Clash of Phylosophical thoughts.

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Our country is a strange one in the sense it accepts religious tolerance and never indulge in killing people on the basis of religion and accepts criticisms , condemnation with a sense of humour even among the great Intellengentia of the ancient times.We had a stream of spirituality and religions viz.Hinduism, Jainism,Buddhism,Sikhism etc and each propogate different ideas.Even in Hinduism we had different sub sects like advaita,dvaita,visishtadavaita and all we accept though with reservations.This has stemmed out of our faith that God is One.In fact though we believe in certain concepts we aslo did not mind the existence of other thoughts even if the same are contradictory to our views. But the fact is otherwise.If we take the six main school of Vedic philosophy Saamkhya,yoga,Nyaaya,Visishtadvaita,Mimaasa and Vedanta one can understand that all these without exemption contain polemics

against rival schools, refuting and demeaning rival doctrines.Normally a sutra is the child of the founder of a school of thought.But invariably they contain at least onesection devoted completely to criticism of the views of rival schools.Not only criticising the doctrines of other schools but condemning and demeaning the thoughts of the other schools.Likewise Buddhism and Jainism.When Buddha taught his marga he clearly stated his path was the best and also denounced rival faiths of being ineffective and redundant.His preaching of ahimsa at last cost the Buddhists the Tibet.Still there are people who consider him as an avatar of Vishnu though he was only the head of some 'ism'.To counter Buddha Sankara in his Brahma Sutras said that some of the doctrines as propogated by Buddha are mutually contradictory and buddha must hv beenfond of talking or mentally unsound.And hence one shuld reject

Buddhism.So too Sankara criticised doctrines of other schools.In the same way other schools also took the cudgel and criticised Sankaras philosophy of advaita.So the tug of war was going on leading people really confused and since they were all in Sanskrit which only rarely people in general know they simply accepted whatever they said as coming from some great intellectuals as they did not hv any other means to check the veracity ofwhat they had in their mind and what they were talking about.Some schools criticised Sankaras advaita as 'Buddhism in disguise'.The Visishtadvaita scholar Desika wrote a polemical work against Advaita called Shataushani or a hundred abuses.(on Advaita.) As said earlier all these were in Sanskrit which only people rarely knew they had no idea of what the intellectual said and simply accepted the sayings of all so that nobody knew what they had in their mind when they said such

things.All the so called intellectual giants thought whatever they said are the truth and the rest were wrong and therefore shuld be disapproved and condemned.Just like the fighting among the various Kings of the yonder years.Even today I don't know how many people hv very thorough knowledge of the intrepretations of the various acharyas and what they want the people to do and simply stating such and such things will lead one to Brahman or Realisation and there is only one Mahapurusha Narayana and all other so called Gods hv no place or they may be an offshoot of Narayana.Thus they confine Narayana as the be all and end all of the whole Universe forgetting the fact that there are other religions also and they too hv their own views abt God.Is this to propogate only Hinduism forgetting that it is the same God who created the followers of other religions also?I am not saying this as one against Hinduism but generally one

can hvsuch thought will come naturally if we simply and blindly follow the various schools.There is no unanimity of defining who the God or Brahman is.One says it is Super Conscious being who manifested in all types of forms.Another says that there are jivatmans and Paramatman and the aim of the jivatman shuld be to merge with Paramatman and this shuld be the sole aim of the human beings.For what purpose?When one can't define God exactly what is the sanctity of such thoughts?There are people who say there is nothing like God and it is only Nature.What is that nature?One says that God acts as an intermediary between oneness and duality and one can find God within oneself by practice. I agreethe principle that the Great Power which created the whole cosmos with the sentient and insentient beings can be realised not by studying philosophical thoughts of the acharyas but by love,devotion,meditation and contemplation and of course depending

on the karmic effects also.What is this karmic effect?One might hv done some sins and good deeds in earlier births and the person in later births could suffer or enjoy in various ways and thru great faith and bhakthy in Iswara which concept has to be accepted instead of thinking some big words as Brahman and all that which can't be understood by all and for this purpose there shuld be some manifested forms and after worshipping such manifested forms coud progress gradually to the unmanifested forms and reach Him over a long period or births depending upon the fate.All other so called arguments were done in the ancient years just something like debates and each presented his views and the same could be considered as a seminar in which so many people present papers and each one thinks his presentation is the best and in a huge country like India there is no dearth for followers for anything.Gods are worshipped in various forms and insisting Narayana aloneis the

sole cause of everything is thinking too far.Thatmay be the truth.But there are millions who wroship small deities like even Mariamman,Ayyannar and so many heard and unheard forms and for them the deities form their God and they are not bothered abt the big Gods of big temples.Just by that can't they be discarded asnot bhakthas of the Supreme?In the worship of God what is more essential is not erudition,intellectual vanity,but sincere devotion in any form and they are the real bhakthas and they alone can climb up in the ladder of spirituality and not those who by reading some texts and explaining things which only they know and can't be digested by common people can at best be described only of academical interest and that too onlyfor those who hv some idea of those subjects and the common people will be satisfied with their own faith in the deity they worship with sincerity and never bothered abt the high sermons of the

intellectuals. This view is not to criticise the great acharyas and other sages and intellectuals but to emphasise the fact that by just studying some philosophy can a common man know anything abt those things which even great intellevtuals could not found unanimity intheir views and started their own school of thoughts and proclaimed what they say are the only truth andgot their own drum beaters but will that lead any one near the Supreme?Knowledge is good and only thru debates they must hv come to some thoughts but when there is no unanimity even among those highly intellectual souls what purpose the same will be served fot the ordinary people who hv no idea of such high phylosophical thoughts?They hv their own views abt their deities and they believe in such deities and nobody can say they are not benefitted from their faith just becoz they worship some unheard deities in a form which may not be acceptable to the

elite people.In fact what peace of mind and happiness they get in worshipping some deities of their own created forms the great worshippers of recognised deities won't get as the Supreme being is more interested in the sincere devotion of the worshipper and nt bothered abt the scholarship of te bhaktha. Of course much of my argument won't go well with the members and still I say with firmness that reading texts of acharyas,scriptures and such things alone won't lead anyone in thepath of spirtualism though the same I hv covered many times and what is required is ardent bhakthy,love,dedication,surrender and such things whichalone can attract the divine rays within oneself and not other means.At the same this need not be treated as an attack on the great acharyas and others who are certainly far,far great in knowledge and devotion but all their concepts could not be agreed whether the same is

Sankara,Ramanuja,Madhwa, Vallabha and others as they wanted to promote oneparticular deity of their choiceand make others to believe that deity alone is supreme and all other forms are only subsidiaries.Such argument is hard to digest at least for me. If they say that God is One and can be worshipped in any form one like provided there is steadfastness in that particular form insteadof changing that form I would hv been glad to accept their conviction but eulogising only Narayana is the only deity to be worshopped to the exclusion of all other deities and all came from that Narayana is too much thinking.What do they mean by Narayana?Wth so many weapons or they mean that the One Reality they call Narayana and they don't hv any objection if the Reality is called in any other name then there is some meaning.I a not against Sriman Narayana or Krsihna but that shuld not be a bar to other people to worship God in whatever name

they like Siva,Devi, Sastha etc.and shuld not be said they all hv become from Narayana.For everyone the deity by whatever name called comes only from the same source and dubbing only one name is not correct.This is not for any argument but to emphasise that God is One and can be called in any name and worshipped in any form providedone sticks to that form only and see that form in all the other deities.That is Real Bhakthy.In this no texts can be of any use.As I said they are only of academical value and in no way help an ardent bhaktha in his upward journey.Above all the Grace of a sadGuru if one can get that will be more beneficial.God can be realised only thru a particular path and all paths may lead to the same goal but the jnana path alone can lift one up and the raising of thepower in oneself for whicha sadguru is essential and some texts which can be recited as hymns ,no harm but that alone need not take one loftier in the

spiritual path.There need be no controversy in this as this has been discussed earlier also. Hare Krishna. agraman. .

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