Guest guest Posted June 5, 2000 Report Share Posted June 5, 2000 In reply to Message 6, of #459, I can tell you what Sri Ramakrishna says about it: " According to this theory, Brahman, or the Absolute, is qualified by the universe and its living beings. These three-Brahman, the world and living beings-together constitute One. Take the instance of a bel-fruit. A man wanted to know the weight of the fruit. He separated the shell, the flesh, and the seeds. But can a man get the weight by weighing only the flesh? He must weigh flesh, shell and seeds together. At first it appears that the real thing in the fruit is the flesh, and not its seeds or shell. Then by reasoning you find that the shell, seeds and flesh all belong to the fruit; the shell and seeds belong to the same thing that the flesh belongs to. Likewise, in spiritual discrimination one must first reason, following the method of " neti, neti " , not this not that. God is not the universe; God is not the living beings; Brahman alone is real and all else is unreal. Then one realizes, as with the bel-fruit, that the Reality from which we derive the notion of Brahman is the very Reality tht evolves the idea of living beings and the universe...This is the theory of Qualified Non-dualism. " Whether Ramanuja would have put it just that way, I am not sure. ------ Swami Yogeshananda Vedanta Center of Atlanta 2331 Brockett Road Tucker, GA 30084 Ph: 770-983-6673 yogeshananda http://www.vedanta-atlanta.org/ ----- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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