A letter

[Sankar Jayanarayanan]

I received this letter from a Vedic scholar, who is very knowledgeable
in advaitic philosophy.

The letter has undergone very minor editting, although it may appear otherwise.

I have used itrans where the sanskrit words pop up.

----------------

Dear Jayanarayanan,

...

Before trying to answer your doubts, let me give you a gist of our religion and
philosophy...

GOD, according to us, is impersonal...The Upanishads proclaim HIM as brahma,
which significantly is a word in neuter gender. HE has no shape(nirAkAra,
anirdeshyavapuH), no name(nAmarahita), no attributes(nirguNa), no living place
as HE is all-pervading (vibhuH). HE is SatyaM, GYAnaM and anantaM. Without HIM,
no activity is possible, but HE doesn't associate Himself with any activity
(niHsaN^gaH), just like the sun. HE is in all living and non-living creatures,
but HIS manifestation is more in living creatures, especially in human beings.
...It is only because of HIS presence that all the senses (indriyANi) work
according to their facutly. Once HE is out, the body becomes a corpse...

...

The same is brought out in the dialogue between BhR^igu and VaruNa in the
BhR^iguvalli of the Taittiriiyopanishad. BhR^igu asks his father to tell
him what brahma is. VaruNa asks him to contemplate on THAT which is
responsible for the birth, maintenence and death of all living beings in the
universe. BhR^igu starts with anna, thinks of prANa, mana, viGYAnaM, and
ultimately concludes that Ananda is brahma. All this had to be brought about by
deep contemplation and meditation.

Every human being should strive to understand this supreme being. The
understanding of which gives one unlimited bliss which we call Moksha. How does
one attain this? The means is religion...

...

What is goodness? It is the finest attributes of HIM (even though HE is
described as attributeless, for our own cognition we attribute 100% goodness
to HIM). But unfortunately, we do not know what goodness really is. This is
where our Vedas and Upanishads help us. Goodness has been defined in different
ways by different Maharshis, but in essence, they are all the same. Gautama
defines it as AtmaguNAH, ApastaMba defines it as bhUtayogaguNAH, bhAgavata
describes it as 30 dharmAH, KrishNa in the Gita describes it as daivIsaMpadaH,
manu as dashakaMdharmalakshaNaM, etc. etc..

As an illustration, I shall take only the daivIsaMpadaH of KrishNa. In the 16th
adhyAya of the Bhagavad GItA, Krishna starts with abhayaM, satvashaMshuddhiH,
GYAnayogavyavasthitiH, tapaH, ArjavaM, ahiMsa, satyaM, akrodhaH, tyagaH,
shAntiH, apaishunaM, dayAbhUteshu, aloluptvaM, mArdavaM, hrIH, achApalaM,
tejaH, kshamA, dhR^itiH, shoryaM, adrohaH, and ends with nAtimAnitA.

These are the qualities that one should acquire to be called good. It is only
then that one becomes eligible to think of brahma. One should become God-like
first to see or reach God. Where, in which religion do you find opposite
qualities as the characteristics of a good individual? It is universal.

My contention is that, even before discussing whether God is VishhNu, Shiva or
KR^ishhNa, let us try to become GOOD men first. We have absolutely no right to
discuss a thing which we know nothing about except from books...It is
like standing at the bottom of a hill and discussing what is there
at the peak. It is just futile to waste our time in discussion. Let us try to
go up the hill, overcome obstacles, reach the top and find out for ourselves
what there is. The path leading to the top is dharma.

All our VedapArAyaNa, pUja, homa, devAlayadarshana, tIrthayAtra, bhajana, etc.
and all other religious activities ...should only end up in the development of
those wonderful qualities in us. They (religious activities) serve no purpose
independently by themselves. Please remember that the development of those
qualities is not and cannot be a result of our religious activities. They (the
religious activities) should be performed in such a way that they help us
build up those qualities in us. We can easily introspect ourselves after 10
years, 20 years or 30 years of performance of these religious activities, and
find out whether we have become better individuals in the sense that we have
acquired those qualities or improved upon them if they were existing already.
If we don't find anything we must be courageous enough to own that we have
failed with the means adopted. Either the procedure has not been followed
properly or the means themselves must be wrong...

...I don't know if I have been clear enough, but you may get more doubts. If
 so,
please do not hesitate to ask me.

I shall now try to answer your questions one by one...

(1) I normally seldom read the puranas. Unfortunately, I could not get hold of
of a copy of the padmapurANa and cannot confirm or deny the allegation about
Shankara. There is no doubt that he is hailed as an incarnation of Shiva, but
that he took birth to delude people is what I cannot confirm...

(2) It is doubtful that Bhaja GovindaM was written by Shankara at all...

He(Shankara) has never bothered to interpret the Vedas as they mainly belong to
the karma kANDa. Even though he is out and out an advaitin, he still maintains
that every individual should go through the karma, bhakti and then GYAna mArga.
karma and bhakti are essential for chittashuddhi (which is nothing but the
good qualities mentioned), which is the stepping stone to understanding brahma.

If you go through the meaning of some of the nAmAni in the vishhNusahasranAma,
many of the things that I have told you will be very clear. Even the
atharvashIrshhagaNapatyupanishhat.h clearly brings out (the first half)
the oneness of brahma (advitIya) and also that GaNapati is a cognizable form
of the formless brahma.

(3) MadhvAcharya who came roughly 400 years after Shankara made it a point to
propagate the dvaita philosophy. His followers, in their enthusiasm, have
heaped abuses against advaita. The so-called advaitins too have tried more to
refute dvaitins than to establish advaita. All this confusion and
misunderstanding are only because none of us has understood any of the schools
properly.

There cannot be and there is no greater philosopher and thinker
than Shankara. But to understand his philosophy - I think I am incorect there -
to experience his philosophy (there is actually very little to understand)
requires a lot of mental preparation and a man who has attained all the
good qualities mentioned above is the only one who is really eligible to
experience his philosophy. Wherein do you find such people today? All our
knowledge is theory and brahmaGYAna is pure experience. One has to practise in
order to experience that ananda. When one talks only from books, one makes all
sorts of allegations and misinterpretations. The differences among all the
systems of philosophy is only in the nature of mokshha or the ultimate reality.
We are all far far away from it. I for one feel that we are not even eligible to
talk about it. Let us practise sAmAnya dharmAH (the qualities mentioned) first
and then sit in judgement whether brahma is one or one and a half or two
...nobody in his right sense puts down Shankara without experiencing what he
has said.

(4) Buddha is really great. It doesn't matter whether He is an avatar or not.
At the time when Buddha was born, the vaidika dharma was at its zenith.
...the protagonists of the Vedas and vedokta karmas were very powerful and
people believed that the performance of sacrifices was the only way to
svarga. It is said that people were performing yAgAs just to eat meat! ...
Buddha was born at that time and in His perfect compassion started advising
people not to perform animal sacrifices...

Buddha's philosophy is highly practical. He said,"...To know the Truth we must
tread the path. The only way in which we can remove the cause of suffering is by
purifying the heart and following the moral law. The cure proposed by the
sacrificial and sacramental religions has little to do with the disease."
Doctrines which take one away from the urgency of the moral task, the
cultivation of individual character, are refuted strongly by Buddha.

Jayanarayanan, Buddha is really very great! People do not want any intellectual
exercise (which is required to develop those moral qualities). They find it easy
to perform rituals and sacrifices, pUjas and homas, dances and bhajans because
they don't require any application of the intellect, but only a physical toil
which anyone is willing to do when he is told that he will reap the maximum
benefit of svarga.

(5) ...Our Maharshis in their benevolence have given us many devatas and each
one is free to choose whichever pleases him most...they are only forms of the
nameless and formless brahma. RAmakR^ishhNa chose shakti, Shankara chose shiva,
RamaNa chose aruNAchaleshvara, tyAgarAja chose RAma, Kanaka chose KR^ishhNa,
Purandara dAsa chose PANduraN^ga, VedAnta Deshika chose RaN^ganAtha, Chaitanya
chose KR^ishhNa. All of them are great people and saints....
MadhusUdana Sarasvati, one of the greatest exponents of advaita and a great
saMnyAsi, was an ardent devotee of KrishNa. It doesn't mean that he put down
the other deities. If he did, he wouldn't be an advaitin. They very well know
the doctrine,"ekaM sat, viprAH bahudhA vadanti" (there is only one, but great
people say IT in many ways). All of them, at a lower level wanted forms and
names for contemplation and through them they realised brahma...It is certainly
the height of audacity and ignorance to say that RAmakR^ishhNa was wrong in
worshipping Shakti.

Regarding the durgA sUktam.h...it is part of an upanishad (mahAnArAyaNa)
which has not been commented upon by Shankara and is considered to be more
recent than the Vedas. Moreover, the familiar sUktam which goes by the name of
durgA sUktam (jAtavedase...) is not a prayer to durgA at all. They are all
prayers to agni. People have named it durgA sUktam just because the word durgA
appears in the mantras. Such incongrencies are found abundantly in our use of
the vedic mantras. The navagrahamantrAH never refers to the planets, the
sUryanamaskAramantrAH never refers to sUrya, etc. All these mistakes have crept
in because rarely did people understand the meanings of the mantras and in their
zeal to use the veda mantras for pUja, chose them for the sake of a word.

(6)...

(7)There is no mention of Krishna in the Rigveda, or any veda for that matter.
The Krishnopanishad was maybe written by a devotee of Krishna and then labelled
as an upanishad. We have many upanishads which are very recent.

(8) ...the concept of hell is there only to frighten men and discourage them
from resorting to pApakAryANi.

(9) ...no doubt in the Vedas, VishhNu is spoken of as the paramadevata...but
the 10 principal upanishads speak of only brahma. No upanishad pays homage to
VishhNu, the shaN^khachakragadAdhArI, of the puranas...it is said in a very
broad sense - vyApnotIti vishhNuH (all pervading).

(10)...this question has been answered already.

...I have tried to answer your questions as briefly as possible. Please try to
understand the basic tenets of our religion...

Thanks for your enquiry about my health. I am perfectly all right except that
I am already 68! I am carrying on my Vedic classes even here and that is my
happy pasttime. Mami is also fine and sends you her AshIrvAdams.

...

ityAshishhaH,
Guruji [signed]