[Advaita-l] In praise of ISKCON?!

[V Subrahmanian]

An Upanishadic Advaitic Etymology for ‘Nr-simha’
The NrsimhaTāpinyupaniṣat has given an etymology to the terms ‘Nr-simha’.
Shankara has brought out the purport of this etymology, which occurs as
part of the famous Nrsimha Mantra Rāja:
ॐ उग्रं वीरं महाविष्णुं ज्वलन्तं सर्वतोमुखम्।
नृसिंहं भीषणं भद्रं मृत्युमृत्युं नमाम्यहम् ॥

An article that brings out all this and also several other aspects
important to Advaita, such as māyā-avidyā identity, is available here for
download:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/d1va1ahtczbdd19/The_etymology_for_the_word_nrsimha_A

regards



On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 12:46 PM, V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Sujal Upadhyay via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
>
>> Pranams Shri Bhaskar Prabhu ji,
>>
>> Not just ISKCONites but some Gaudiya-s too. I had discussion with him. He
>> doesn't like ISKCON's way of preaching. He said, you advaitins out-rightly
>> reject Krishna's form as illusion and mithyA. I asked him have you read
>> Sankara Bhashya? He said no. Then I quoted some sloka-s randomly from Gita
>> Bhashya. Finally, I said if veda-s are an authority for Advaitin, if Gita
>> is an essence of vedanta, then how can Krishna be Illusion. He could not
>> reply. Then I said, we accept even jivahood, but only in aJYAna (as said
>> in
>> chandogya upanishad Bhashya 6.5.xx or maybe 7.1.xx while explaining food
>> being divided into 3 parts - gross, medium and sutble). He then said, -
>> ok,
>> but you consider form of God as inferior. I simply replied, that is
>> different from 'out-rightly rejecting a form and calling it as an
>> illusion'. Also know that we do revere forms of God as they are
>> inseparable
>> from Brahman, however, we do not consider it as last step. Last step is to
>> completely loose one's identity. Whatever exists is Brahman only. So
>> NirguNa, nikArAkAra Brahman is our ultimate goal. Even Yoga is practised
>> by
>> many advaitins, infact yoga and advaita used to go hand in hand. We see it
>> in daily prANAyama practice that Brahmins do like anuloma viloma. Bhakti
>> is
>> the foundation of any spiritual practice. Without faith, everything is
>> mechanical.
>>
>
>
> At the very beginning of the bhashya (said to be of Shankara) for the
> Nrsimha Tapini Upanishad, it is said: saakaara brahman is taken up as the
> upaaya for realizing the niraakaara brahman.
>
> Thus, the formed-deity is a support for the aspirant to reach the formless
> Truth.
>
> regards
> subbu
>
>>
>>