[Advaita-l] Bh.Gita verse 18.73 - Was Arjuna an 'aparoksha Jnani'? - Part 4

[Venkatesh Murthy]

On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 10:33 AM, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:
>>  but stree shudrAdi-s can get vedAntic knowledge from smruti, itihAsa,
> purAna itself...vidhura, dharmavyAdha etc. of mahAbhArata,  stand tall in
> this type of category.

Dear Sir,

There will be exceptions.   Recently some 14 year boy is doing a post
graduate course. He is a genius. Every 14 year boy is genius? No
probably 0.1% of boys will be like him. 99.9% are ordinary kids. Can
they do post graduate study. they  must study slowly only and reach
post graduate course.

>>  saNyAsa is helpful to channalize your sAdhana (brahma jignAsa) in right
> direction...but it does not mean ONLY saNyAsi-s would get the vedAntic
> knowledge...For that matter janaka who taught shuka was not a sanyAsi but
> a kshatriya, yagnAvalkya at the time of announcing he is 'the brahmajnAni'
> was not a sanyAsi but a gruhasta. (ofcourse, if you consider all these
> upanishadic stories are real life episodes)

In Kruta yuga and others it was easy.  Now sanyasis only can  get
moksha directly. For others it is indirectly. they must take new janma
to get it.

>
> Krishna cannot give vedanta knowledge to non sannyasi.
>
>> do you mean to say Krishna himself was not aware of vedAntic knowledge
> since krishna himself was not a sanyAsi & was a big polygamist :-)) and
> was having lakhs of kids :-))
>

Krishna is God. But Arjuna could not protect those wives after all
Yadavas passed away. Why?

>> what is lacking in geetOpadesha to say it is purANa type of knowledge
>and not vedAnta??  what extra there in vedAnta that has not been covered
>by krishna in geeta??  do you know something??  some verses in geeta is an
>exact replica of shruti (example kathOpanishad!!)


Gita is not a part of Vedanta but it is a part of Mahabharata. It can
be read by non dvija people and women. We can compare a  newspaper
report on  bio technology and  text book on the same. The newspaper
report is also good and can lead interested people to text book. But
it is not same as text book study.

 News paper report is for any body who can read. And people read  news
paper report with all the other news which contains lot of masala like
politics, sports and films.  In Mahabharata also there is filmy masala
like fighting and love stories. The text book for serious students.
They must have  some qualifications. If others read text book they
will not understand.


>> Purana  type knowledge is also good. Dont misunderstand. It leads to
> vedanta knowledge as listener is born as brahmin in next janma.
> Arjuna listened to God so this purana  itihasa type knowledge must
> have very good effect. Probably in next janma he got a chance for
> learning vedanta.
>
>>  do you have any valid base for the above statements??

In 6th chapter of Gita Krishna says anybody on the right path never
falls down. He will take  janma in brahmin  family and continue on his
path.  This surely happens.

>>  does a poignant person like arjuna needs upadesha about karma saNyAsa
> yOga, jnAna yOga, bhakti yOga etc. amidst bown & arrows?? do you think
> krishna made 'out of context' upadesha to arjuna on the war field??   what
> was the need for krishna to say arjuna patram pushpaM phalam tOyam..etc.
> on the battle field of kurukshetra??  what was the need for krishna to
> show vishvarUpa to arjuna that too when arjuna was in need of some
> professional councelling??:-))If you have answers to these questions, I
> hope you would get answer to your above question also.

 Agreed we want answers to all the questions.

I read one mail where it is said Arjuna is Vishnu. Then if Arjuna is
Nara avatara of Vishnu he becomes God only. The question did he have
jnana is a useless question. I assume he was a ordinary man above.

Regards

-Venkatesh