[Advaita-l] ’upAsana' and 'bhakti'
Satish Arigela
satisharigela at yahoo.com
Wed Feb 29 23:24:05 CST 2012
shrIH
>I would have appreciated your lengthy response if it had contained
even a bit of Vedanta as taught by Shankara. It is this we are
discussing and bringing in >everything unrelated to Vedanta is simply a
waste of time of the members of this List.
Kindly wake up... we are discussing upAsana and bhakti in that thread. not vedAnta. Please see the very last comments.
Anymore peddling of those muddled, confused & mixed up views... I
will be even more direct in my criticism of the same.
That is --exactly-- why I said, people who are still living in the cocoon of "my tradition has everything and I need not look elsewhere" find this
very hard to understand.
It is perfectly alright to be
ignorant about something. I personally doubt if I can know even half of
the good things that you are an expert at, given your knowledge & thoroughness on some
topics. But unfortunately there is more you need to consider when it
comes to this particular topic and your views are extremely narrow,
flatly opposed to reality and are not anywhere close to being correct.
>My view is Upasana seeks worldly objectives -and mainly by
>artharthies.
This is completely wrong. An upAsaka may or not may not seek worldly objectives,
>Upasana slowly will elevate the upasaka to be a Bhakthiman in
>which stage he will come to realise that these worldly pleasures and assets
>are meaningless .
One of the best jokes in modern times I guess. A proper upAsaka unites with his deity. he becomes his deity.[not after going to some loka after
death. Unites with his deity when alive..if upAsana is done properly]. This is something that people experience here and now..not some concept or theory.
To make you understand, your statement of upAsaka become bhakta eventually, is like saying, a vedAntin-s study of vedAnta texts will slowly elevate him to be a buddhist.
Your statement is just not erroneous, it is as meaningless as the above statement.
>Taking refuge in the deity/self only will lead to
>liberation meaning no more births/samsara.
This refuge stuff will certainly give you some psychological satisfaction
initially..It does not give you anything else other than that.
But even here, if one persists[repeated chanting and focus on a name of a
deity like for example viShNu!, vAsudeva!,shiva!, rudra!] over a period
of time, the yogic elements that such kind of a persistence
automatically involves/or brings-about, will lead one to something
good[sadgati] and in some very very rare cases could lead to union with
the deity.
>So upasana is also a step in the
>Bhakthi marg.
Yeah.....Just like study of vedAnta is a step towards realizing the high truths of mAdhyamika buddhism? :-)
One could start as a bhakta and if things work out good, they may graduate
to the mode of upAsana..and the different grades of upAsana further down the lane.
Don't bring in vedAnta and say the next step of upAsana is study and vichAra
of vedAnta. That view though not valid IMO, can be held by a vedAntin
simply because he is a vedAntin. vedAnta can be seen as a great path
which accommodates **some limited elements of upAsana**.. but they are
not related in any way.
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