Bhagavad Gita in the Light of Sri Ramakrishna (Class 5) | Swami Medhananda
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- In this class (Class 5), we continue discussing 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 6 on Oct 1st), we will discuss pp. 1209-1220 of Swami Medhananda’s article, “Toward a New Hermeneutics of the Bhagavad Gītā: Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo, and the Secret of Vijñāna,” which you can download here:
vedanta.org/wp-content/upload...
Study questions for the next homework assignment:
1. What is the difference between eisegesis and exegesis?
2. According to Sri Ramakrishna, how does the jñānī’s realization and outlook on the world differ from the vijñānī’s?
3. What is the difference between Śaṅkara’s and Sri Ramakrishna’s respective conceptions of ultimate reality?
4. Explain some of the ways that Sri Aurobindo was influenced by Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.
5. Explain the relevance of Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual experiences to his interpretation of the Bhagavad Gītā.
6. The scholar Robert Minor claims that Sri Aurobindo took his own mystical experiences as “the highest authority and the first interpretive principle” for the understanding the Indian scriptures, including the Gītā. Why does Swami Medhananda disagree with Minor’s claim?
7. According to Swami Medhananda, what role did Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual experiences play in his interpretation of the Gītā?
8. How does Śaṅkara interpret the terms “jñāna” and “vijñāna” in Gītā verses such as 3.41?
9. What problems does Swami Medhananda identify in Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the terms “jñāna” and “vijñāna” in the Gītā?
10. How does Rāmānuja interpret the terms “jñāna” and “vijñāna” in Gītā 7.2?
11. According to Swami Medhananda, what is the problem with Rāmānuja’s interpretation of the terms “jñāna” and “vijñāna” in the Gītā?
12. How does Swami Tapasyananda interpret the terms “jñāna” and “vijñāna” in the Gītā?
13. How does Sri Aurobindo interpret the terms “jñāna” and “vijñāna” in Gītā 7.1-2?
14. According to Sri Aurobindo, why is the Gītā’s concept of vijñāna so important for understanding the Gītā as a whole?
Please respond to the study questions by filling in the online form here:
forms.gle/U1dx1fGmr6ivK5JA7
In case you’re interested, you can download Sadhu Santinath’s autobiography, Experiences of a Truth-Seeker here:
archive.org/details/in.ernet....
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...
Thankyou Swamiji. Very enlightening talk.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Jai Sri Ramakrishna 🌺🙏
Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Sri Ramakrishna
Thank you for teaching us, Swami 😊🌺🙏 You have helped refine and correct some ideas I had. Jai Sri Ramakrishna Jai Ma Jai Swamiji 🌺🌺🌺
Pronaams!🙏 Namashkaars to all!🙏
Pranaam Swami Medhananda ji
Pranam Maharaj 🙏 🙏
Auido has good volume; there is sdgnificant feedback/reverb like speaking from the bottom of a barrel. This can be due to the microphone picking up a secohdary source of audio such as a speaker or high volume (with reflectance off surfaces).
Thats soo soo cool, thank you Swami Medhananda for the upload and the questions. Thats such a great idea, super playful, love it. was enjoying to read this essay and answer the questions. For sure expanded my knowledge about Vedanta greatly.
QUESTION:
Pranaams Swami, why Vasistha's Advaita not considered truly Traditional but only Shankara's? Because, Vasistha (and Gaudapada) does not give any cause such as "Avidya", but only it is the "Svabhava" of Consciousness, like dream arising at night without any cause.
Thank you.
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
Answer is all of those, as Hanuman says to Rama
Pranam Swamiji
My question is different to what you are discussing here.
What does Sri Ramakrishna nean when he says he was Ram and Krishna.
Also what is the significance of Raas lila which is still happening in Vrindavan people say.
The link is not working?
Even if is it possible for jivas, to become vijnanis, why would anyone want to be a vijnani in the first place?
Bhaktas can be with God, and jnanis can attain the Self. What more do we need?
EDIT: Ah, this is just the same question, which Ive asked for the last time, just different phasing.
Thank you Swamiji for answering the previous question 🙏
I think in today's video of Gospel, Swami Medhananda mentions like "Vijnani" is not like desiring, but only for those of Avatar level.
@@viswa2311 In this lecture he argues, how - from his, as a bhakta's interpretation - Srí Ramakrishna opened the door for the jivas towards this realization as well :)
@@zotharr See, these are boost up words, words used to strongly believe. Other than that, Ramakrishna sees himself no more, not even others, but only Goddess Everywhere in all actions.
@@zotharr Vijnana, according to Sri Ramakrishna, is after Advaita Knowledge. If one has understood Advaita Knowledge, then sees no Jiva/second entity then. It's better first one aspire to Bhakthi or Jnana, then if God needs will make one a Vijnani, to set a different play in this Kali Yuga.
Stop hitting the table! You're killing me
59:42 Dear Swamiji,
Yes, I watched the video from lesson 5, and I paid attention to your consideration of my question, and I am very grateful for the development. However, regarding your response, I have a few points to raise:
You are right: Sri Ramakrishna does not assert that those who have attained God as the Absolute Impersonal Brahman will be among those immortal souls who will return when the universe is recreated. But he asserts that those who have attained God as the Beloved Lord will gain from Him an eternal body and personality, and will live in His company.
If then we believe that these souls, who have achieved Prema Bhakti (pure devotion), will be "eternal people" to live with the Supreme Person, what will become of those eternal souls who have achieved the Absolute Brahman? Will they be part of the Lord's eternal body? If, then, as you say, Thakur defends two equivalent peaks (immersion in the Impersonal and communion with the Personal), here we have something similar to the perspective of the theology of the Achintya-Bheda-Abheda. In it we have that the transcendentalist can attain God as the Impersonal Brahman (the follower of jnana yoga), as the Super Soul (the follower of the yoga path), and as the Bhagavan (the devotee), following the guidance of the description of God contained in the Srimad Bhagavatam.
Okay, but you say that the Achintya-Bheda-Abheda say that impersonalists achieve a "lower salvation" (the light of Brahmajyoti, from the effulgence of Bhagavan's body), and that Sri Ramakrishna proposes that both salvific aspects are of equal value.
However, on many occasions, Sri Ramakrishna demonstrates that he sees the understanding of the Personal God as superior.
In fact, Sri Ramakrishna goes so far as to state that the conception of Brahman devoid of qualities (Nirguna) is absurd. We have in the eighth section of the first volume of the Kathamrita, in the meeting on the 26 November 1883:
"(Looking at the Brahmo devotees who have just arrived) “Those who are merely learned and have no love for God say conflicting things. There was a pundit, Samadhyayi by name, who said, ‘The Lord is totally devoid of love, joy, sweetness, and bliss. Make Him sweet by your intense love and devotion for Him.’ He who is called the Essence of Bliss in the Vedas was termed devoid of sweetness by this fellow. This only shows that the man didn’t know at all what God really is. That is why he talked so absurdly.
“Somebody said, ‘There is a cowshed full of horses in my maternal uncle’s house.’ From this you understand that there was not a single horse - horses are not kept in cowsheds. (All laugh.)"
Here we see that Sri Ramakrishna is stating, that he who says that Brahman is Nirguna, is one who has not known God.
What seems obvious to me is that Sri Ramakrishna here is describing the "impersonal aspect of Brahman", exactly like the lower Brahmajyoti of the Achintya-Bheda-Abheda description.
In other words: That God has an impersonal aspect, but that He is not impersonal and without qualities, but the Supreme Person full of all qualities, including the ocean of impersonality.
When Thakur describes the state of Paramahamsa and says that in this state, he, the Paramahamsa, is only a son before the Mother (God), he says harsh words about the perspective of the impersonal : "Nonduality...I spit on it!"
His words are not of conciliation, but of clear pointing to the superior character of the communion between Mother and child, and not as if this communion were of equal value with a dissolution in such an impersonal ocean. Once, when a scholar asks him about the conceptual distinctions between the observer and that which is observed (concepts of the Dṛg-Dṛśya-Viveka, basis of the advaita nexus), Sri Ramakrishna responds (with notorious disdain): "I know nothing of these learned things, What I know is what I know from the Mother."
Sri Ramakrisha is the avatar, the incarnation of God, and his manifestation is said to be like “the son.” He is the incarnation of the devotee, the one who teaches us to have full surrender to God, like the kitten that meows to be carried by its mother cat. He is not teaching that we are the lion raised by the sheep, but rather that we are the kitten, the cat's son.
In conclusion, Sri Ramakrishna's statement that the soul that, obtaining the rare human birth does not seek to know God, was born in vain, does not seem to make sense, if the culmination of the journey is the immersion in the impersonal, when the individuality of the soul is lost. and his communion with the Lord does not exist.
For the special characteristic of human birth is to seek God, with our nature as persons, as personalities, as individuals, who have the capacity to love.
If the culmination is to stop being a person, then why is human birth better than birth in other kingdoms, like mushrooms, for example? Mushrooms are perhaps so "integrated into the whole", so devoid of qualities... The case is that like a mushroom, the immortal soul cannot cry tears for the Beloved Lord.
Thank you one more time!
When it comes to learned people, pundits, I think Thakur means the intelectual people, who only learn the books, and not the realised ones
@@zotharr Yes it is true. But he described the identification of Brahman as devoid of qualities as a sign of lack of real knowledge of Brahman.
@@devotoderamakrishna Where? Because I don't see this from the quote you mentioned
By the way, at this point, I think it's safe to say, that the Katamrita is like an Upanishad. It can be quoted, to prove any type of Vedanta. Just like before, how lots of people went to Him from different sects, and saw Him as one of their own, this is still true even today :)
“But the Reality is one and the same. The difference is only in name. He who is Brahman is verily Ātman, and again, He is the Bhagavān. He is Brahman to the followers of the path of knowledge, Paramātman to the yogis, and Bhagavān to the lovers of God.”
This is from Chapter 5
@@zotharr God has a will. God has infinite aspects. God is the source.
All these considerations try to establish that the Impersonal Ocean is an aspect of Brahman.
Each of us is part of Brahman, as we are manifestations of Shakti, the Primordial Energy (Power) of Brahman.
I think all these statements are clear in Sri Ramakrishna's teaching.
But I agree with you: people can interpret anything about any text.
May shivananada saraswatis be non exisitiant instead of God.
May shmabahvi saraswati be wrong to say God is ever narcissistic at all. May it not be so.