PUNY WAVE APPROACHING SHORE STORY
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LONG NOW
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“What is far off may be more familiar to us than what is quite near.”
-- Marcel Proust
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SaranAgati in Bhagavad Gita
Types of saranAgati in Bhagavad Gita:
Everyone knows that all the 3 AcharyAs of 3 sampradAyams (Sri Adi Sankara, Sri Ramanujar and Sri Madhwachar) have written commentary on Bhagavad Gita.
I am writing this based on my notes from Sri Anna’s Bhagavad Gita upanyasam which is based on Sri Adi Sankara. Irrespective of one’s sampradAyA, it is important to understand the types of saranAgati that’s being talked about and why a redemption is available to all types of people thereby making it the best guide book for humans.
There are 3 types of saranAgati – prAkruta (ப்ராக்ருத), maDyama (மத்தியம)& uttama (உத்தம)and these are dependent upon the respective person (அதிகாரி/adhikAri).
uttama saranAgati (உத்தமசரணாகதி): everyone knows this sloka 18.66:
sarva-dharmān parityajya
mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja
ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo
mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
Meaning: Abandon all varieties of religion (dharmA) and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.
This slokA refers to prapatti done by prapannan. According to Sankara bAShyam, dharmA includes both adharmA as well and therefore, the adhikAri mentioned alluded is a sanyasi as he will be the one that lets go of both punyA & pApa. The words mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja refer to this adhikAri as he will be concentrating on his swarupA.Hence, this is considered uttama saranAgati. But, in general, this sloka refers only to a bhaktA who will be performing both punyA & pApA together. That’s where the two other saranAgati comes into play.
maDyama saranAgati:
Sloka 18.65 is as follows:
man-mana bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yaji mam namaskuru
mam evaisyasi satyam te
pratijane priyo ‘si me
Meaning: Always think of Me and become My devotee. Worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus, you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.
The person or adhikAri referred here performs activities (srouDa/smArta karma) prescribed in the sAstrAs and removes those that are not in his life and does bhakti by thinking about vAsudevA reaches His abode. Since punyA also results in karmA accumulation, he does these by offering the results to vAsudevA (isvarA arpanam).
prAkruta saranAgati:
This is address in sloka 18.56
sarva-karmāṇy api sadā
kurvāṇo mad-vyapāśrayaḥ
mat-prasādād avāpnoti
śāśvataṁ padam avyayam
Though engaged in all kinds of activities, My pure devotee, under My protection, reaches the eternal and imperishable abode by My grace.
Sri Anna explains this as follows:
sarva-karmāṇy api sadā (performing all activities) mad-vyapāśrayaḥ(under my protection)
mat-prasādād (by My mercy) śāśvataṁ padam avyayam (gets my eternal abode).
Here the person/adhikAri does activities that are both punyA/pApA thereby making him a commoner. However, god offers him His abode because he has already sought refuge in Him (prapatti) but continues the mundane activities due to his modes of material nature. Even for him, during his antima kAlA (death bed), He gives jnAnA by showing His beautiful rupA thereby making him eligible for His eternal abode. This slokA makes sure that everyone has a redemption.
Jai Sri Ram.
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'Om Isha vasyam idam sarvam, yat kincha jagatyam jagat'
"All this- whatever exists in this changing universe, is pervaded by consciousness"--Isa Upanishad
BrahmAn pervades the smallest atom ( Microcosm ) to the vast cosmos (macrocosm).
The microcosm would be is the empty space in an atom which is 99.99999% of the atom, in which the electrons whiz around the nucleus. The macrocosm extends to the vast ocean of Akasha ( ether ) of the universe.
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SRI VAISNAVA MANTRAS
Check out the brilliance.
Inherent in the BrahmAn ( the morphogenetic consciousness field ) is the TRINITY of Hindu Gods BRAHMA/ VISHNU/ SHIVA as CREATOR / MEDIATOR/ DESTROYER – each a sub force field ..also known as TAMAS / SATTVA / RAJAS .
Tamas and Rajas are opposing fields like positive and negative while Sattva is neutral. This is represented by the Trident ( trishul ) of Lord Shiva, where the centre prong SATTVA is the midpoint of duality, between TAMAS and RAJAS .
In Dvaita Hinduism opposite poles Tamas and Rajas are conscious of each other. Tamas creates Rajas, and Rajas activates/ excites Tamas.
3500 year old Vedas say that the only constant in the cosmos is change, everything is in a state of flux, nothing is static-- everything is vibratory. This is what guarantees growth and evolution.
This dance of opposite forces concept was lifted and termed as Yin Yang , by the Chinese after this concept was introduced there by Bodhi Dharma .
It is a cosmic spiraling dance of separate opposing forces, which sustains this universe. No life is possible on earth without this subtle tension . What has a front has a back-- what has a beginning has an end.
Brahma / Vishnu / Shiva work in tandem and perfect harmony—amazing cosmic allegories personalized as Hindu Gods.
One cannot exist without the other and they are dependant . No phenomenon in this universe is completely devoid of its opposite. They consume each other yet support each other.
Whatever is in excess gets reduces, whatever is deficient gets replenished.
You must ponder over each waxing-waning cycle to appreciate the absolute truth . They keep each other in check, yet provide fuel to feed off each other.
The white invader cooked up cock and bull stories, how the three trinity gods held competitions to see who is stronger ? This white lie is now sunk forever – never to resurface . Let the Shaivites and Vaishnavites wedges apart by the FAKE mutts of the white invader ( divide and rule ) know this truth today.
They have their female consort wives Saraswati/ Laxmi/ Parvati without which they are powerless
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Vedanta defines this world as illusion, or maya in Sanskrit. Ma means not, ya means that. Literal translation of the word maya is not that. The world we experience not that, it is an illusion. This world is as real as a dream.
When we are dreaming, our dream seems real to us. We experience the same emotions in a dream as we do in awake state. In a dream we can be happy, sad, angry, afraid. While dreaming we are creating our own reality. And in a dream the reality which we crated seems real to us. Sometimes when we wake up we might wonder if our dream actually happened, was it real? Some seconds later we become aware that it was just a dream. If we had a nightmare we are happy that it was just a dream. If it was particularly nice and pleasant dream we might be a bit sad that it was not real.
When we are awake we are also creating our own reality. The reason we are not aware that we are creating it is that somehow it seems more real, we can touch it, we can perceive with with our senses. But our senses are far from being perfect. We see the table, we touch the table and we “know” it is real. Actually, your table consists of 99% of empty space. Distance between the atomic nucleus and electrons circling around it are empty space. Distance between the atomic nucleus and electrons circling around it are much bigger than the size of electron or a nucleus, and there is nothing between them. But we still perceive it with our imperfect senses as solid matter.
Reality that we perceive in our aware state is not much more real than the reality we perceive in a dream.
Vedanta differentiate three states of awareness: awake state, dream state, and deep sleep state, a dreamless state in which we are not aware of any reality.
Thousands years after this awareness states were defined in Vedanta, in the beginning of XX century, researchers managed to record the oscillations of our brain activity which roughly corresponds with the awareness states defined in Vedanta. We can change our own brain waves at will. You might hear people sometimes saying “When you get angry, count to 10”. Well, it is simple advice, but it works. If you didn’t try it, try next time you are angry or upset. You will get much better results through mediation, which can markedly change the brain waves. Benefits of transcendental mediation is scientifically validated through many studies. Mantra meditation has the same or similar effects. Even walking 10 minutes a day through forest or a peaceful park might relax you and influence your brain waves, your mood, your ability to focus and handle the problems you encounter in daily life.
All this is not intended to be just a knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself. Any theory is only as valuable as it is useful. The date from Vedanta are intended to be used. There are many possible applications of those data to our lives.
Whatever situation you find yourself in, remember, it is maya, an illusion that you yourself created or contributed in its creation in some way. You are shaping your reality in the same way how you are creating your dream reality. After we wake up in the morning, we are aware that it wasn’t real, it was just a dream, an illusion. Wisdom of Vedanta can help us to wake up and start seeing our daily reality for what it really is – an illusion.
Being aware of the nature of reality might help in going through some unpleasant periods of life. The point is not to sit down and do nothing about bad situation you are in because it is an illusion anyway. This might be disastrous and I’m not advising you to try it. There is a funny story I once heard from a Vaishnava priest.
A guru was sitting in a village, teaching his disciples about illusory nature of reality. Atone moment a tiger entered the village and everybody ran for cover, including the guru and his disciples. After the danger was gone, one of the disciples asked the guru:
– Why did you ran away from the tiger when the tiger was just maya, an illusion?
– Well, my flight from the tiger was also an illusion – replied the guru.
In the same way how wise guru ran away from the tiger, you should also not sit and wait and do nothing if you find yourself in bad situation. But being aware of the illusory nature of reality and the fact that you somehow created it or contributed to its creation, might help you to be more composed about the whole thing and give you more space to figure out your solution and a way out of that situation.
Hope you found this data useful and I encourage you to research this further and bring your own conclusions.
Sankhya philosophy is unified the Advaita and Dvaita forms of Hinduism in a most interesting manner. Sankhya accepts the principle of satkarya-vada, theory of causation i.e. the effect exists in cause, which is the corner stone of Dvaita form of Hinduism.
SaNkya means “enumeration” (numerical counting logic) in Sanskrit and Malayalam
The Sankhya philosophy of Kapila was the first rational system that the world ever saw- but don’t ever imagine that this is an aethist system,
Sankhya unified the two concepts of science and religion by demonstrating its equivalence through axiomatic laws.
Samkhya is a masterpiece of modeling the ways of the inner universe.
SANKHYA VEDANTA is about the male and female joint TEAM effort. This is NOT a dance of opposites like in DVAITA VEDANTA .
Modern science repeats from our Vedas that matter and energy are interchangeable.
SANKHYA VEDANTA IS AN INTERPLAY BETWEEN PURUSHA (CONSCIOUSNESS ) AND PRAKRITI ( ENERGY / MATTER )
When the insentient Prakriti comes in contact with the sentient Purusha , the universe evolves.
Purusha symbolizes consciousness, the masculine principle. Pragati symbolizes the feminine principle, the activating energy
Sankhya is a theory of evolution and understanding the universe. Prakriti cannot be perceived, not because of its non-existence, but because of its subtlety. It is perceived in its effects.
Purusha, or supreme consciousness ( BrahmAn ) , is the impassive observer of all phenomena. Prakriti, excited in response to Purusa’s attention , has her gunas ( Yin-Yang or Tamas –Rajas ) thrown out of equilibrium.
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There is one statement in the Vedas - “Tat Tvam Asi”. Based on its interpretation, the philosophies of Dvaita and Advaita are said.
Advaita says, “Tat Tvam Asi” - you are Brahman. Your SELF and Brahman are one. You are unchanging, you are not the body, you are ever blissful, free, without birth, or death. You Are That.
The same statement Tatwamasi is interpreted by the Dvaita bhashya in a different way. It says that if there is a “Tat” and there is a “Tvam”, they cannot be the same, because in the first place you are using two words for two different things. How can they be one?
A chair and table cannot be one. Same way, it says that “ I” and “Tat” cannot be one. It says, “Atatwamasi” - you are not that. You cannot be that. Tat Twam Adheenam asi. You and That (Brahman or God) are different. You are a servant of God. You are not one with God.
And this is perfectly OK. Nothing is wrong with that. It all depends on perspectives. If you think you are not comfortable with saying “I am Brahman”, there is this philosophy of Dvaita - I am not That, I am a servant of Brahman. Because, Dvaita says, “ Tvam” and “Tat” cannot be one.
So, both are perfectly alright. It is just different perspectives. And, you can follow what you are comfortable with. If you are comfortable and mature enough for knowing “I am God”, then Advaita is perfect for you. If you are not comfortable with saying “I am Brahman”, then know that you are the servant of God in the world - Dvaita philosophy is for you.
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