[Advaita-l] The safe way

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Aditya Kumar prabhuji
Hare Krishna

And yet, the narrative is that these are just different ways of approaching the same goal and that all sorts of views can be reconciled. If you choose not to, then you opt out of 'traditional view'. You are a heretic.


Ø   I am not really able to understand this master key ‘prakriyA bheda’ stuff and slogan that  finally each and every different prakriya –s lead to same goal !! if that is the case at the time of shankara there were no dvaitins  ( like dvaitins / tattvavAdins of  today or vishishtAdvaita vAdins) and who were there at that time were all advaitins!!  And  there was an unanimous acceptance among vedAntins with regard to the identity of individual and the supreme self.  bhagavadpAda himself categorically say this in bruhad bhAshya I reckon.  So, why he choose to write bhAshya despite the fact that his contemporaries were advaitins??  In geeta introduction he says there are various different interpretations and there is a need to interpret it correctly hence he is taking that task.  Why shankara not allowed various interpretations  to flourish by  citing the prakriya bheda and SAME final goal  statement !!??  Instead he opted to write whole lot about advaita vedAnta itself despite the fact that advaita was the sole philosophy existing at that time among Upanishad followers.  He could have easily reconciled various interpretations and concluded, don’t worry about different  interpretations, follow any Advaita interpretation you will land on the same platform ultimately. Na…it is not like that he gave utmost importance to saMpradAya and sAmpradAyik way of interpretations.  And asked us to ignore the asampradAyavAdi as an idiot.  So, now the question is what is the correct interpretation of Advaita siddhAnta which shankara himself acknowledge as saMpradAyic way of correct  interpretation??  For panchapAdika vivaraNa followers, vAchaspati  of bhAmati is maNdana prushta sevi, and for the bhAmati followers vivaraNa vyAkhyAna is kevala ‘gArdabha gAna’…No amicable reconciliation between these two schools in the name of ‘prakriya bheda and Same goal’.  Why this fight when various road maps  lead to same place!!??  The answer is god only knows.


Shri Harsha says this somewhere - Even if the final inference that there is fire on a mountain is correct, the way in which it has been inferred is wrong because you mistook fog for smoke! So your inference borne of error is essentially wrong but your conclusion is merely a co-incidence!

The major issue is that there are very few who study these subjects. Even in this forum there are only a handful who participate. So only those views resound. Fresh seekers are either misled by saying don't care to study it's pointless or they will teach their own versions which they believe. Most Vedantic teachers are part-timers or pensioners who have found a new hobby (which is not bad but they are not always correct). I wondered if there are any authentic teachers of Vedanta who are also sadhakas and so I decided to listen to a Sanyasin. He spoke for an hour but said very little. The contents of the talk could have been covered in 5 mins but he went on for an hour or more. It was almost like a stand-up comedy where he tried to make people laugh. Vedantic comedy. Haha.


Ø     ☺ but  with this we cannot generalize all sanyasi-s as mere crowd pullers,,,and it is at the same time  true that it is very difficult to find the true guru who is shrotriya and brahmanishta who breaths only vedAnta.  And there is always a caution that :  don’t expect your guru to live as per your expectation !!??  So difficult and tricky is the situation.  Nevertheless, fortunately we still have revered Acharya-s in the tradition though it is subjective acceptance for the outsiders.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar