[Advaita-l] [advaitin] A less known fact about Sureshwaracharya.....

[V Subrahmanian]

On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 12:20 AM, kuntimaddi sadananda via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>
> PraNAms Subbuji
>
> The article seems to have been written by a guy who is as immature as the
> one whom he criticizes as Vaishnava.


Dear Sri Sada ji,

Thanks for your response. There is a Sanskrit adage: para daṇḍenaiva
parasya tāḍanam. Someone is coming to hit me with a stick and I catch hold
of that stick and hit him back.



> There are many Vaishnavas who are advaitins - All vaishnavas need not be
> VishishTaadvaitins.


The Vaishnavas who are advaitins are those born in Srivaishnava or Madhva
families but have taken to Advaita as their spiritual sādhana/path/goal.
That is not surprising. There are some smarta-born persons who have taken
to the following of other systems.

But what Shankaracharya means by 'vaishnava', a word he uses in the BGB, is
not what is generally, popularly, understood by that word. For Shankara a
vaishnava is one who has already realized himself as non-different from the
'Vishnu', vyāpanaśīla (Kathopanishad bhashya), Nirguna Brahman, or the one
who is on the path to such a realization.  Such a realized one is verily
Brahman and not someone who thinks he is a 'aṇu' (atomic size) and is
eternally 'paratantra, kinkara' dependent on Vishnu even in moksha.
Shankara has not approved of the goal of going to a location for moksha and
living there along with others and God. He has criticized such a
goal/moksha as unvedāntic, parichhinna, anitya. No popular 'vaishnava'
would agree to such advaitic goal/ideas. Nor has Shankara anywhere
portrayed one deity alone as the one to be worshiped as supreme god. An
individual Advaitin holding Vishnu  as iṣṭa devatā is quite in order.
Shankara himself was one, as per Anandagiri, in his commentary to the BGB
invocation bhashya.


> and saying antaryamin is Vishnu is not a crime either as vyaapaktvaat
> vishnuH.
>

True. This is the way Shankara takes it in the antaryāmi brāhmaṇam. He
portrays Narayana as nishkriya, sākṣhimātra.  He does not accept any real
physical or even sankalpa type activity/action on the part of the antaryāmi
in doing the antaryamanam work. By just being present Brahman, like in the
Kenopanishat initial mantras (shrotrasya shrotram...), impels the
mind/organs of jivas. It is rather a case of the organs getting impelled by
their being in the range of Brahman. This idea is reprehensible for the
popular vaishnavas.

Trust that clarifies.

regards
subbu

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