(Nov 11,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Critique of Erroneous Doctrines by Swami Krishnananda

The Critique of Erroneous Doctrines

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 2 An Analysis of the Brahma Sutra by Swami Krishnananda

Sankhya is a very famous philosophy. Most people accept it. The presence of Purusha and Prakriti, consciousness and matter, is accepted and these words are used in such great texts like Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, Manu Smriti etc. So this will make us feel there is some truth in it. Why does the Bhagavad Gita go on using the word Prakriti and Purusha, when Sankhya is rejected by the Brahma Sutras?

The main objection against Sankhya is the assertion of duality; One thing is different from another thing. But the Samkhya forgets it is not possible to know that one thing is different from another thing unless there is a third thing which knows the difference. The one thing which is different from the other thing cannot know that the other thing exists at all. So there is a flaw in the argument. The third thing is necessary, which the Sankhya does not accept. It is caught up by a vicious argument of the self-sufficiency of Purusha and Prakriti. And even its concept of liberation is inadequate, because the Sankhya believes that separation of Purusha and Prakriti from contact of each other is liberation. But there is a defect here. Purusha is liberated from contact with Prakriti, and Purusha is accepted to be omniscient, all-pervading consciousness. But Sankhya contradicting this statement says Prakriti also exists. In liberation, Prakriti is not destroyed; where does it exist? It exists outside Purusha. Then where is the infinity of the consciousness of Purusha?

Is Purusha omniscient, all-knowing? Yes, it is. If it is all-knowing, it must be knowing the existence of Prakriti also. The moment it knows the existence of Prakriti, it gets caught in bondage. And bondage will be permanently there. The idea of liberation in the Sankhya is not acceptable for obvious reasons.

There are other schools which deny the existence of the Atman itself, like nihilism or sunyavada, a trend in Buddhistic philosophy. 'Nothing is'. Buddha did not say that nothing exists, but something followed from his standpoint. He said that everything is moving and nothing is existing at any particular point, even for a moment, like the flow of the waters of a river. Not for a single moment does the water stand at one place. The river is not a stable object; it is movement. That we are unable to perceive the continuous movement of the waters in a river is the reason why we mistake that the river is a solid water reservoir.

In the same way, the mind does not exist. The mind is only an imagined centralization of a point as is the point imagined in the flow of a river. Not for a moment does anything exist to continue to see. But Buddha accepted rebirth and samsara, from which he advocated freedom. Now what is this he is saying? Who will take rebirth? That person who is to take rebirth does not exist even for a moment, according to the accepted doctrine.

Karma is the cause of rebirth. Karma is the repercussion produced by the action of someone. This someone does not exist, because existence is momentary. Momentariness is almost equivalent to saying that it is non-existent. So who will take rebirth? How will suffering be explained? - which Buddha emphasized very much – there is suffering, we have to overcome suffering.

This peculiar difficulty in understanding the real point behind what Buddha said created a discussion by another set of Buddhists leading to nihilism. If everything is momentary, neither does samsara exist nor does karma exist. Non-existence is the final word of nihilistic philosophy. But the nihilists made the same mistake as the Sankhya doctrine became self-contradictory.

Sankhya looked very logical, very acceptable, very beautiful from outside, but inside it was vacuous due to the defects already pointed out. So is this so-called boast and adumbration of nihilism, sunyavada. Who is saying that nothing exists? Who is talking? Is the non-existence itself saying that non-existence is there? Does the philosopher of nihilism exist? If the philosopher of nihilism does not exist because nihilism abolishes the existence of everyone, then who is making a declaration that nothing exists?

The Vedanta comes in and says this argument cannot be accepted. Brahma Sutra refutes it. There must be someone to know that nothing exists. That someone must be existing. The Western philosopher Rene Descartes concluded as a wise one that the consciousness that everything is doubtful cannot itself be doubted. "Therefore "I am"."

In a similar way, the Vedanta accepts that there should be an awareness of, there being nothing. If sunyavada accepts that there is an awareness which alone can say 'nothing exists', then the doctrine of nothingness is defeated and then Something is.

There are various schools of Buddhist philosophy. There is the Ethical Idealism of Buddha, which emphasized the momentariness of things though he was a very highly ethical person. But the others went to extremes and there are four extreme types, offshoots of Buddhist psychology and philosophy. One of them is called yogachara or vijnanavada. This is totally refuted by the Brahma Sutras in the second chapter.

All that you see outside is the creation of the mind. This is the basic principle of vijnana-vada. Vijnana is the consciousness in the mind or consciousness itself as the mind, which projects itself as an outside world of perception. The world actually does not exist. The Vedanta refutes this position. The Commentary of Acharya Sankara is long on this particular Sutra. "The non-existence of the world cannot be accepted."

Oh! What is Sankaracharya saying? What is Sutra telling? Is the world really existing? Are you contradicting your own Vedanta doctrine that the world ultimately does not exist? Why are you fighting with this Buddhist psychology?

The Vedanta is a very difficult subject. 'In what sense is the world existing and in what sense is it not existing?' – must be first clear to the mind.

That there is nothing at all outside, and it is only the mind moving outside as is proclaimed by the vijnanvada theory of Buddhism, is refuted. Why is it refuted? Acharya Sankara's commentary is elaborate, worth reading again and again. Beautiful! If there is nothing outside, if the consciousness appears to be outside according to your doctrine, this doctrine cannot be accepted because "how did the idea of 'outsideness' arise in the mind?" If the mind is wholly inside and is not outside, and it only projects itself as if it is outside, how did the idea of outsideness arise at all? A non-existent idea, an impossible idea cannot arise in the mind.  Even if you agree that there is some appearance outside, and really things do not exist, the appearance has to be outside. This outsideness must be accepted first. How did things appear 'outside' even though they may be only mental? The mind is inside; you will see the whole world dancing inside your head. Why does it not happen? Why is there the idea of 'an outside'?

There is an outright condemnation and criticism of vijnavada that you cannot go on saying that there is an appearance of something being outside unless there is really something outside. A rope appears as a snake but even for that appearance, the rope must be existing. If rope also does not exist, then the snake will not be there.

Now, the other side comes in. Does Vedanta accept that there is a world, when it says that vijnanavada is wrong? There are two degrees of reality. One degree is called vyavaharika satta; another degree is called paramarthika satta.

The object and the subject are on par with each other. Anything that is above your mental operation cannot be known by you. Anything that is below your mental operation also cannot be known. You cannot know heavens because they are above the operations of your mind. You cannot know hell because it is below the operation of your mind. You can see only empirical existence because the mind is an empirical phenomenon. Now, the question whether the world exists or not should not arise at all, because the existence of a thing is nothing but the acceptance by the mind that something outside is existing. When consciousness accepts that there is something, it exists. You cannot deny its existence, because who will deny it? Consciousness accepts it. The world is seen; now, which consciousness is accepting it? The empirical consciousness which is subjectively engaged in this physical body is accepting that there is something outside, because anything that is inside should also accept that there is something outside. You cannot say 'my mind is inside'. Who told you that the mind is inside? Because you have differentiated your mind from something outside. If the outside thing does not exist, the inside also cannot exist. There is a clash between the inside and the outside in ordinary perception. The subject and object contradict each other. Therefore the mind cannot know the nature of the world correctly, nor can the world enter into the mind.

Excerpts from:

The Critique of Erroneous Doctrines: Chapter 2 An Analysis of the Brahma Sutra by Swami Krishnananda
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(Nov 10,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day – Darshanas – Different schools of thought by Swami Krishnananda

 Darshanas – Different schools of thought

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 15 The Heart and Soul of Spiritual Practice by Swami Krishnananda

The schools of thought called the Darshanas are: Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. In these also, there is a gradational rise. It is not that each school says whatever it wants. There is a continuity of thought even in the Darshanas, or the schools of thought. For instance, there is a primitive, logical acceptance of the truths of God, world and soul in the Nyaya and the Vaisheshika systems. These schools, the Nyaya and the Vaisheshika, which can be clubbed together into a single phase of logical thinking, say that God is transcendent. He is an efficient cause, but not a material cause. Like a carpenter standing outside the tools and the things that he made, God stands above. The individuals are manifold.

In a purely empirical fashion, the Nyaya and the Vaisheshika take into consideration the multiplicity of individual souls; and the transcendent creator, totally unconnected with creation, operates in the world as a mechanic operates a machine or a carpenter makes a table, a chair, etc. This is, in a way, a very basic way of thinking in a so-called logical fashion to justify how the Vedas, Upanishads, Tantras, etc., have been helpful. But that is not satisfactory because it is difficult to believe that God is so far away, unconnected with this world, and that so many people are unconnected among themselves. Everything is in chaos, as it were.

The Samkhya philosophy took up this argument in a different way altogether and said it cannot be so, that gods are somewhere and people are distanced and unconnected. There are only two things in the universe – consciousness and matter. There is nothing else. You may call it God or whatever you like. You feel an awareness inside you. The consciousness which feels that there is something outside calls that thing matter, which is outside consciousness. That which recognizes this material existence is consciousness. Technically, the Samkhya calls this consciousness which apprehends material existence as purusha. Purusha does not mean man. It simply means the positive principle of awareness. As a negative principle it is perceived as prakriti. Due to a particular conjunction of consciousness and matter, everything takes place, and there is no separate God outside. There is no necessity for this because it is possible to explain the whole drama of creation by a coming together, in various ways, of consciousness and matter.

This explanation was also not satisfactory, because who brings about the union of consciousness and matter? How does it happen? Consciousness cannot stand outside matter and then attempt to get united with it in some way or the other. The union of consciousness and matter is not possible unless there is an operator transcending both – an umpire who judges the action and operation of two things. Two people cannot resolve their conflict; a third person is necessary to make a judgment.

Thus yoga philosophy, apart from its practical techniques of meditation, etc. recognized a God who dispenses justice and sees to it that there is meaning behind the coming together of consciousness and matter, purusha and prakriti – a deistic God, a God who does not have any practical connection with the operations of prakriti and purusha. That deity was envisaged – a deus ex machina, as it is called, a convenient requirement that was posited – though it was not seen then what kind of connection this divinity can have with the operations of consciousness and matter. It was just a position maintained to get over the difficulties created by the earlier schools of Nyaya and Vaisheshika. Even that was not satisfactory. They had to go further.

Suddenly, a state arose when the human mind reverted to the old concept of many gods. So, once again, there was a reversal of the thinking mind and it came back to the original requirement dictated by the Brahmana scriptures. A logical approach was envisaged to justify the rituals and performances of sacrifice, etc., that were originally dictated by the Brahmanas in terms of the many gods in heaven. This once again arose, only in a different way; logic was added to it.

This logical acceptance of the original concept of the Brahmanas in respect of the divinities in heaven became the Mimamsa Shastra. It is also called Karma Mimamsa. Mimamsa means an enquiry into the nature of Truth. This enquiry took the form of assuming that there are many gods in heaven and they have to be worshipped – the very same position that was maintained earlier in the Brahmanas, only with a justification added to it by logical arguments. This did not take the feelings too far. It was just a halting place and there seemed to be something more, which position was taken up by the Vedanta school.

The Vedanta is actually the Upanishads themselves. Difficult are the Upanishads to understand. The Brahma Sutras attempted to codify certain statements of the Upanishads in order that things may become clear, but that did not work well because many commentaries were written on the explanation itself, which is the Brahma Sutra – and we are nowhere, finally.

Any school that considers God as the ultimate reality is called Vedanta. The goal of life is the realization of God. If any school accepts this principle, that can be called Vedanta. But for various reasons the schools differed from one another in accepting that God-realization is the ultimate goal. These reasons were: "Maybe what you say is correct. Let us realize God. We accept that realization of God is ultimately the goal of life. But, where is God?" There the differences arose. Once again the old habit of thinking crept into the minds of people. One said that God is transcendent only and He can be reached only by deep affection and love for Him. You cannot satisfy somebody merely by rituals. Your heart has to go with it. This is the Bhakti Marga of Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka, Ballavha, Krishna Chaitanya Deva, and many others.

The Advaita school of thought is something quite different. It tries to unify all these principles. Bhakti is necessary; it is perfectly right. God may be transcendent, in one sense of the term. He is also immanent, in another sense of the term. Love of God is the way to reach Him because without affection you cannot contact Him, really speaking. All these are accepted by Advaita Vedanta; yet it says there is something more than all these things – namely, there is no point in bringing into the vision of perfection any duality, any discrepancy, any conflict, in any fashion whatsoever, such that there cannot be a distinction even between God and the soul, because if distinction is maintained, you are once again reverting to the old concept of duality, multiplicity, etc.

While all the dualities converge into the perception of a single unitary action of the universe, there is a doubt about the relationship between the human soul and God. That doubt also has to go. In what way are you concerned with God? Are you totally outside, or inside? Are you a servant of God? Are you a friend of God? What kind of person are you? These are all human considerations transplanted from the earth and placed in the kingdom of God. The human feelings do not leave us even when we logically argue things. After all, what is logic? It is only man-made thinking. So Advaita gave the final touch to the superstructure of logical thinking and concluded that there cannot be distinction of any kind, anywhere, between anything. There must be a total, absolute unitariness, Being itself, Existence, pure and simple, which is conscious of itself. It is ultimate freedom, therefore. Satchitananda is its nature. That alone is. Nothing else can be. This is Advaita's point.

Still, some deviations from the original Agamas and Tantras arose in a religious fashion – not in a ritualistic fashion, but in a specialized form of Agamas known as Vaishnava Agamas, Shaiva Agamas and Shakta Agamas. It was not enough to posit only Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. Later on it also became necessary to concede a power that is inherent in these gods – and each god had a shakti, or a force. In common Puranic style the shakti, or the power of Brahma, is called Saraswati; the shakti, or power, of Vishnu is Lakshmi; the shakti of Siva is Durga, Parvati. It was felt that this shakti is inseparable from the god who wields it because you cannot have your power somewhere, and sit somewhere else. When you say you have power, you are identical with that power. It is only a conceptual distinction; the actual power cannot stand outside you. When you say fire is hot, the heat is not outside fire. It is fire only. Likewise, Siva-Shakti samyoga, Lakshmi-Narayan samyoga, etc. were contemplated in the Agamas, which are known as the Shaiva Agamas, Vaishnava Agamas and Shakta Agamas, to bring to a halt any further discussion in the matter of religion – to say, once and for all, everything about religious awareness throughout the process of its development, right from the beginning till the modern day.

Here you have the whole history of religious awareness in Bharata-varsha – in India.

Excerpts from:

Darshanas – Different schools of thought: Chapter 15 The Heart and Soul of Spiritual Practice by Swami Krishnananda
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June 29,2013 (Weekly) - Practice of Pratyahara by Swami Chidananda

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Svadyaya for June 29, 2013

PRACTICE OF PRATYAHARA

  

Majority of yogis may be in a city surrounding with their own families to look after, business to attend to, or service to be done. In their case, pratyahara cannot be an unhampered and undisturbed process of abhyasa, as they have to practice pratyahara in the midst of their daily activities. For them pratyahara has to become a way of life. You must learn how to practise withdrawal even when you are right in the midst of lots of things, people and activities.

 

You must learn the art of inner detachment even in the midst of activity, the art of how to not allow the external objects to go right deep into your consciousness even if they pass before the eyes like a kaleidoscope or a cinema. Detach the mind. Let it have some other background, some other focal point, even in the midst of vyavahara. The yogi should carry on unbroken God-thought, unbroken God-remembrance within himself, always, always.

 

Mahatma Gandhi made a Gujrati translation of Srimad Bhagavad Gita and gave it the name “Anasakti Yoga – The Yoga of Detachment”. He said that this was the message of Gita: “In the midst of the world, be detached from the world like the lotus in the lake, unaffected and uncontaminated by water.” You are involved and occupied in various activities. Why? Because it is your kartavya karma. Yet, in the midst of it all, know that you have nothing to do with it at all. You are in a crowd, and yet, you are alone. You should learn to give only a part of the mind to external vyavahara. Only that much of mind as is absolutely essential and necessary, keeping the rest in God-thought.

 

There is another aspect to it. Supposing, the impression has already entered the mind. All right. Detach the ego and doership from the mind. Say: “No. I refuse to get dragged into this, I refuse to associate myself with it, I stand apart from it. I am only a witness of it. I am the witness-consciousness. So, disconnect your link with the mind. Be a dispassionate, unaffected witness-consciousness. Arjuna was told in the midst of the war that he was to be completely detached, he was to be established in God-remembrance. “Maamanusmara Yudhya Cha – remember Me constantly and fulfil your duty.” [Gita 8.7] Even in the midst of the most intense and dynamically active life, one should be in a state of Yoga inside – “Yogasthah Kuru Karmaani – by being established in Yoga, perform action abandoning attachment.” [Gita 2.48]

 

God Bless You!

Swami Chidananda

Continue Reading:

Pratyahara

By Swami Sivananda

 

The Abstraction of the Senses

By Swami Krishnananda

 

The Application of Pratyahara

By Swami Krishnananda

 

Seeing Through The Delusion of Desire

By Swami Krishnananda

 

Surrender to God

By Swami Krishnananda

 

Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy from Divine Life Society

 

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Weekly Guided Meditation & Spiritual Study - April 6, 2013 - "Sadhana for Modern Man"

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Svadyaya for April 6, 2013

SADHANA FOR MODERN MAN

Sadhana is the purpose for which we have come to this earth-plane. This is called sadhana-bhumi, for it is the earth-plane alone, upon which sadhana for Self-realisation can be done. God-realisation is the main end and aim of life. In the present age, the one vehicle for sadhana, which is very important – the human body – has degenerated most frightfully. In spite of this degeneracy on the physical plane, mentally man has evolved a great deal. He should shift the emphasis of sadhana from the physical to the mental. We have to admit that we have limitations of time and energy.

For this Vedanta has given the right clue. It lays all the emphasis on mental culture. Vedanta is a complete divine psychology. We have forgotten our real nature. What is the remedy for this? To remember it and reassert it. Autosuggestion is the mainstay, the pillar, of Vedanta. It says, “Remember your lost heritage, your real nature, and assert it again and again, and again.” You can let your whole body be engaged in any activity throughout the day. At the same time, you can unbrokenly carry on the divine current of Atmik assertion going on. This autosuggestion will become more a latent aptitude than a bhav. When it is established into a permanent bhav, then that bhav will translate itself into practice. As you think, so you become.

There are two obstacles for this autosuggestion. Firstly, vices or the impurities of mind. Two methods are prescribed for overcoming them. One is thinking of the opposite – pratipaksha bhavana – and asserting the presence of that which you wish to gain. By asserting the opposite of your present vices, you grow into the nature of the virtues and the vices disappear. The other is the law that the positive always overcomes the negative. Therefore, certain positive assertions are constantly prescribed. This overcomes the negative dehadhyasa – identification with the body and the mind. And the identification with Atman is reasserted. Body upadhi and other upadhis hold down the mind from soaring into Atmik realms. In order to counteract them, sattavik upadhis are purposely prescribed. He is asked to be in spiritual surroundings. He is asked to do japa, kirtan and meditation. The mental upadhis should be made sattavic through autosuggestion, through pratipaksha bhavana, through always trying to be positive, and through voluntarily taking divine upadhis. Man is asked to take sannyasa. That gives powerful colouring to the mind. The colouring of the mind should be made divine. In an incredibly short time, he will see that the whole world stands transformed before him.

God Bless You!

Swami Chidananda

Svadyaya for March 9,2013 - The Consciousness can triumph over the Inert

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SATURDAY MARCH  9, 2013 2:00 – 3:45 PM NEW YORK (EST) ONLINE-Skype TOPIC – The Conscious can Triumph Over The Inert SKYPE ID DLSNewYork VISIT FORUM E-MAIL BLOG SHIVARATHRI POOJA LIVE TELECAST GURUDEV’S MESSAGE Om Namah Shivaya Swami Krishnananda’s Shivarathri Message Siva: The Mystic Night	Svadyaya for March 9, 2013 The Conscious Can Triumph Over The Inert Radiant Divinities! The conscious and the inert exist side by side in the creation of God. You constitute the conscious entity. The universe outside you constitutes the inert factor. A conscious being like you, from the moment of birth begin to perceive things, to react to them. Then as you grow you interact with them, and later you begin to act upon them. Further on, you investigate them, analyse them. You probe and wrest the secret of everything. The conscious ever advances, ever evolves, ever improves and masters everything. The inert continues to exist as it is. The conscious is the powerful factor; the inert is powerless. Tobacco is inert thing; it does nothing. If you leave it, it will wither away by itself. We began to relate ourselves to it in a slavish way. Then it becomes to us a bondage, a menace. They can do nothing by themselves. Therefore from pragmatic and rational point of view, it is meaningless to say that the universe is bondage, that we caught in samsara and suffer helplessly. Samsara has no power to bind as it is jada, inert. It is you who cling to it. Bondage arises from you, not from Samsara. And you have the power to perceive: “What binds me? What liberates me? What is inimical to me and what is beneficial to me?” The way in which consciousness is applied and used throughout Prakriti (Nature) determines what the universe does to you or what you can do to the universe. You can triumph over everything around you. If there is knowledge at the basis, then everything you do, you do rightly; and the universe around you becomes a help to your evolution. If the basis is ignorance, then you create bondage. The universe is meant to be a help for your evolution and a liberating factor; it is you who convert it into a hindrance, a bondage. The degree of ignorance, the degree of folly with which we relate ourselves to the things determines the degree of harm they can do to us. Ponder this truth again and again. Know that bondage arises from our folly of utilizing our God-given facilities in a wrong manner. If we do not use our human potential and our faculties wisely, they can all become problems to us. This is the crux of human problem, of jivatama’s plight. Think about it day after day, all your life. In that lies your arising from unrealities to Reality, from darkness to Light. Become your own liberator now and here. God Bless You! Swami Chidananda
ABOUT THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY The Divine Life Society is a shining example of the creative aspect of the Divinity within man. It is a remarkable achievement of the Founder, His Holiness Sri Swami Sivananda, who from the year 1936, has built up the wonderful mansion of 'Divine Life' brick by brick, on the firm foundations of purity, integrity, nobility and magnanimity Read more OM NAMO BHAGAVATHE SIVANANDAYA, OM NAMO BHAGAVATHE KRISHNANANDAYA, OM NAMO BHAGAVATHE CHIDANANDAYA Our Pranams and thanks to our beloved Swami Padmanabhanandaji, General Secretary, Divine Life Society, Rishikesh, India If you wish to opt out of the Email News, please send email to dlsusa.org@gmail.com with subject line ‘Remove me from DLS News Alerts’