Bhagavad Gita in the Light of Sri Ramakrishna (Class 4) | Swami Medhananda
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- Опубликовано: 3 сен 2023
- In this class (Class 4), we discuss Swami Medhananda's article, "Sri Ramakrishna's Harmonizing Philosophy of Vijñāna Vedānta," which can be downloaded here:
vedanta.org/wp-content/upload...
In the next class (Class 5 on Sept. 17th), we will continue to discuss Swami Medhananda's article, "Sri Ramakrishna's Harmonizing Philosophy of Vijñāna Vedānta."
The homework assignment for Class 6 (to be held on Oct. 1st) is Swami Medhananda’s article, “Toward a New Hermeneutics of the Bhagavad Gītā: Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo, and the Secret of Vijñāna”:
vedanta.org/wp-content/upload...
Main textbook: Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita:
vedanta.org/wp-content/upload...
Supplementary texts:
* Sri Aurobindo, Bhagavad Gita and its Message, edited by Anilbaran Roy (www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-...)
* Swami Tapasyananda’s Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā: The Scripture of Mankind
* Swami Chidbavananda’s The Bhagavad Gita
Gita app based on Sri Aurobindo’s commentary:
Android: play.google.com/store/apps/de...
iPhone: apps.apple.com/in/app/bhagava...
This class should not stop.
These expositions by Swami Medhananda, bringing Thakur to the center, are a great hope for the future work of the Order that bears the name of Sri Ramakrishna. The time has come to teach what Thakur has brought to the world, without veils.
Thank you for continuing to teach us, Swami 😊🌺🙏 Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Ma Jai Swamiji 🌺🌺🌺
Pranams Swami 🙏 I think the work you’re doing is crucial for our understanding and also brings us closer to Sri Ramakrishna in our hearts. Jai Sri Ramakrishna 🙏🙏🙏
Hare Krishna
Pranaam maharaj🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna
Pronam Thakur Maa
Pronam Swamiji Maharaj
It's like Thakur treats all these paths (Advaita, Vishistadvaita, Madhva Vedanta, Bhedabhedaevdanta, Tantra etc) like Solar Energy, Geothermal Energy, Nuclear Energy etc keeping the Goal as Generate Energy. We can use any method which is closest and most appealing to us as long as we remember the ultimate goal.
Pranaam Swami Medhananda ji
Pronam Maharaj 🙏🏻🌹🙏🏻
QUESTION: Class 4. Are you saying that Sri Ramakrishna is like the elephant? Are you saying he is everything to everyone? Whatever the angle a person seeks, we find him that way?
Edited to add: As I continued to listen to the lesson, it seems that vigyana is paramount with a special emphasis on Bhakti. 😊🌺🙏
Question : swamiji I appreciate these very informative sessions that compare so many schools of Vedanta. My struggle is the concept of higher and lower. It smacks of caste. How many of the teachers came from other non brahamin castes? Even in your own tradition are you caste free? Thankyou swamiji.
QUESTION:
How would Sri Ramakrishna describe the individual soul and Brahman like other scholars in the past ?
Like they are same , or soul are sparks of fire, or they are exclusively seperated, etc
Vigyana is this swamis vision. Ramakrishna is not here to approve or disapprove. This teachings is filtered through everyone’s preference including this one.
QUESTION: Is it by the virtue of being stationed at Bhavamukh that Sri Ramakrishna sees the bigger/comprehensive picture of Godhead? As I understand, Bhavamukh is a state and Vijnan is the resultant experience.
Dear swamiji,
Here are the quotes from the Kathamrita that give me the impression that Sri Ramakrishna considers the state of the Eternal Devotee to be superior to that of the soul merging into the Absolute. I have also added my own considerations in defense of this viewpoint.
Kathamrita,volume 1, section-2 ((Friday, 27 October 1882)
"At the time of the total dissolution of the world, the Mother preserves all the seeds of creation, just as the mistress of the house has a hodgepodge pot in which she keeps things of all kinds. (Keshab and the others laugh.)
(Smiling) “Yes, my friend, the mistress of the house does have such a pot in her possession. In it she keeps sea-foam in a solid state, small packets containing the seeds of cucumber, pumpkin, gourd, and so on. All types of seeds are kept carefully. She brings them out when needed. In the same way the Divine Mother keeps all the seeds at the time of the dissolution of the world. After the creation, the Primordial Divine Energy lives very much in the world. Giving birth to the world, She lives within it. The Vedas talk of the Urnanabhi - the spider and its web. The spider creates a web out of itself and then lives in that same web. The Lord is both the container and the contents of the world.”
What it seems to me: In other passages, Sri Ramakrishna describes that one who has attained God as a devotee receives from God a "body of love" and in this, lives with God as a person in God's abode, which is a Person. Thakur says that this state is eternal and never changes.
But in the passage mentioned above, Sri Ramakrishna says that at the end of a cycle, the Mother who dissolved the universe recreates it again, and in this process, these stored seeds come into existence. What are these seeds? I conclude that these seeds are (also) the eternal souls that have not reached God's abode, that have not received these "bodies of love" which are eternal.
Why do I conclude this? Because Sri Ramakrishna is saying that the individuality of the soul is preserved in this state of devotion, where a soul reaches God's abode (and the result of this is the formation of this "body of love"). However, the one who has merged into the Ocean of Sat Cit Ananda, has not received any "body of love". They, like a salt doll that dives into the ocean, dissolve their individuality, giving it up, being intoxicated by the light of the Ocean of Sat Cit Ananda. However, the salt that constituted the doll did not disappear. It is in the ocean. If we desalinate the ocean, we extract the salt from it. So, won't this soul that has merged into the Impersonal also return to the phenomenal universe when the Mother recreates the universe?
In this sense, as I understand it, Sri Ramakrishna is pointing out the superiority of the state of the bhakta, the devotee, as they attain God as a Person. Because it is certain that God has will, is a being, and enjoys bliss and joy. It is in the person-to-person communion that these characteristics are fully embraced.
Here we see another passage: volume-1-section-3: (Saturday, 28 October 1882)
A Brahmo devotee asked, “Is God with form or formless?”Sri Ramakrishna: “One cannot limit God. He is formless and then with form, too. For a devotee, He is with form. For a jnani, that is to say, one who considers the world a dream, God is formless. The devotee thinks that God is one and the world is another. That is why the Lord manifests to him as a person. Jnanis such as Vedantists reason, ‘Not this, not this.’ By so reasoning, the jnani has the inner feeling and experience* that his individuality is an illusion, so the world also is like a dream. The jnani feels the consciousness of Brahman within. But what God is, he cannot express in words.“Do you know what it’s like? It’s like a shoreless ocean of Sat-chit-ananda. Water in the ocean turns into ice at places with the cooling influence of love. This ice takes a form. In other words, at times God manifests and takes a physical form for the devotee. When the sun of knowledge rises, the ice melts. Then God does not appear as a person. Also His form is not visible. What God is cannot be expressed in words. Who is there to express Him? He who would describe Him has disappeared. You cannot find his ‘I,’ even if you search for it.
See the footnote: Bodhebodha: An intellectual, literal, imaginative, inner feeling of the real nature of Brahman (Atman). The Vedanta illustrates it in this way (taken from Vol. III of Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, 24 August, 1882): A person is lying in a room in the dark. Somebody gropes in the dark to reach him. His hand touches a couch and he says, “No, this is not he.” Then he touches the window. “This too is not he.” Then he touches the door and again says to himself, “No, not he. Not this, not this, not this.” At last his hand touches the person. Then he says, “That’s it. That is the person.” This means that he has reached the person, but he hasn’t known him intimately. So let's see: The jnani is the one who "touches" God but does not see Him because there is no light for him to see.
It is then concluded that the devotee, on the other hand, touches and sees God because they have the light of devotion, and in this, they are more full of knowledge (the Vijnani). How is this not superior? Therefore, the one who knows that God has form and is also formless understands that "formless" is just one of the infinite attributes of God. Thus, it is clear that God is essentially Saguna, and "nirguna" is one of His attributes.
QUESTION: Maharaj, (I regret if unrelated to the current context) In the Gita 8.16, Sri Krishna says that the lokas upto that of Bramhā are transitory and subject to rebirth, then is Ramakrishna Loka or Vaikuntha or Jesus Loka ought to be different and higher than Bramha Loka or Satya Loka ? Although traditionally Bramha Loka is said to be the highest of the 14 lokas in Upanishads or Purans....
QUESTION:
Is there any way that comments, answers and/or questions stated by on site attendees can be heard?
It is difficult to understand what everyone else (except you swamiji) is talking in your two way dialog.
Thanks.
One solution is a mobile mike, passed around. Another is a directional mike or one with a parabolic sound reflector/collector.🙏
QUESTION: Swami, what's your opinion upon Yoga Vasistha? Isn't it different from Shankara's Advaita? Because Shankara's Advaita gives a reason for this experience as "Avidya", whereas Yoga Vasistha has many deep understandings and discussions and not provide any cause for this experience but the Svabhava of Consciousness is to appear as this experience.
QUESTION:
Swami, I have a doubt regarding the advaita realization of Nirvikalpa Samadhi in Sri Ramakrishna's perspective. Thakur says that Brahman and Shakthi is Inseparable Always.
My question is, if one experiences in this world both Brahman and Shakthi, then in Nirvikalpa Samadhi also Brahman and Shakthi has to be experienced. If only advaita realization of Brahman is possible in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, then it comes to a meaning like "Shakthi is separate from Brahman as Shakthi is not experienced in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and Shakthi's domain will be limited to the states other than Nirvikalpa Samadhi''. Even if it is said Shakthi is dormant in Brahman as a Seed State in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, advaita realization says that Realization of Brahman is beyond seed state/causal state.
So, I wish to know Sri Ramakrishna's (or Swami Medhananda's) perspective regarding this advaita realization in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, either Shakthi is separable/absent in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, or in Seed/Causal State as "Saguna Brahman/Ishwara in/as/with Unmanifest Gunas/Prakriti".
Pranaams.
QUESTION: Why is it important to categorise Sri Ramakrishna? As an Ista Devata, cant He lead us to a realisation which goes better with our tastes, being that advaita, dvaita, tantra, or whatever?
And if this is the case, than its more usefull if everybody sees Him, as the goal they want to achive. So let advaitins see him as advaitin, and tantras as tantrika
One question: Swami Medhananda says that Sri Ramakrishna taught that the apex can be the Impersonal Absolute or Communion with the Personal God, and that both ends are in equal dignity, in equal glory, one not being higher than the other.
However, in the Kathamrita, Sri Ramakrishna teaches, that those who have plunged into the Impersonal, at the end of ages, when the universe is created anew, they will return to the phenomenal universe.
But Sri Ramakrishna says, that those who attain the Personal God in communion, gain bodies of love, and will live with God forever.
Doesn't this mean that Thakur taught that communion was superior to immersion in the impersonal?
He himself says of impersonal fate, "I spit on it."
Hi. It's true. Just like Ramanuja, Sri Ramakrishna too gave superiority to Communion. In my perception, Many Enlightened Ones gives an importance/superiority based on their Sankalpa, and Sri Ramakrishna is no exception.
Even, Shankara gives importance based on his Sankalpa, he is not truly a jnani. A True Jnani won't speak about Jnana in those Sabha to fight and win arguments, Shankara did it - he is not a Jnani (because a True Jnani would leave others to believe their own view is correct, so that they can be enlightened by such perception, or doubt may arise within themselves, but not interfere with their beliefs and confuse them or change them or win against them intellectually). Shankara gave strong Importance to "avidya" as a cause, which Jnani like Vasistha didn't gave, as there cannot be said a cause for this dream. Bhagavad Gita never spoke about Advaita Jnana, but mostly Sankhya,Yoga and Bhakthi, but Shankara was firmly resolved that BG truly speaks Advaita, so it is also a proof that he is not a True Jnani. For a Jnani, there is only one Brahman, neither to call it Nirguna nor Saguna, and here too Shankara hadn't understood it, so not a jnani.
@@Viswa-O-K Shankara's great historical mission was to bring the concept of Atman to relevance, but he did so in a language that gave much space to the understanding of Buddhist schools. It is natural that this is the case, that the logical tools of a predominant group are used by reformulators. Subsequently, post-Shankara Vedantic schools challenged Advaita, first granting space to Advaita understanding, and then overcoming it.
Shankara was enlightened, but his perception is partial.
@@devotoderamakrishna yes, shankara was Enlightened but perception was partial. That's why I see Yoga Vasistha more Insightful Understandings in the path of Inquiry, than Shankara's reasons/understandings.
@@devotoderamakrishna The challenges made by Yoga Vasistha, is more subtle and crucial, which no Shankara and Ramakrishna and many other can answer. One such is, can this soul which you are, be born as "Thakur" and experience whole life of Thakur? That, Ramakrishna can't answer, neither Shankara, but Vasistha does annd in a way says "Yes, any one can be born as any, even one can be born as the creator Brahma too, that's the power of the Belief". This is where Advaita plays crucial role, any one can be born as anyone who one come across, from Brahma, Vishnu (son of Aditi), and Rudra, and all other Gods in Swarga, and Demi-gods like Yama,etc.. Soul is that much powerful, and whatever one believes as oneself then one can be born as believed.