

thought.

 

Hindu’s religious books are called Vedas. Vedas are,

basically believed to be, God's direct revelations.

They are vast compilations of many hymns received by

many seers. In olden days teachers used to teach

Vedas to their students,

But, the teaching is not continued like a

monologue. The subject being taught (that is, Vedic

hymns) is directly questioned and the teacher was

supposed to satisfy his

pupil's inquisitive mind hence turning the teaching in

to a dialogue. The answers are so great that they

again became a part of the vedas named " upanishads. "

 

As an illustration, we have this question " Who is

supposed to be called as a brahmin? " . This question

is answered in an Upanishad called " vajrasuchi

Upanishad. " In this

Upanishad the student question the guru " kOvA

brAhmaNaH? " . Meaning " who is the brahmin. " The guru

answers rather in a very elaborate manner. The whole

dialogue

is recorded and kept safe, so that, we will not get

a doubt in future about the subject. In the same

way, " Kena unanishad " is also a question asked by a

student. The

very name itself is a question. i.e. Kena = by

whom?.

 

Since these upanishads are placed at the end of

Vedas, they are also called as Vedanta i.e.

Philosophy. All four Vedas have their own

upanishads. Actually we

should have had at least more than 1200

upanishads. Indeed, the foreign invasions and the

attack from the other religions have caused us

loosing most of the

upanishads. And the great damage was done to them

by some foreign sanskrit scholars writing their own

upanishads and puts them forth to support their

own religion. For example, we have an

upanishad called " SailOpanishad " means, " That

which is told

on mountains. " This upanishad is nothing but a

sanskrit translation of the " ten commandments " !.

Same way we have another Upanishad called

" AllOpanishad "

you can rightly guess the name itself contains

" Allah " the muslim God. This upanishad Is again a

translation of some parts of Holy Quron. It is not

that the other

religious scholars have done something wrong.

Probably, they must have done this to make us

understand their religion. Unfortunately and

inevitably these upanishads

have confused the later days' scholars and there

arose a need to identify the right upanishads. And

a massive research had been commenced and fruitfully

we found

the " Mouktika Upanishad. "

 

This " Mouktika Upanishad " was taught to Hanuma by

Lord Sri Rama. It is but obvious that when Rama

was ruling, there was no Muslim or Crishtian

religions.

Hence our scholars have accepted the " mouktika

upanishad " as authentic. Fortunate for us, in the

mouktika upanishad Sri Rama teaches Hamuman about

moral values

and quotes from various upanishads. In fact, Sri

Rama has reffered 108 upanishads. That is why we

have 108 authentic upanishads. In Mouktika

upanishad

Sri Rama advises Hanuman to study " Bruhadaranyaka

Upanishad " in order to understand higher self (the

self with in). He also advises if in case one fails

to understand

" bruhadaranyaka " then one should study the 10 main

upanishads, further he advises that better study 108

upanishads.

 

The ten main upanishads, which are the back bone to

the Hindu philosophical thoughts are named in the

following sloka.

 

SlO : eeSa kEna kaThaH praSna muMDa mAMDookya

taittiri

aitarEyaMca ChaMdOgyaM bruhadAranyakaM daSa ||

 

They are (1) Esavasya (2) Kena (3) Katha (4)

prasna (5)

muMdaka (6) maMDookya (7) taittiriya (8)

aitarEya (9)

chaMdOgya (10) bruhadAraNyaka.

 

 

Thus, these upanishads are standing there to show

the right path to the seeker. Here the seeker

means " one who is inquisitive to understand the

higher soul or God. "

" Is there someone called God? If so, where is he? What

is he doing? " These are the basic questions each and

everyone puts forward when they happen to meet

saints or

Godmen. You can expect the answer from Upanishads,

but to understand the subtle meaning of Upanishad

one requires a teacher.

 

The whole Hindu religious philosophy is basically

built-up on three schools of thought. They are dwaita

(dualism) founded by Sri Madhavacharya,

vishisthadwaita

(qualified non-dualism) founded by Sri Ramanujacharya

and Adwaita (non-dualism) by Sri Adi Sankara. All

three schools try to understand the term " God " in

their

own way. In order to sustain their Logic All three

masters have commented on the main " Ten upanishads. "

I am trying to put below my understanding over these

schools

by using an example of our 3 states we experience in

our daily lives. i.e. Waking state, dream state, deep

sleep state.

 

Dwaita: Founded by Sri Madhavacharya, this school

teaches that God is other than you. That is God is

existed as you are existed to the other person. For

example,

I am fully awake now and I can see the computer right

in front of me. I can see and read the article I

am writing now and I can hear the other persons

around me,

talking and disturbing me with their doubts. This

kind of state can be illustrated to Dwaita.

 

Dwaita advises to prostrate to God. Serve him

humbly. You are a slave to him hence obey him what

ever is his orders. Do not try to question him,

because he clearly

knows what he has to give to you. Many religions in

this world fall into this dwaita category. A

powerful example is Islam. During the time of

difficulties a dwaiti

(one who follows dwaita) thinks in this way:

 

" What ever you do Oh lord! who am I to quarrel

with thee? Does a picture ever quarrel with the

painter? " - Swamy Chinmayananda.

 

For more understanding of this dwaita school of

thought one is recommended to read the commentaries on

ten upanishads, by Sri Madhavacharya.

 

Question does not arise, when we understand Dwaita and

try to obey the things as they are. Dwaita has a

great following, albeit, in this world each and

every human

is unique in his intellectual caliber. Hence, one

may question " why should I prostrate to someone

who unnecessarily pains me? Dictate things that

I do not want to do? Actually, where is he? " .

Here, the reason fails and logic does not come to

rescue dwaita. We can clearly see this in Islam. In

islam God never comes in a human form. Since he is

the almighty

you can see him only during the judgment day. In

Christianity you can see the same thinking in a

different way " Jesus is Jehovah's son " that means,

Jehovah is there

somewhere. Something does not stand for reason.

The dwaita school never accepts human reasoning.

On contrary it says God is beyond reasoning.

There comes Vishistadwaita in to picture.

 

 

VishiSThadwaita: Sri Ramanujacharya, founder of

Vishistadwaita school of thought, in his

commentaries 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 the

waves. "

 

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 different

characters? Where is he? Where am I? Etceteras...

Here comes

to rescue the Adwaita of Sri Adisankara, which

stands for Logic and gives clear understanding

about oneself.

 

Adwaita: Sri AdiSankara, the greatest

philosopher and missionary ever seen in this world,

is the advocate of this School of thought. You

may wonder,

then who founded this? Actually, I should say that

Sri Yagnavalkya, the seer of Sri Sukla Yajurveda,

founded this school.

 

Awaita teaches that " you are God " ... " Tat tvam

asi, " " that thou art " . Before going to give an

example to this, I should honestly accept that this

example does not

clearly stand as an example for Adwaita State.

Eventually, I could not find something else.

 

After the dream state we enter into a state called

the " deep sleep state. " In this state, neither the

ego (i.e. `I'ness) existed nor the world. We

experience, at least

for a few minutes, absolute bliss. Since there is

no ego over there we can neither explain nor

understand what that state is, except from saying

" sukhEna maya nidrA

anubhootaya " means, " I slept very well. " In case, if

one does question about the happiness we experienced

in deep sleep state, we fail in answering.

 

In Bruhadranka Upanishad, the Seer says that it is

indeed the very close state to your real state

(your self). He illustrates a bird saying that

" like a bird,

tired and fatigued through out the day flying in

the world withdraws it's wings and enters to take

rest in it's nest, every being in this world tired

of the daily life

withdraws all it's senses and enters and takes rest

in a State called deep sleep state that is very

near to his Real state called as

" satchitananda. "

 

The followers of Nondualism, tries to experience

this state without sleeping. We call this state as

" Samadhi. " This is a state that can only be

experienced but can't be

explained. In adwaita God is nothing but absolute

bliss. It is also said that when one experiences

this " samadhi " he can understand that he is God and

this world is a

part of him. Since he is there the world is there.

Since he can see, the Sun and the moon and the stars

are there. Since he can perceive the nature is full

of greens. If he is not there nothing is there.

Perceiver is always superior than the perceived.

 

Sri Adisankara while advocating this Nondualism

says that " Since you are a part of this world and

right now you are not in a state of understanding

that you are God,

you should follow the path of Bhakti (dwaita)

and inquisition (VishisTadwaita). Adwaita

(non-dualism) is a state that has to be realized.

Until you realise you

should practice " ... And this practice is nothing

but accepting dwaita and vishistadwaita.

Realisation of " that thou Art " is the final goal.

Bhagawat Geeta says

" When one realises this state, everything in this

world becomes equal to him. "

 

" Sunicaiva swapakEca paMDitAH samadarsinaH. "

 

Personally, I feel that this is a great school of

thought that only can make us think of equanimity.

When one realises that he is everything, this world

and everyone in this

world are a manifestation of himself, he feels no

threat from the world. When there is no threat where

is the fear,and when there is no fear everything

is peaceful. When

one is at peace he desires nothing, when one desires

nothing he does not think of evil doings. Hence

there is the great prayer in our Brihadaranyaka

Upanishad.

 

" asatOmA sadgamaya - Let me travel from ignorance to

the knowledge

" tamasOmA jyOtirgamaya - from darkness to the light "

" mrUtyOrmA amrutaMgamaya - and from death to the

immortality "

 

OM SaMtiH SaMtiH SaMtiH

 

 

 

 

 

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