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Re: Intra Religious Distinctions - Section 7

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Sampath Rengarajan • April 9, 1996 


On Apr 4,  2:26pm, vidya@cco.caltech.edu wrote:
> Subject: Re:  Intra Religious Distinctions - Section 7
> I don't want to get into an advaita vs. viSishTAdvaita debate on this
> list, but I had to point out something wrt jIvanmukti and videha mukti.
>
> Let us first see what the real argument about jIvanmukti is, from the
> advaita perspective. Briefly, the jIvanmukta is considered to have burnt
> all sancita and Agamin karma by having realized brahman, and only prArabdha
> karma that was responsible for taking on the present body continues to
> operate. When this prArabdha karma exhausts itself, the body perishes and
> the jIvanmukta is not affected thereby.
>
> Now, from part 6 of this series, Sri Ramaswamy says, "... as visishtadvaita
> holds, on performance of prapatti, all sins are extinguished except that
> portion of prarabdha karma which the 'tripta' prapanna has agreed to
> experience till the time comes for the fall of his body in the normal course.
>
> .... Only at the time of death, there will be a nil balance of Karma thus
entitling the Prapanna to Moksha. "
>


 The very essence of saranaagathi is such that once surrendered the karamaas
are immaterial to that soul and there is very fine distinction that can be
assumed here between the totally surrendered soul and prapannaa for the sake of
clarifying this. A surrendered soul if requests the Lord to immediately accept
him or her, the Lord will do so. However, prapanna even though surrendered
would want to serve the Lord Untill such time the body is destined to live on
this face of earth. That is where this jivan mukthaa accept to serve the left
over life due to the joy they think of having by serving the archa moorthis and
fellow srivaishnavaas and not due to the "hold" of prArabtha karmaa. The
prArabtha karmaa ceases once a soul surrenders at once or as a prapaNNaa. The
question of whether praarabtha karma is powerful enough to hold the body of the
surrenderd soul untill its mandated life term is answered such that the
prArabtha karma cannot do so. ie once surrenderd even prArabdha kaRma is
surrenderd at the feet of the Lord who is superior and (Lord) is not bound by
this karma. And that such Lord absolves all such karmaas including the
prArabtha karma when surrendered by the soul and as desired by the the soul. ie
All we need to do is ask either of the two things.


1. We surrender *all* our good and bad vianai and request HIM to render us from
the cycle of birth and deaths and take us to be part of HIS etrenal service
from this moment at HIS eternal abode.

2. We surrender *all* our good and bad vianai and request HIM to render us from
the cycle of birth and deaths and take us to be part of HIS etrenal service
from this moment in the earth as a prapannaa and until such time this body is
mandated to live and then to serve HIM in HIS eternal abode.

There are souls who have opted the rule no.1

eg. Sri Alawandaar
eg. Sri Bishmar (He would surrender his soul only at this auspicious time)


>
> ps. I have been making slow progress through Vedarthasangraha, and while
> the traditional style is to set the purvapaksha argument first and then
> set forth one's own siddhAnta, I also find more substance in Ramanujacharya's
> philosophical arguments. Sankara has been accused of misrepresenting
Buddhism,
> Ramanuja has been accused of misrepresenting advaita, and so on. However,
> pointing out why one differs from the pUrvapakshin is quite different from
> misunderstanding the pUrvapakshin and thereby misrepresenting his position
> completely.
>
> mA vidvishAvahai
>-- End of excerpt from vidya@cco.caltech.edu



I think the sequence of argument is very similar to what the modern world would
follow  as a procedure to prove a new approach or thoery.

1. Literature survey of the already exixting schools of approach.

2. The scope for a new approach by pointing out the deficiencies of the
existing appraoch.

3. Preseting the new approach with soultions to solve such deficiencies pointed
out in the earlier approaches.

4. Comparative evaluations of the earlier approaches and this new approach with
solved problebs as example.

5. Practical or Experimental solutions and validation of the new approach.

6. Conclusions

Sri RaamaNujaa's approach may look new but it is eternal. In the crnologu of
events that is mandated to occur in this kalpam or calender or yugam It is
however new at the time of its inception. It was compared to the earlier
appraoches of Sri Adi sankara and others by HIMself where ever required. It is
not born out of misunderstaning the previos approaches. It is very thorough
even in terms of modern standards for presentations of a new appraoach. Sri
Raamnuja need not have compared our principle with others as ours is the only
eternal one. However, in the context of this yugam and the state of confusion
(confusion - in terms of eternity and parath thuvam - created by the earlier
approaches) that was present in the in the so called "advanced minds" of
people, he found a neccesity to do so to provide a relative postion of this
approach so that such "advanced mind" can perceive this easily.


Sampath Rengarajan