[Advaita-l] equalness of divine, jiva and prakruti

ramesh badisa badisa66 at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 23 09:13:19 CST 2005


> Ramanujacharya overcomes this problem by saying that Jiva and Ishwar and 

Prakriti are all equal but not the same,…

Namaste. 
* First, it is requested to clear that where sri Ramanuja had said that jiva, Iswara and prakruti are all equal? In which bhasya did he say this? Is the equal ness, for example, between the divine and the jivas, applied before salvation or after salvation? Jiva, by definition is the soul inhabited in a physical body. If this equal ness is applied before salvation, then it is not correct. Because, it is against to sruti. For example, in Sve. Up. 1.10, it is said that divine rules over the prakruti and the jives. It means that divine is the highest and can rule over prakruti and jivas. In that case where is the question of their equal ness? This clearly shows their dependent nature. Of course, the jivas referred here are conditioned souls, and thus they are ruled by the divine. On the other hand, if it is assumed that the equal ness between divine and jiva is applied after salvation, then, it is also not correct. Because, in the state of salvation, the soul becomes divine, like a river
 becomes a sea after merging. Here, body-cell analogy is not correct in absolute sense. Because, this would be against to the all pervade nature of soul (2/24 – Gita) in the state of salvation. Body-cell analogy is right only up to a point. For example, we all are part of saguna brahma’s body, as shown in Viswaroopam in Gita. Since nirgun Brahman has no body and nobody, the application of body-cell analogy to refer the soul-divine relationship in the state of salvation is untenable.

		
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