[Advaita-l] How many margas for mukti

Kripa Shankar kripa.shankar.0294 at gmail.com
Mon Sep 19 02:03:00 CDT 2016


Namaste Kathirasan,

I regard Vyasa to be the pitamaha of not just Vedanta but the entirety of Vedas.  Shankara, who was ever devoted to his Gurus, never deviated from the original import of Brahma sutras, in my opinion.  

In the Mahabharata there is an instance where Krishna says - "Some Brahmanas regard that all actions should be abandoned and that, jnana itself is sufficient for Moksha. But look how strange it is, as soon as one is thirsty, one runs towards water!"

Karma is the law of causality, cause and effect. Karma marga means to abandon the effect, that is the fruit of our own actions. This is because, as Vyasa says in the Mahabharata, all the fruits of Karma are impermanent. 

Regards 
Kripa 

----‎
Vyasaya Vishnu roopaya Vyasa roopaya Vishnave
Namo vai Brahma nidhaye Vasishtaya namo namaha‎

‎
‎
  Original Message  
From: Kathirasan K
Sent: Monday 19 September 2016 9:22 AM
To: Kripa Shankar; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] How many margas for mukti

Namaste Kripaji,

It is not that there are two margas to multi. But rather two margas live your life in this world. The Jnana yoga is meant for the contemplative people who are competent for Moksha. And the Karma marga is for those who do not wish for moksha but prefer the path of pravrtti. These two do not mix and hence Shankara does not favour jnanakarmasamuccaya. But there is a hybrid path advocated by Vyasa through the Bhagavad Gita which is Karma Yoga. 

Kathirasan K


On 19 September 2016 at 01:57, Kripa Shankar via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

‎Namaste,

Delighted to be part of the group. I have many doubts regarding Advaita not because I couldn't comprehend the philosophy taught by Adi Shankaracharya but because there are apparent contradictions in the current practice. Because of whatever dosha, there is ignorance in abundance in the form of samshaya. Hence my query. 

I had the fortune of studying the siddhanta in detail from a relatively old book called samyagdarshana (in Kannada lang). In it, there was an introduction by an eminent author Narasimha Sharma. He was a courtesan of the Mysore Maharaja and was associated with Sringeri Mutt. He writes that there are only two margas to mukti, one is jnana and the other is Karma. There is not a third one. Even Krishna says - Lokesmin Dvividha Nishta pura prokta mayanagha, jnana yogena sankhyanam karma yogena yoginam.

But we have a third one which is quite popular these days and supposedly the easiest route! It is called the bhakti marga. Neither Shankara nor any other scriptures mention this. ‎What entails bhakti marga? Is it listening to carnatic (or hindustani) music on YouTube or anything more? What is the means and end goal of this marga? Or is it another departure from the tradition? Is it again, viewed as a Renaissance against the Vedic hierarchy? If it is, do you see it as an assault against the Vedas? Because bhakti marga emphasises more on regional language and Sanskrit is mostly neglected. 

Regards 
Kripa

----
Vyasaya Vishnu roopaya Vyasa roopaya Vishnave
Namo vai Brahma nidhaye Vasishtaya namo namaha
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