Tag Archives: Liberation

Upadesa SAhasrI Part 2

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Part 1

Part 3

Verses 1.6 to 1.11
In verse 5, it has been said that knowledge is desirable as it is the only means of liberation. It will be explained later that as action is not incompatible with ignorance, it does not destroy ignorance. Instead, action perpetuates ignorance and impurities like desire and aversion remain. Knowledge alone destroys ignorance. Therefore, Upanishad teaches knowledge and does not teach action.
Purva paksha (PP) objects to the view that action is not necessary. There are three reasons. Actions, e.g., rites and rituals ordained by scriptures must be performed. If they are not performed, it will incur sin. Furthermore, performance of obligatory duties has a supportive role to pursuit of knowledge. Verse 2, Isa Upanishad says that one should perform action till the life lasts. As such, action and knowledge should be practiced together. It is called samuchayavAd: combination of action and knowledge.

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Updesa SAhasrI-Part 1

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Part 2

Chapter 1 Upodghatprakaranam
Upadesa SAhasrI means A thousand Teachings. Its authorship is attributed to Adi ShankarAchArya. It has two parts- prose and verse with many paragraphs and verses which is a figurative justification of the title. Prose part has 116 paragraphs.  Verse part which has 19 chapters is the focus here. Some of the chapters are small and chapter 18 titled Tat Tvam Asi is the biggest with 233 verses. There are totally 675 verses across all 19 chapters. Upodghat means introduction and prakaranam means chapter. Verse 1 is a prayer and much more. A prayer is generally for successful completion of the objective. Here it contains teachings also. The seeker prays (bows down) to Nirguna Brahman which is of the nature of pure consciousness. It is the Self (essential nature) of a jIva. It resides in the cave (intellect) of everyone and is like a witness of the intellect. It is within and without. It is all-pervading like rope pervading the mithyA snake in rope-snake metaphor. It is omniscient. It is beyond all perceptions and all objects of knowledge.

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Surefire Way To Liberation – Part 2

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[Part 1]

2.  With One Stop Over:

The Unfailing Universal Rule:

Krishna reveals the universal rule, that governs with no exception, the next birth of a creature.  The rule is:

यं यं वापि स्मरन्भावं त्यजत्यन्ते कलेबरम् ।
तं तमेवैति कौन्तेय सदा तद्भावभावितः ॥  —   8.6, BG.

Meaning: Of whatever Being thinking at the end a man leaves the body, Him alone, O son of Kunti, reaches he by whom the thought of that Being has been constantly dwelt upon.

Therefore, his promise is: “Whoso, at the time of death, thinking of Me (Vishnu, the Supreme Lord) alone, leaves the body and goes forth, he reaches My being (My real being as Vishnu); there is no doubt in this as to whether he reaches or not (8.5, BG; 7.30, BG.).” Continue reading →

Surefire Way To Liberation – Part 1

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Surefire Way To Liberation:

  1. Non-stop Direct:

One attains (eternal and irreversible) identification with brahman by being established in brahman *even in the closing years of one’s life* — 2.72, BG.

Essential Requirements:

a) Should be free from all desires, be free from hankering, without the idea of (‘me’ and) ‘mine’, and be devoid of pride — 2.71, BG.

Shankara comments at 2.71, BG: Only that man attains peace (Liberation) into whom all desires enter, from all directions, like waters entering into a sea, without overwhelming him.

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BrihadAranyaka Upanishad(Part 3)

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Part 2

Part 4

1.4.8                                                                                                                                   A secret is divulged. Love for worldly objects including close relations falls in one of the two categories: dear or dearer. It is not the dearest. The Self alone is the dearest. It is the innermost. A person may enjoy the company of the dear or the dearer. More important is the time spent with the dearest, namely, the Self. A husband loves the wife not for her sake but for the sake of the Self. A wife loves the husband not for his sake but for the sake of the Self. Love for any object is not for the sake of the object but for the sake of the Self. This is the harsh truth. The love for wife, husband, son, or daughter are conditional. They are loved so long as they are source of happiness. Moreover, they are mortal and cannot provide permanent happiness.

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Four Verses from Bhagavad-Gita

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 [This Blog Post is presented for advanced students of Advaita Vedanta as a case study in ‘Reflection’ (mananaM).]

It seems to me, as though, there is a fine thread of commonality running through the four verses 4.24; 6.29; 9.4 and 9.5 of Bhagavad-Gita, coming from the Chapters titled respectively, jnAnakarmasamnyAsayoga, dhyAnayoga and rAjavidyArAjaguhyayoga.

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Eight Upanishads (Topic-wise) Part 41

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Part 40

Chapter 7 Brahma Sutra BhAsya
7-9 BSB 3.4.18 to 3.4.20 SanyAs prescribed by scriptures                                           Purva Paksha (PP) is a performer of Vedic rites and rituals. He holds that there is no Vedic sanction for sanyAs Ashrama. Vedic sanction is for only grihastha ashrama. An exception can be made for handicapped persons who cannot perform rituals. PP says that Brahmacharya Ashrama is a steppingstone for grihastha Ashrama. It is further argued that stages of life where celibacy is prescribed, they are allusions and not injunctions. The Vedic texts that those who give up fire are murderers of gods show that sanyAs is not prescribed by the Vedas.

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Tat Tvam Asi (Part 6)

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Part 5

Who is the hearer? Who says, I am Brahman?
Teaching of TTA becomes useful (Up Sa18.111) if it is meant for a hearer. In 18.76/77, there is a question: who is the hearer of the teaching? Two possible answers, namely, the Self and the ego are examined. It is argued that Self cannot be the hearer because It is free from action. The ego which is miserable, and a sufferer cannot be the hearer because it cannot say, ‘I am free’. Does it mean that the scripture is not a pramAna and teaching has no value? To dismiss such a possibility, 18.78 suggests a solution by introducing chidAbhAsa.

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Traditional versus Neo-Advaita (Part 3)

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*** Read Part 2 *** *** Go to Part 1 ***

Advaita refers to the unchanging reality by the Sanskrit term paramārtha and to the constantly changing appearance by vyavahāra. Within this phenomenal realm, separate individuals and objects are recognized and a creator-god, Īśvara, uses the power of māyā to obscure the truth and project the apparent world. It thus affirms that our experience does not tally with its non-dual claims. It acknowledges an appearance of duality, which is at odds with the reality. It also states that we can never directly know the reality. Accordingly, its effective teaching strategy is to successively negate the appearance. That which ‘remains’ and cannot be negated must be the reality. Once the reality is thus effectively (but not literally) known, then it is also realized that the appearance, too, is that same reality.

This process inevitably takes time, from the vantage point of the seeker who is still mired at the level of appearance. The ignorance that prevents the immediate apprehension of reality is effectively in the mind and it is at the level of the mind that this ignorance must be removed. Knowledge must be introduced in such a way that the mind can accept it, using reason and experience. Just as a student is unable to appreciate the subtleties of quantum physics without having the preliminary grounding in mathematics and science, so the seeker is unable to assimilate the ‘bottom-line’ truth of Advaita since it is so contrary to his everyday experience.

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Traditional versus Neo-Advaita (Part 2)

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*** Read Part 1 ***

There are also two significant dangers regarding the Neo-Advaita ‘movement’. Firstly, there is the clear possibility of charlatans who, having read a little or heard the fundamental elements of ‘descriptions’ of reality, can devise a few ‘routines’ of their own and then advertise themselves on the circuit. Providing that they are good speakers/actors, it is certainly possible to make a living from deceiving ‘seekers’ in such a way, without ever giving away their true lack of knowledge or the fact that they are no nearer any ‘realization’ than their disciples.

Secondly, seekers themselves may be deluded into a belief that some specious realization has been obtained when, in fact, all that has happened is that they have come to terms with some psychological problem that had been making life difficult. The ending of such suffering could well be seen as a ‘liberation’. Of course, such a thing would not be at all bad – it simply would have nothing to do with enlightenment. Indeed, such people might well go on to become teachers in their own right, not charlatans in the true sense of the word, since they genuinely believe that ‘realization’ has taken place.

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