The Divine Bliss, which is the source of all happiness, is related to its Knowledge that was revealed in its original form by the Supreme Divine power, Krishna, during His miraculous appearance in this world. That was the Gita. The origin of all the spiritual “isms” and the knowledge of all the knowledges, which has now been further simplified by His Divinity Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, the foremost disciple of Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj, who is the Supreme Divine descension of this age.
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The Gita is not only a philosophy. It is a promise of God.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati on the Bhagavad Gita: Ultimate Scripture | Gita Series Part 1, Speech 1
अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जना: पर्युपासते |
तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् || 22||
Ananyāshchintayantomāṁ ye janāḥparyupāsate.
Teṣhāṁnityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga-kṣhemaṁvahāmyaham.
It tells to merge all the spiritual formalities into the exclusiveness of loving devotion to the Supreme form of God, and you will receive His vision.
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TheDivine souls,
In the last meeting I described about maya, the mayicworld and its limitations, and our desire to find absolute knowledge, absolute happiness and absolute dignity. And that refers to God only, not to this world. So, we actually desire for God, not for this world. Then the question came about soul and God. We start from here today.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati’s Gita Series: Eternal Wisdom | Gita Series Part 1, Speech 2
Shankaracharya was a descended Divine personality. Around 1300 to,1600 years ago he wrote a description on Brahma Sutra. Brahma Sutra is a book written by Ved Vyas. It has four sections, and every section has four chapters – 16 chapters. It’s a very small book, and it has around 600 small, codified sentences. That’s it. It’s a small book but on that book the Jagadgurus wrote their bhaysha. Bhashya means detailed description or detailed explanation. And the first one was Shankaracharya. Then there was Ramanujacharya, Madhvacharya, and Nimarakacharya. All those Saints wrote their own descriptions on that particular book. That book relates to the situation of soul, mayaand God. There are only three things:mayaworld or maya and souls,the uncountable souls, and God and how a soul could find God. That’s it. Because they are codified sentences, they had to be explained, and explanations vary. Shankaracharya said in his explanation that soul and God are one. He refers to many of those sutras.
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I’ll just take one sutra,
तद्गुणसारत्वात् तु तद्व्यपदेशः, प्राज्ञवत् ॥ २९ ॥
Prakashanand Saraswati Reveals the Hidden Truths of Krishna’s Descent | Gita Series 1, Speech 3
Tadguṇasāratvāttutadvyapadeśaḥ, prājñavat || 29 ||
He wrote in detail on this sutra and says that soul is God,and God has become soul – a general theory. He tried to explain this theory throughout.All of his writings were on that particular Vedant Sutra, and also, he tried to prove the same thing through Gita also at some places. So, his theory was contradicted first by Madhvacharya then Ramanujacharya. I’m telling you very briefly.
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You see if one has to study all those bhashyasand nyay and vyakarn, means grammar, it might take at least 20 years, and 20 years means a whole lifetime of study. I’m trying to explain in two brief speeches all those philosophies. Shankaracharya’s theme was like that. Okay.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati on Krishna’s Eternal Meaning | Gita Series 1, Speech 4
Madhvacharya says,“No, there is absolute duality! There’s no nonduality. There’s no nondualism or Absolute dualism!” Soul is soul. God is God. They’re entirely different -entirely.There’s no comparison; nothing at all. He wrote just the opposite.Ramanujacharya’s bhashyais called Shri Bhashya. That’s very prominent and it’s also in great detail, so he gave a great description starting from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. His theory is called vishishtadwait. Shankaracharya’s theory was called adwait and Madhvacharya’s theory was called dwait. So there’s Madhvacharya’s dwaitand vishishtad wait of Ramanujacharya. In his Vishishtad vait soul and God are two and not two,
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati on Krishna’s Infinite Divine Form | Gita Series Part 1, Speech 5
“They are two. No, they are one. No, they are two.”
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Like this it goes on.Vishishtad vait means that’s one nonduality and vishishta means in a particular situation, they are one and in a particular situation, they are not one. It’s difference of situation, or you can say, there’s a different angle of view. Just like when you see this house from the top it looks something different; you see the roof only. If you see this house from the front, it’s a nice view. So what is the angle of view of the same thing? So, with a particular angle of view, soul and God could be the same – could be. So Brahma Sutra says:
भोगमात्रसाम्यलिंगाच्च ।।२१।।
Bhogamātrasāmyalingāch-ch.
It means they are similar, but they are similar – not they are one. Soul and God are similar but the two still remains. So, in certain situations soul and God are entirely different. He says, “You see the souls, they are uncountable and God is just one. One God and uncountable souls.” How could that all be one?
Swami Prakashanand on Krishna’s Omnipresence and Divine Reality | Gita Series Part 1, Speech 6
So, they are entirely different and Shankaracharya’s theory is not relevant, not logical, and not scriptural because Ved also explains about ‘gya’ and ‘agya’ -that Soul is ‘agya’ and God is ‘gya’.‘Gya’ means knowledge or gyan. Knowledge means Divine knowledge, not just literal knowledge. It comes from within. So soul is initially ignorant. It has no ‘gya’ – it has no gyan. It is not knowledgeable, and God is knowledge Himself. The soul is ignorant, and God is knowledgeable because God Himself is knowledge. God Himself is bliss. God Himself is anand because He Himself is knowledge, bliss and anand, means happiness.
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So how can the soul have that thing? The soul is ignorant. In his ignorance, he tries to study, tries to be literate, to learn something, or have some academic qualification. But again, the ignorance still prevails. So soul is not even equal to God; soul is soul and God is God – a general theory.
Swami Prakashanand on Worshipping God in Five Divine Forms | Gita Series Part 1, Speech 7
Then there is Nimbarakacharya. His theory is called dwaitadwait. Dwait means two and adwait means one. He says, “soul and God, their relationship, is like dwait and adwait both.” And when they refer to soul and God they refer to maya also. Shankaracharya has said that maya is nothing but illusion and soul is nothing but God, and because of illusion soul looks like soul. Initially, it is the supreme Divinity. That’s what he has said. So, he eliminated mayicpower – the maya.
Ramanujacharya said,“No, there are all these three:maya is also a power, souls are uncountable, and God is supreme.” The same theory has been said by Nimbarakacharyain his own style. He changed slightly in his own style but took the same thing: soul, mayaand God. Mayais is a power of God.
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मयाध्यक्षेण प्रकृति: …
Mayādhyakṣheṇprakṛitiḥ…
Krishna says,“I control maya, …
…सूयते सचराचरम् ।
…sūyatesa-charācharam.
…and, “Whatever we see in this universe, in this world, is all the product of mayaand maya is a power and that power is enlivened by God and God is Krishna.”It’s in the Gita.
Swami Prakashanand on Taoism & Confucianism: Divine Paths | Gita Series Part 1, Speech 8
So maya is not a fake. It’s not an illusion. Illusion happens in something but that something is a fact. Take for instance, you are going somewhere. It is dark and something has moved, something black and you got scared. Something black moved. You think, “Oh, it’s my own cat! It’s not a wild cat!” But you got scared and thought, “Maybe somebody is jumping on me!” So first you got scared when you mistook something, but there was something.
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So, when you get any kind of confusion, there’s some object to make you confused. Confusion arises out of some object. Suppose you picked up a coin from the street. You thought, “It might be a gold coin! No, it’s just a brass coin, not a gold coin.” So, the brass coin was there. You mistook it for gold, but the brass one was there. So there cannot be a total illusion. It’s like an optical illusion. You know what an optical illusion is. But something is there that creates the illusion. So, like you are going in a train and that train is crossing. You think,“Oh, my train is static, and the other train is moving.” Actually, your train is moving. These things like that we all know. These optical illusions also happen on some substantial basis; there cannot be any illusion out of illusion.
So Ramanujacharya has said, “This world is a fact; it exists.” Illusion is created out of this world, out of this existence. Illusion cannot be on its own. Illusion has a base. So, Shankaracharya’s anirvachaniya(अनिर्वचनिय)illusion is a fake theory. It’s not good. So same thing was repeated again by Nimbarakacharya. He says, “I accept that expansion of Ramanujacharyabut I have another angle of view of soul and God.” He accepts maya, cosmic power, is a fact. Soul and God he say is dwait-adwait. It is both. When soul is a soul, he is completely separate from God under the bondage of maya. When a soul becomes God realized then a soul becomes a Saint. Then between a Saint and God there’s no difference, because Saint receives the same body as God.
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The other thing is that the soul is also chaitanya. Chaitanyameans “live”. It’s not dead like maya. And God is also Chaitanya; He is knowledge, He is bliss. So,the soul is separate from God, entirely different from God, yet with God. When he is with God he is almost like same. This is according to all the acharya’s theories.
Suppose Krishna is playing with His playmates.The playmates are enjoying the company of Krishna and Krishna also enjoys the company of those playmates; both enjoy the same amount of Divine blissfulness. Playmates enjoy from Krishna. Krishna enjoys from playmates. The amount of enjoyment of blissfulness on both sides is equal. So, in that sense soul is equal to God. But still soul is soul and God is God as refers to the enjoyment of blissfulness. At that point there is complete oneness, but in fact soul remains soul and God remains God – dwait-adwait.
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Additionally, Vallabhacharya accepts the same theory, in his own style. He also says,“This maya is a fact. Soul is individual and uncountable, and God is supreme.” He calls his philosophy sudhad wait. He says that the adwait of Shankaracharya is not pure saying, “I’m making it pure adwait,(means pure monism).” The monism of Shankaracharya (nondualism), is not correct. The correct is pure nondualism, absolute nondualism. Because there’s only one power, blissfulness or bliss or love or knowledge – God. What is God? Knowledge Himself, bliss Himself, love Himself. So, when God is all bliss, all knowledge, all love Himself, then He is one single power. And the same thing soul has received after God realization. So it became absolute oneness. Only in absolute oneness can you experience absolute bliss of an absolute extent. When there is a difference, any kind of difference, you cannot have absolute experience. If there is even a bit of duality, then there’s no absolute experience.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati on Tao, Confucius, Kami & the Gita | Gita Series Part 1, Speech 9
To have absolute experience of Krishna’s absolute blissfulness, it has to be absolutely one. So, when the soul becomes absolutely one in the pure state then he experiences Krishna’s blissfulness. So, He is only one, not even two, because absolute experience can only happen in nonduality, but he calls it absolute nonduality or pure nonduality. Because Shankaracharya has said that there’s no experience of blissfulness- the soul just merges and you are finished. He says, “No, no, that’s not desirable. You have to experience the absolute bliss of Krishna. And to experience the absolute bliss of Krishna, you have to be absolutely one with Krishna.”
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जित देखो तित श्याम मयी है।
Jit dekho tit Shyam mayīhai.
Gopi says to her friend, “Oh my dear friend, when I think of Krishna, when I think about me, I begin to feel that I don’t remain anywhere. Within me, I see Krishna. Inside me, I find Krishna. In my mind I only observe Krishna. In my dream I only dream of Krishna. In my heart only Krishna life is there. So where do I live? I have no idea.”
So, when your individuality is totally merged there’s only Krishna, Krishna, Krishna!
वासुदेव: सर्वमिति स महात्मा सुदुर्लभ: । ।
Vāsudevaḥsarvamitisamahātmāsudurlabhaḥ. (Gita)
So, that state is perfect nondualism, absolute nondualism, pure nondualism. So, he calls his theory Adwait but Sudhadwati. So, in the absolute nondual state, all the Saints experience the bliss of Krishna but yet Saints are uncountable, and God is only one.
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Chaitanya Mahaprabhuji was also at that time. he did not write any philosophy or any book on Vedant Sutra. He said that Bhagwatam is enough to explain the philosophy of Vedant Sutra which was again, written by Ved Vyas himself. But his disciple Jeev Goswami wrote his philosophy and it’s called achintyabhedabhad. He reconciles all the theories together. It means adwait, dwait-adwait, dwait, shudhadwait-all -all the philosophies. All of these are words; the situation is beyond human conception. Whatever it is over there, dual or nondual or pure nondual or whatever it is, is beyond conception. How it is beyond conception, and how Shankaracharya justifies his saying of soul and God’s equality, I’ll explain in the next speech.
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