[Advaita-l] Fwd: Advaita-l Digest, Vol 75, Issue 5

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

I quoted Shankara's words which only teach that 'one should not give up
one's duty'. (I have not touched on the point that 'duties' are there only
for the unenlightened. This point is outside the scope of my post.)  By
saying all this I was only conveying that the persons who have interpolated
these verses in the Padmapurana with the avowed objective of vilifying the
Advaita of Shankaracharya have no proper understanding of the system. I just
pointed out this one glaring mistake of the interpolator.  In other words,
they say 'advaita teaches xxx' which is not what advaita is teaching at
all.
*Advaita does teach karma sannyasa, while encouraging the ignorant alone to
perform veda karma for citta suddhi. The purpose of this citta suddhi is to
develop jnana, which is characterized by renunciation. Sankara categorically
says that knowledge and karma cannot be combined. According advaitins, Hari
bhakti is also karma only though. On realization of the Self, there is no
bhakti including so'ham, gopalaham, sivo'ham etc. So, I'm not sure why the
padma purana verses demonstrate incorrect understanding of advaita. *