[Advaita-l] Eternal Loka

[rajaramvenk at gmail.com]

Dear Sri Subrahmanian, 

One of my friends was about to get married and the girl's side raised objection because the astrologer told them he has sannyasa yoga. He was so shattered and promised them that the last thing he will ever do in life is to take sannyasa. He also wanted to do prayascittam. As it is not a dosha, he could not find one but guess he performed wedding for nitya kalyana perumal so that he won't be "thrown" in to sannyasa ashrama by the power of providence :)

I agree with you that for some karma is recommended not sannyasa. But the point I was making is Bhagavatham says that even for a jnani bhakti is essential  (na shobhate). Whereas for a bhakta, jnanam and vairagyam arise effortlessly by isvaranugraha as in the case of dhruva. And bhagavad bhakti is not destroyed by the rise of advaya jnanam. There is not one sankaracharya who was not devoted to one or more forms of the lord until end of life.  They gave up karma but not bhagavad bhakti. Hence my argument that only bhakti in the mode of duality is for manda adhikaris not the highest level of bhakti as in "I am He". 

I also gave the quote about three classes of devotees kama, moksha kama and akama. The desire for moksha is out of ignorance that I'm bound. The  jnani will not desire moksha but still engage in spontaneous devotion to the lord. This is what is stated by atmarama verse and the commentaries of Sridhara and Madhusudana. Or Vidyaranya when he says jivan mukta is by definition a hari bhakta.  

In "Katrinile Varum Geetham" by Ra. Ganapathy,  Kanchi Mahaperiyava says Meera is greater than 1000 sanyasis and asks the author to write on her life instead. 

Best Regards

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2012 15:24:48 
To: <rajaramvenk at gmail.com>; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Eternal Loka

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 1:20 PM, <rajaramvenk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Sri Subrahmanian,
>
> A follower of bhakti marga can also argue that glorification of jnana
> marga is only arthavada.
>

I have seen a Ramanuja school hymn saying: jnanam is the upAya for bhakti.


>
> We don't see karma glorified as superior to jnanam anywhere.


The crux of the teaching meant for Arjuna throughout the Bh.Gita is that
for him karma is better than jnana:

श्रीभगवानुवाच
सन्न्यासः कर्मयोगश्च निःश्रेयसकरावुभौ ।
तयोस्तु कर्मसन्न्यासात्कर्मयोगो विशिष्यते ॥५. २ ॥

श्रीभगवान बोले- कर्मसंन्यास और कर्मयोग –ये दोनों ही परम कल्याण करनेवाले
हैं, परंतु उन दोनोंमें भी कर्मसंन्याससे कर्मयोग श्रेष्ठ है ।

regards

subrahmanian.v