[Advaita-l] Introduction and important question on saguna brahman devatas

[k.s.krishna moorthy]

Dear Nithin,
Thanks for taking time and replying me in detail.  I went through your wordpress article also. 

My sincere thanks again.  But I want to extend this and get answered my all questions on this topic as finding someone answer devata upasana is getting rare.
i) You explained that deities exist independent of devotee's upasana in their archetype form.   You also explained that depending on devotee's perception a single aspect or an all powerful Ishwarahood can be attributed to the form.
My questions are:
i) Do you know any books that has name, pooja vidis of Shudra devatas? I mean any rishhi or siddhar who has laid out and given detailed pooja vidhis for Karupannasami etc.?

ii) Shudra devatas and other devatas who have not yet full realized the Self -- they may be bound by time and space in that particular devata body.  For eg,  let us say, a shudra devata may exist from 2 AD to 1800 AD.  Now it is 2015 AD.  By this time, that devata's body would have been dissolved and that particular soul in that shudra devata body would have taken another birth in any other body (human, animal or any other body/plane)
Now if someone taking his ancestral practices, continues to worship that same dissolved shudra devata in 2015 AD,  who will bless the devotee? what happens to his upasana? where will the upasana be directed?
ii) karma for normal demi-gods:    shudra devatas and other demi-gods may also be subject to karma.  if devotee offers unauthorized animal sacrifices to the deity, who will incur the bad karma? 

iii) how the shudra devatas derive their power? do they have power to burn the devotee's karma? (ishwara does have power to burn karmas --  sanchita papa vinaashana lingam)

Taking into consideration all these limitations,  is it safe to worship only those Higher Deities like Ganesh, Ambaa , Vishnu, Shiva, Muruga etc. who are all glorfied by various authority of sages, puranic scriptures,sthala puranas into possessing all qualities of Ishwara?
Please try to enlighten me on these questions.
Sorry if any of the questions is improper or seeming casual,  the aim is to get things clear on upasana and get iga para benefits.
Regards,Krishna






      From: Nithin Sridhar <sridhar.nithin at gmail.com>
 To: k.s.krishna moorthy <ksksat27 at yahoo.com>; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> 
 Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2015 12:10 AM
 Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Introduction and important question on saguna brahman devatas
   
The answer to the question, whether the various deities that are not mentioned in various canonical texts that you call as demi-gods will lead to Moksha or not, depends on various factors.

1. A deity should be understood only with connection to devotee. Some people may worship Ganesha as only a god who can remove obstacles. Hence, for them, Ganesha's ability or the ability of the shakti generated from such a sadhana is limited to removing obstacles. Some may worship Ganesha as lord of Muladhara chakra. For, then Ganesha presides over whole Physical Universe. And for some Ganesha is Brahman itself. Such, an upasana ultimately will lead to Moksha. Hence, whether a deity will lead to Moksha or not depends mostly on how a devotee perceives and worships the deity.

2. The other aspect of this is that, Shakti is infinite. And hence it has infinite forms. Irrespective of the devotees, Deities do exist in their archtypes. The rishis of various mantras only brought forward these archtype deities that were already existing. Hence, even the hundreds of Gramadevata, Sudhra devata, or any other deities do exist in their archtype form, whether one worships them or not. Many upasana's performed in the hoary past is not available to us today. Similarly some new type of Upasana's, new variant of deities have also been discovered. Hence, all these deities are invariably various aspects of the one Shakti and they eternally exist in their archtypes. Some deities come higher in the hierarchy and some lower based on their individual archtype. When Shakti is understood as containing 64 aspects, each aspect becomes a Yogini. When Shakti is understood as containing 10 aspects, each becomes a Mahavidya. So, Naturally a Mahavidya is higher than a Yogini. 

3. Hence, if a person worships any of the deities in their limited aspect, then the result is also limited. If, a person worships the deity as Para-Brahman itself, the result attained is Moksha. 


You may find this old article of mine useful-
A deity can be God or god or both- https://nithinsridhar.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/a-deity-can-either-be-god-or-god-or-both/

Regards,
Nithin




On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 8:18 PM, k.s.krishna moorthy via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

Dear devotees,

My name is Krishna and I am a follower of Sri Ramana Maharishi's school of teachings and I rely on Self Enquiry and Devotion as two wings which I alternate between and do sadhana to my modest extent.

Some of you here will know me , I have posted quite a number in Sri Graham 's forum.

With that small introduction, let me formulate my doubt here to the learned members.
I have posted this same question in another advaita forum but did not receive any reply from learned members.
The objective is not to argue , but to get things clarified.  All I want to know is the right approach of saguna upasana and which devatas qualify to be the fully powerful Ishwara.

We all know about Saghuna Brahman and its upasana.  There is also the concept of Krama Mukthi where upasaka finds his deity in Satya Lokha and then attain Moksha along with the Brahma of this kalpa. (the current Brahma is 51 years old ,  this is the morning hours in Satya Lokha)

Now when we say Saguna Brahman, a form is given to Nirguna Brahman.  The forms Lord Shiva, Lord Vishnu and Divne Mother Shakthi -- (trinity of shakthis), Lord Ganesh, Lord Subhramanya are generally accepted by Shankara followers to be the same Brahman manifested as Ishwara according to the modifications of the devotee.

But we also have other deities nowadays -- esp. warrior gods like Muneeshwaran,  Karupanasami etc.,   
We have forms of kali that protects villages with numerous names.
We have naga forms of deities worshipped in par with main Gods.

we have vedic gods like Agni, Varuna, Indra etc. (though nobody worships them nowadays)

my question is,  are the latter set of deities demi-gods? ,  but if someone thinks of them as  Saguna Brahman itself and worships them , then what is the result?  Is there karma for these demi-gods? what happens to the worshipper, if one of this demi-god say completes his portion of karma in the demi-god plane and then incarnates as human being in earth?

do they have limited authority in the scheme of things in creation?  and if someone gets boons from them,  how that works?  do they have authority to burn some of our bad karma?  and if someone wrongly offers animal sacrifices in this age of kali, do the demi-god also incur karma or only the person who sacrifices?

Or it is exactly as per our imagination, perception and the power we attribute to them?

here my main question is not about the well recognized and well quoted forms by great Acharyas like Adhi Shankara -- he has created panchayadhana pooja etc.  I dont question that .

My main question is about sub-ordinate deities which were not quoted by great Acharyas.
On one end, we know that Ishwara does not have definite form like Shiva or Vishnu but takes any form. But at the same time all demi-god forms may not qualify to become Ishwara.  How to resolve this ?
can someone clarify these matters clearly to me?


It looks like I have asked many questions  but the essence is same.  so sorry if you get a bit fed up,  i don't expect line by line answer,  i kindly request to answer after getting the essence and gist of my questions.
Regards,Krishna

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