[Advaita-l] The Highest Path

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Advaita philosophy takes Jnana as the highest path. Nahi Jnanena
Sadrusham is motto. But there may be people not qualified for Jnana
Marga.  For those people and others interested in Ishwara there is
Bhakti Marga. He will see highest Bhakti as So'ham. Bhakta and God
become One.

A problem of Bhakti could be people asking for favours and partiality
from God instead of concentrating on Him. They become angry if  they
do not get asked things. Then they lose faith.

Not expecting from Ishwara is important.

Hanuman and others great pure Bhaktas like Bhakti but it cannot not
prove Bhakti is superior.

Regards

-Venkatesh



On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 3:29 AM, Sunil Bhattacharjya
<sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Namaste,
>
> It need not be that  one always excludes the other. Though Hanuman was a great bhakta he was Jnani too. He also knew that "bhaktyartha kalpitam Dvaita Advaitadapi sundaram". He had the option of being one with Brahman and also of remaining as a bhakta.
>
> Regards
>
> Sunil K. Bhattacharjya
>
> --- On Wed, 12/1/10, Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> From: Rajaram Venkataramani <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Advaita-l] The Highest Path
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010, 12:15 PM
>
> In the chapter on Bhakti Yoga, Arjuna asks Krishna who is the best yogi -
> the one who worships you the personal form of Ishwara or the akshara
> brahman.
>
> *evam satata-yukta ye*
> *bhaktas tvam paryupasate*
> *ye capy aksaram avyaktam*
> *tesam ke yoga-vittamah*
> **
> Lord Krishna categorically asserts that one who worships Him is higher than
> one who is speculating about akshara brahman, who is not manifest.
>
> *mayy avesya mano ye mam*
> *nitya-yukta upasate*
> *sraddhaya parayopetas*
> *te me yuktatama matah*
> **
> Adi Sankara also agrees that a bhakta is the highest among the yogis though
> he says that a self realized jnani is not under question here. I would like
> to know that is the opinion of the scholars on this forum or based on a
> wider knowledge they think that bhakti to Ishwara in divya rupam is not
> considered the highest by advaita tradition.
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-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh