advaita and buddhism (was RE: [Advaita-l] discussion aboutpanchayatan puja)

[lallimahal mahal]

How can there bea  comparison between Advaitham and
Buddhism.....Buddha was a Hindu and he gave a new 
interpretation to certain tenets of Hindu Dharma which
describes Advaitha.Moreover if there has to be a
comparison between two as similar philosophies why
should bhuddhism be aconsidered as an alternative who
had disillusions about Hindu Dharma.
It started with King Ashoka who ,while, performing the
duty of a Kshatriya,got into disillusionment and took
upto Buddhism..Similarly Buddhism was taken as a
refugeby Dr. Ambedkar when he wanted to go away from
Hindu Dharma for what he thought was an inherent evil
in the Hindu Dharma.  Advaitha had to be reiterated by
Adya Sankaracharya  to remove the wrong intepretations
given to Vedas and remove the disillusionment about
sanathana Dharmam.
Hence Buddhism is a part of sanathana Dharmam with a
little amendments here and there..but they are not
comparables..
My humble thinking....
Mahalingam.

--- Krunal Makwana <krunalmakwana at hotmail.com> wrote:

> namo nArAyaNAya
> 
> Dear Amuthanji
> 
> Amuthanji said:
> 
> >it is quite difficult to compare advaitAnubhava
> with
> >buddhist nirvAna. the traditional view is that both
> >are different. but svAmi vivekAnanda's view is that
> >they are essentially the same. the description of
> >nirvAna given by certain buddhist monks (and nuns)
> are
> >so similar to advaitAnubhava that it is compelling
> to
> >conclude that they are the same. of course, the
> >traditionalists would brush aside the buddhist
> >experience of nirvAna as a puruSha tantra j~nAna,
> but
> >this may not be true in all cases. cutting the
> matter
> >short, it is irrelevant for our purposes to worry
> >whether nirvAna is the same as advaitAnubhava. that
> is
> >'their' headache :-)
> >
> 
> I expose my ignorance here for buddhism as i have
> not studied it properly, 
> but whenever i hear the phrase 'nirvAna' i associate
> it with the 'nirvAna' 
> of the gItA rather than the buddhist version. But i
> agree that maybe 
> 'shunyatA' and 'advaitAnubhava' may be described
> differently, but (imo) in 
> essence they would be the same in the pAramArthika
> sense. But saying this i 
> agree that we should leave 'that' headache aside,
> lol!
> 
> >imo, as far as siddhAnta ('philosophy') is
> concerned,
> >it is best to stick to one and only one. whether or
> >not we integrate other siddhAnta-s within our own
> is a
> >personal choice, but care should be taken so that
> our
> >siddhAnta itself doesn't get distorted in the
> process!
> >
> >however, it is certainly true that certain
> *practices*
> >may be borrowed from other darshana-s, if
> necessary,
> >provided they do not conflict with our siddhAnta.
> for
> >instance, aShTA~Nga yoga has been traditionally
> >integrated within advaita though the siddhAnta of
> yoga
> >(sA~Nkhya) is certainly not acceptable to advaita.
> 
> I totally agree with you here! advaita vedanta
> should be the philosophy that 
> should be followed in philosophical terms but to
> reach advaitAnubhuti any 
> methods can be used, as long as they don't conflict
> with advaita vedanta. 
> e.g. ISKCON's pay much attention to hari nAm jApa,
> this in philosophical 
> terms does not conflictwith AV, so to perform nAm
> jApa is agreeable if the 
> sAdhak chooses it as a method.
> 
> IMO advaita vedanta should be the philosophical,
> spiritual and religious 
> backbone that the sAdhak uses to perform any of his
> duties, whether they are 
> nAm jApa etc.
> 
> bhagavatpAda on a spiritual and philosophical basis
> was a stauch advaitin 
> and never backed down on his position, this is
> apparent in his bhAshya's and 
> his spiritual doctrines that brahman is the sole
> reality and everything else 
> is false (relatively real) e.g asango'ham : brahma
> satyam jagat mithyA etc, 
> but when reading his stotra's and his organisation
> of panchAyatan deva pUjA 
> it comes across that the means can be many but end
> is 'kaivalya advaita'. 
> Saying this a verse of the gItA comes into mind
> where by different methods 
> (even though they may be wrong) they reach
> 'advaitAnubhAva':
> 
> Even those who, being devoted to other deities and
> endowed with faith 
> worship (them), they also, O son of Kunti, worship
> Me alone (though) 
> following the wrong method. Verse 23 ch 8
> 
> Here krsnAcarya shows that all methods only lead to
> krsnahood 
> (advaitAnUbhUtI) even though they may be wrong. I
> assume by this and taking 
> into account a verse which krsna said before:
> 
> Others verily worship my by adoring exclusively
> through the sacrifice of the 
> knowledge of oneness; (others worship me)
> multifariously, and (others) as 
> the multiformed existing variously. verse 15 ch 8
> 
> That krsna accept different forms of worship even
> though they are not 
> advaitin but accepts that all lead to advaita. Here
> i assume that nAma jApa 
> and etc are forms of worship that 'maybe' (please
> correct me if i am wrong) 
> wrong because advaita only accepts certain
> procedures but does not deny that 
> other procedures may help in realisation (this is
> the greatness of advaita).
> 
> If careful study is done in AcArya's stotra they may
> seem to be very 
> dvaitic, this is because of the sheer love AcArya
> had for brahman in it's 
> various forms (hence the reason why he organised
> panchAyatana deva pUjA) but 
> always propounded that the final goal is keval
> advaita.
> 
> I apologise from rambling on abit.
> 
> If i am wrong in any areas, please correct me, as
> this is a learning process 
> for me.
> 
> namo nArAyana
> 
> Krunal
> 
>
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