Hare Krishna

My dandvat pranams to everyone here and a very happy new year.

sorry for past month i have been very busy because of family
commitments and vacation season. Aravind i shall shortly make a post
on Vedicsociety in continuation to my last one.

As for your question over here:

1) In Sastra jnana yoga marga aims at realization of self[jivaatman]
in its pristine state free from effects or covering of prakriti. And
on success jnana leads to dhyana yoga[in which highest achievement
is samadhi/kaivalyam]. The pristine state of Jivataman is that its
simply bliss consciousness. This absorption of Self in contemplating
uniterruptedly on its own blissfull nature is what is called
Kaivalyam. A soul in such state is not aware of other jivatamans and
is neither aware of prakriti or all that follows from prakritic
association. Its just "perfectly established" in contemplation on
its own blissfull nature. Vedanta sutra states that this enjoyment
of a mukta of his own Self is brought about by grace of Supreme.
Without His grace Jiva cannot achieve it. Surrendering to Supreme is
what evokes his grace. Krishna is very clear in gita that jiva atman
can cross maya of krishna "only" by surrendering to him. Even in
gita it is stated that without bhakti one cannot achieve this state.
Ramanuja clearly writes in his commenatry on gita 14.26 that Brahman
[Jiva brahman] or Self isn't simply achieved by contemplating or
speculating about difference between Self and inert material nature
but its surrender to Supreme in mood of bhakti that helps a baddha
jiva to overcome gunas of prakriti and attain Self as it is
immutable, blissfull, immortal, beyond the influence of prakriti
through real knowledge of Self. However this bhakti is not Suddha
bhakti since in this case surrender to bhagavan and bhakti bhava
following that surrender is practiced with point of view of gaining
knowledge of atman and finally being established in absorption of
ones consciousness in ones own blissfull nature.

So since surrender to Krishna is practised here, these people can be
called mahajans. One category of people surrendering to Krishna are
jigyasu or seekers after knowledge. [Gita 7 chapter] They are equal
to everyone and well wishers to everyone. Free from material taints
and dualities they are established in true knowledge of Self by
grace of krishna. However these people are at a lower stage when
compared to suddha bhaktas who follow the path of Sarangati and are
only content by pleasing krishna without any ulterior motive be it
liberation in form of kaivalyam or any kind of material benefit.
Such people only aim at endless communion with krishna in prema and
are content with that.

2) Followers of Sankara ain't true jnanis like the one i was talking
about in point 1. One must remember the scriptural conception of
brahman the impersonal absolute is different from what Sankara's
conception of brahman is. Gaudiyas don't say impersonal absolute is
attributeless or nirvisesa vastu etc....... like Sankarites. Hence
these advaitic followers of Sanakara can never be called mahajans.
Reason being:

a) First they don't even understand there object of worship -
Impersonal Brahman as it is explained in scriptures.

b) Second they neither understand true nature of Soul. They think it
to be infinite and absolutely identical with Supreme. All this
which is mentioned in Sankara's mayavada is totally
against "basic vedic principles". So how can they ever be
established in true nature of Soul.

Its just because of their offences to Supreme Person Vasudeva
that they are not able to understand themselves[jivatman] and
neither impersonal brahman[their object of worship]. This is the
fate of a person who doesn't follows vedic principles. Sometimes
they may talk about bhakti etc.... but bhakti is not merely a
sentiment, goswamis are very clear that bhakti which voilates the
principles of Sastra like pancaratra, upanisads, gita, bhagavata
etc..... is simply disturbance in society. That bhakti is neither
assudha bhakti nor suddha bhakti its "purely disturbance". That is
what Sankaras mayavada has created in society - disturbance a
spiritual disturbance. Time stands as a proof of this.

3) So who are these mahajans ? answer comes from bhagavata where it
is said great people like Sukadeva Goswami and Kumars were all
established in Self in its pristine state and then as the atma rama
verse of bhagavata talks about how people established in Self[ atma
rama] are elevated to Krishna consciousness, these people were
elevated to the platform of suddha bhakti by grace of Lord. So those
people who like Sukadeva and Kumars remain situated in knowledge of
Self and are not against basic principles of Vedic Sastra can be
called mahajans and not these mayavadi followers of Sankara
Vedanta or neo vedanta.


Your Servant Always,
Sumeet.

> --- In achintya (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com, Aravind Mohanram
<psuaravind@y...>
> wrote:
> >
> > Haribol all,
> >
> > I was reading the Bhagavatam verse below and was surprised to
see
> Prabhupada call even impersonalists as mahajanas (I'm seeing this
> favorable comment for the first time ). But, I have a few
questions
> that I would like learned members to address. First of all,
> >
> > Who are the impersonalists that are being talked about?
> >