[Advaita-l] Modern science and Vedanta.

[Srikanta Narayanaswami]

It is ISKCON, not Iskon. Gaudiya Vaishnavas do not recommend
"mixture". They say that karma misra, yoga misra and jnana misra
bhakti should be given up.  What is recommended only ananya or
visuddha bhakti where there is no desire for liberation or material
benefits that should be practised. For the creeper of bhakti, bhagvat
jnana is the supporting stick in the initial stages but once it has
gone from sadhana and vaidhi stages to prema bhakti, there is no
extraneous effort for bhagavath jnana as it is integral to bhakti,
which is non-different from the Lord as His hladini shakti (or Srimati
Radharani).

Pl. note that Madhusudana also talks about karma misra, jnana misra
and visuddha bhakti in gudartha dipika and bhaktirasayana. Following
SBh, he says that bhakti is paramapurushartha (e.g. 18.66). He says
that bhakti is non-different from bhagavan.

In Ch 12, the verses talk about jnani as a type of devotee only and so
is Ch. 7. The position of bhakti and jnana in our sastras and advaita
is non-trivial.
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In his books,the ISKCON founder prabhupada has criticised Shankara as a Mayavadi and attributes advaita to Buddhism.Whatever it is,their position is non-different from the dvaitins.
In BG the chapters which has been quoted is only incidental,and again and again SriKrishna stresses that Jnana is the paramaPurushartha.
N.Srikanta.