Re: What Advaita can offer ...?
Originally Posted by
Anirudh
Namaste
For a moment if we assume HDF as miniature world, we find that, we all are in a kind of hot pursuit or in search of something with a belief if it is found will bring peace prosperity wealth satisfaction etc etc.
So with a basic agreement that we all searching something or the other, what does the knowledge of Advaita offer to the seeker?
The question might NOT fit into the general norms of Advaita ideologies due to sentence formation. But the idea is to know what Advaita offer to the human who is busy getting the ends to meet?
Pardon me if similar questions have been raised in the past. I posted as I couldn't find answers ....
Thanks in advance...
Namaste Anirudha,
Interactions with you always bring out brutal frankness in me, so let me offer the following along the line :--
Yes, survival and winning over adversities is what occupies individuals; similarly, let us think about what Dharma has to do in order to survive and win over.
Have you ever tried to explain Hinduism or some part of it to a Muslim? From my own experience I can say, that the only way I could do that was via Advaita.
There is much more to it. Dharma has to expand its frontiers quietly, because mutual annihilation (in the name of whatever) is not the way forward for humanity.
It is not too much of stretch to see that Dvaita and Advaita are the attractors for Christians and Muslims respectively, when they make a conscious move towards the higher principles (but coded deep within) of Dharma.
Dvaita and Advaita, therefore, take on the role of "the receptionist"- the helping hand- from within the vast expanses of Dharma. To take one more example, in the 70's and 80's we heard of many Westerners becoming Dharma-inclined due to the presence and movement of ISCKON (dvaitic paradigm) there-- however, once Dharma having found roots in the West, we now see Western Hindus coming along in all shades -- Shaivas, Kali-bhaktas, Hanubhaktas, so on-- reflective of the fact that on the average many today have indeed moved closer to the "core" of Dharma.
But once we are there- the core- and a lot of effort is required in order to be there - whether one was "born a Hindu" or "was adopted"- we also become something of "the giver"- and are required to preserve and nourish the "core" much more than emphasising on the "frontiers" and the "receptionists".
KT
Things to remember:
1. Life = yajña
2. Depth of Āstika knowledge is directly proportional
to the richness of Sanskrit it is written in
3. Āstika = Bhārata ("east") / Ārya ("west")
4. Varṇa = tripartite division of Vedic polity
5. r = c. x²
where,
r = realisation
constant c = intelligence
variable x = bhakti
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