[Advaita-l] kratu without IshvarapraNidhAna

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

Namaste,

On 19 March 2012 22:27, Ramakrishna Upadrasta <uramakrishna at gmail.com> wrote:
> One aspect in the recent upAsana/bhakti threads was the effort build
> an upAsana theory independent of IshvarapraNidhAna. The reasoning
> adopted seemed rather strange as well: since traditions X, Y, Z which
> have nothing in common adopt the same techniques yielding similar
> results, all the way having dissimilar epistemologies, the method's
> efficacy and results are independent of Ishvara!

I think the issue is being misunderstood. In fact some other
respondents also misunderstood the issue. The core point is that the
mantra prayoga's ability to yield a result is dependent on correction
execution of the process and not on any theoretical constructs or
concepts one accepts. For example, lets say there are two persons P
and Q who come from different saMpradAya-s.

P: Ishvara is karma-phala-dAtA.
Q: Ishvara is not karma-phala-dAtA

Now, even though P and Q have different conceptions of Ishvara, if
they execute the same prayoga in the same manner and under the same
conditions, they will get the same result. P may still maintain that
the phala was given by Ishvara to both P and Q, and Q may have a
different opinion, but this is orthogonal to the the execution of the
prayoga and the receipt of its phala.

The upAsaka may be an advaitin, a pUrvamImAMsaka, a
shaiva/shAkta/vaiShNava tAntrika, a bauddha or a jaina - but as long
as he executes a given prayoga in the correct way, he will get the
same result. Of course, things are a little more complex than what is
stated above, but the general idea should be clear.

So the point being made is not that the results are "independent of
Ishvara", but that they are independent of the theoretical constructs
one accepts.