saguNa and nirguNa are the same

Sankaran Jayanarayanan kartik at ECE.UTEXAS.EDU
Tue Nov 23 15:21:02 CST 1999


On Tue, 23 Nov 1999, Anand Hudli wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Nov 1999 17:43:33 -0500, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
> <ramakris at EROLS.COM> wrote:
>
>  Thanks for a well thought out post.
>

Thank you for a well-analyzed post!

[..]

> >claim 2: saguNopAsana or meditation on Gods leads to
> >kramamukti. saguNopAsana has to necessarily be combined with
> >karma. Only when saguNopAsana combined with karma leads to
> >kramamukti. saguNopAsana without karma leads to undesirable
> >results.
>
>  I have difficulty in agreeing with this. MadhusUdana SarasvatI,
>  for example, was a sannyAsin and yet he practiced bhakti/upAsana.

There is also a GItaa verse (12.2):

shrii bhagavaan.h uvaacha :

maayavesya mano ye maaM
nitya-yukta upaasate
sraddhayaa paraayopetaH
te me yuktatama matah

"Those who always worship Me, endowed with great shraddha (faith,
dedication and conviction), I consider perfect."

There are several verses following the above one, all of them praising
upaasana, and it ends with "If you are NOT able to do this, THEN you may
perform karma dedicating it to Me." So upaasana is not necessarily
associated with karma.

[..]

> >b. but, suguNopAsana has to be combined with karma:
> >---------------------------------------------------
> >
> > [...]
> >Please read the bhAshhyas to verses 8-11 carefully. karma is
> >an *integral* part of saguNa-upAsana.
> >
>
>  Please see my remarks above. The IshAvAsya verses would have
>  to be interpreted so that the upAsana/vidyAs mentioned here
>  are of the lower type, ie. the karma-mishra upAsanas, not
>  the GYAna-mishra upAsanas for obvious reasons.
>

Thanks very much for all the clarifications.

[..]

>  Anand
>

-Kartik

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

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