Bhakti yoga

[Stephanie Stean]

Understanding all that has been said, why would people maintain Advaita
Vedanta as being theistic?
Theistic has God inherently involved in it, and God is not Brahman.  God
signifies personal deity or being of some kind (English definition).

So, in many of the translations, God seems to be an insufficient and
misleading word to use for Brahman.   Is God used because of lack of a
better term?  What do you mean when you use the word God, especially from
Advaitin perspective?

Jaldhar asked, (probably for me to ponder the question), What do you expect
God to be?  I have a very clear answer to this.  And my answer does not
incorporate a God of any sort.  Because the word God, never comes to mind at
all.  The reason I bring this up is because, from what I've read thus far,
moksha breaks one past the barrier of personal anything (concepts and
dualities) and a "God" no longer would exist.

Maybe Jaldhar is right, the problem is a semantic one and I'm not
understanding the use of the words.


Thanks

Stephanie

On 6/22/02 2:43 AM, "reachhemant" <reachhemant at SIFY.COM> wrote:

> I have a few remarks to make on Jaldhar's excellent posting.
> The Absolute is not a point of view. It is the Truth. The various points of
> view belong to the relative domain. But the relative domain in Sankara is
> unreal, mithyA. So while there are no degrees of reality operating, degrees
> of unreality do. The prAtibhAsic is more unreal than vyAvahAric. Thus while
> there can be experiences on the way which are helpful such as that of the
> Isvara as Vidyasankar has correctly pointed out earlier, they cannot be
> resting places for the seeker. When the sAdhaka at last experiences the Self
> , the Isvara and the world simply sink in it or are otherwise dissolved. The
> Isvara abolished, no place for Bhakti would remain except if you redefine
> Bhakti itself ideosyncratically as some do. That is the inexorable logic of
> Sankara's philosophy which states clearly that liberation can come by Jnana
> and Jnana only.
>           In this connexion I am reminded of a conversation between Dilip
> Kumar Roy and Sri Ramana. Roy asked Sri Ramana  the difference between Jnana
> and Bhakti. Sri Ramana replied,  "Bhakti is Jnana-mAtA." What he meant was
> that Jnana emerges from the womb of Bhakti. I would add that once emerging
> it proceeds to swollow its mother. Be it noted that Sri Ramana himself,
> being an exceptional soul was able to realize effortlessly without any need
> for the helpful adjunct of Bhakti.
>
> with best regards,
>
> Hemant
> P.S. 'Brahma satyam jaganmithyA' ; this statement itself does it not belong
> to jagat rather than Brahman and is therefore a part of mAyA i.e. mithyA. It
> is worth pondering. The finale is not Sankara but Gaudapada.
> PPSS  The place of Bhakti in non-dualistic philosophies other than advaita
> has been a very fruitful exercise for me.
>