Karma and Sanyasa

[f. maiello]

Maadhavan Srinivasan wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have a doubt regarding renunciation.
>
> To attain Jeevan Mukth state, Is it necessary to renounce physically?
>
> How come, being a king, Janaka was in Jeevan Muktha state.
>
> ( If one is a king, he can't renounce everything physically.)
>
> And please explain the term, " Renounce Physically ".
>
> My understanding is, one has to renounce all his physical possessions.
> Then, his body is  the primary possession. So, if he renounce physically
> he can't live .
>
> So, i think physical renunciation is not a must to attain Mukthi.
> But mental renunciation is a must.
>
> ( If we realize TRUTH, we are not renouncing anything but we will become
> everything.)
>
> I AM TRUTH
>
> Madhavan.

Beautifully put!

namaste
>From gmurthy at morgan.ucs.mun.ca Wed Jul 22 08:40:44 1998
Message-Id: <WED.22.JUL.1998.084044.0230.GMURTHY at MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA>
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 08:40:44 -0230
Reply-To: Gummuluru Murthy <gmurthy at morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Gummuluru Murthy <gmurthy at MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA>
Subject: Atman - Brahman
Comments: To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95.980720155419.31898A-100000 at plato.ucs.mun.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Namaste.

We have the concepts of Atman, Brahman to represent, respectively, the
inner consciousness on which the jeeva is superposed (i.e. at a person
level) and the reality on which the jagat is superposed (at the universe
level). The fundamental point of advaita is that Atman and Brahman are
one and the same.

In my reflection of these words and topic, it seems to me that the only
reality is Atman.

Brahman is a concept which we use when we still see duality of the world.
Intellectually we know that the world is not real and we know
(intellectually) the reality in this context is the sub-stratum,
the Brahman.

When we go beyond intellectual understanding and into the state of
experience of advaita, the only thing that remains (or the entity
that encompasses everything) is Atman. In that state, there is no
Brahman, only Atman. That is, in the state of nirvikalpa samAdhi
or sahaja samAdhi, Brahman merges into Atman, and Atman is all there is.

Thus, there is a very subtle but significant "difference" in the
context of usage and understanding of Atman and Brahman. The usage of
the word "difference" in the above sentence is not really correct because,
in that state, there is no *difference*, but I cannot think of any word
that can be used.

Do I make sense in this analysis ? I would be grateful for
clarifications.

Regards
Gummuluru Murthy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brahma satyam jagan mithyA, jeevo brahmaiva nah parah.

                                                Shri Shankara in  ???

The Brahman is the only reality and the world of manifoldness is unreal;
the individual soul (jeeva) is identical with Brahman.
------------------------------------------------------------------------