The author argues, that Vishista-advaita Vedanta was a staging post for move towards the reality encompassed by Advaita.
I posted In Facebook on My Timeline:
Shantanu Panigrahi: What is Hinduism then? It is a religion that is made up of diverse seemingly chaotic philosophies that draw on the same basic scriptures.
Comments exchanged:
Brāhman Seeker
Sanātana Dharma is the beautiful amalgamation of different philosophies, traditions, thought schools, cultural practices, festivals, regional beliefs of Bhārata that evolve for thousands of years and are still evolving. In Sanātana Dharma, you can find a complete distinct practice in one Temple which you won't find in any other Temple. Though there are some basic concepts in Sanātana Dharma which are believed by all Sanātanī people, they're: Karma, Dharma, Yoga, Ātmā, Para Brahma, Dhyāna, Samsāra and Moksha.
Shantanu Panigrahi
Brāhman Seeker Beautifully explained. Should this Temple be named Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma in which instead of being calling ourselves Hindus, we say we are Sanatanis: that is the interesting question. We are Bharatiyas not Indians. The name of the country should represent the people who form the overwhelming majority.
Brāhman Seeker
Shantanu Panigrahi yes, the Hindu could be our ethno-cultural identity but since the ideas in it are indeed universal we should use Sanātana Dharma for our way of life and beliefs. And yes, we should be Bhāratīya as Indian is also a foreign name for our country. Aryavarta could be used too; the abode of the Nobles. Sam Subramanian
Sam Subramanian
A dharm that gave us Advaita Vedanta can't be chaotic
Shantanu Panigrahi
Sam Subramanian This such an unbelievably profound statement. I thank you for coming to my rescue as I have been studying Advaita for 24 years and it took me into the depths of dharma especially what specific dharma is appropriate at different stages of the learning process, the satya-advaita yoga.
Sam Subramanian
Shantanu Panigrahi. https://www.facebook.com/groups/189760098743267
Absolutely Advaita
Dev N Mina Raturi
All branches targeted at one goal , Truth realization ; whether de aur ir Advaitavad and everything in between.
Developed by a people who had an obsession of Truth-realization to the exclusion of everything else.
The chaos is because of human mind, which wants to reduce everything to tangibles;
Adhere to superficialities rather than the spirit.
As Swami Vivekananda said, to care more for the Banana peal than the fruit itself.
🌺🌺
Shantanu Panigrahi
Dev N Mina Raturi Beautiful assessment-based knowledge. Truth does come, finally to the expanse of advaita when one is attentively seeking Realisation.
Dev N Mina Raturi
Shantanu Panigrahi
Yes, sincere seeker eventually realizes it no matter what the method.
🌺
Shantanu Panigrahi
Dev N Mina Raturi Yes, the journey is worth the joy in the end🥰
Ahmad Ali
Hinduism is individualism. I wouldn’t say it’s chaotic. Instead, I think it’s an open-minded system that recognizes the diversity of human needs. Everyone paints the deities differently but the feeling is the same 🤗
Shantanu Panigrahi
Ahmad Ali We are not talking about deities per se, we are into the eternal law of the universe when we Hindus talk about Sanatan dharma. Dharma Rakshati Rakshita.
Ahmad Ali
Shantanu Panigrahi the idea is that individualism is part of the equation. For example, the sanatani-samaji divide or the north/south ideological diversity towards the universe, etc.
Shantanu Panigrahi
Ahmad Ali I said seemingly chaotic: to elaborate my sentiments you need to understand that our diversity makes us unified as Hindus. We appreciate each other and know where each of us is coming from. Such is our open-mindedness and non-judgemental nature.
Ahmad Ali
Shantanu Panigrahi, unified is good 👍
Shantanu Panigrahi
Ahmad Ali Dear Ahmad Ali, knowledge is vital, knowledge spreads across the Hindu community in India through gurus of different sampradayas and other Swamis and priests in different regions through different languages and knowledge permeates through the entirety of India. It is that knowledge that makes us tolerant of those who are no so well equipped and focus on material matters like earning income, proselytising Christianity and Islam by fighting wars. We appreciate Creation, God's creation, and live symbiotically with all living beings and when possible reduce our requirements of non-vegetarian food preferring to be just skin and bones in order to nurture our mind. For the body is not important. The mind is the most important thing. It has the potential to turn into atman and even into mahatman which is as close as one can get to paramatman, of God as the OM element residing in our psyche. This is the process of Realisation of the Truth, the only Truth that many not just a few Hindus attain without even knowing it, so we are peaceful people and tolerate brutality against us. We truth-accommodate. That is advaita.
Ahmad Ali
Shantanu Panigrahi that's a revisionist history, not the reality. The reality is that humanity - including the "Hindu" community - has been violent. The same violence we find today has been around always. When the Sangam (south Indian) were at war with the Maurya (north Indian), neither Christianity nor Islam was even born 🙂 In the south, when the Pandya Hindus defeated the Cholas Hindus, it gave them a chance to finally build a local identity, but at great violent price. It was the same in the north when the Haryanka Hindus defeated the Pradyota Hindus. This is the real human history 🙂.
Shantanu Panigrahi
Ahmad Ali You see Ahmad, 40,000 years ago to 2 million years since the coming of human beings firstly as Homo erectus and then Homo sapiens all of humanity were tamasic, that is Satan evil. The human civilisation started slowly with the introduction of rajasic guna consciousness by Almighty God Sri Krishna also known as Durga, and from that point the HIndu community with the Vedas were recited with settled agriculture giving people plenty of time to reflect on how they should lead their lives and the meaning of life in other words. So not all of Hindu (if you call HIndus those human beings living from Afghanistan today to the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh and to Kanyakumari in the South) became rajasic from tamasic and even fewer became sattvic. That is how Evolution of human beings came about. So there were wars even in India which in 1800 had 650 kingdoms with kings as rulers some of whom were tamasic and fought. We Hindus understand that. Peacefulness is a relative term when applied to cultures. The central point that I am alluding to is that Hindus more peaceful than any other people because of the Vedic culture and Vedic Society that spread through the 650 kingdoms by word of mouth as it was all in a subcontinent with no invaders to destroy the evolution of the cultural base of the HIndus. It is when Alexander first came that he tried to conquer but failed, but the Persian Mughals with their Islam of a single God were nowhere near rajasic let alone sattvic guna characters who through better weapons conquered all of India and created pockets of Muslim communities within the Hindus, smashed Hindu Idols and created Islamic monuments across the land as a symbol of Islam like masjids and Taj Mahal and mosques to proselytise the HIndus. HIndus were more accepting of the invaders than other cultures who fought for material gains whereas HIndus were considerably more spiritual and developed knowledge like the Upanishads and Puranas and the Bhagavad Gita and many others that I cannot right now think of. You are right I have a revisionist attitude for we Hindus always believed in revisionist research of the truth and so I am no exception. My theory or shall I say philosophy is an update on Hinduism and it explains all of humanity from 40,000 years to this day across the globe in terms of the Transmigration of the Immortal soul, which Hindus understand but for Buddha 1500 years ago who destroyed it with his emphasis on material stress or dukha alleviation in the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold path that is all nonsense. So Hinduism was all but destroyed by Buddha so the Sangam, the Pandya, the Maurya, the Cholas and Pradota Hindus believed in wars to sort out their material needs at the cost of spirituality. Ashoka did not help either by reintroducing Buddhism into his Empire for Hinduism was dead. And then the person we Odishi people know as Thaka Guru Sankaracharya came along and taught advaita by bastardising the Gita and twisting the Brahma Sutras etc into the Tat Twam Asi philophy from which the lost Hindus like Deepak Chopra have come up with the theory of Consciousness or even Divine Consciousness, which can simply be said to be Brahmoadvaita Vedanta for the sanyassis. For a householder he has to live in the real world, earn a living, have a wife for sex and children to assist the family and look after the old when the older people cannot fend for themselves. So I was born to analyse all these aspects through education and bring Sanatan Dharma into focus in a way that we all understand human nature and why things happen the way they do. I am going on a bit but read this to understand more:
http://vishistaadvaitavedanta.com/entries/general/the-transmigration-of-the-immortal-soul
Ahmad Ali
Shantanu Panigrahi, you see, it's all about personal understanding. There are Hindus for whom the Buddha is the final transformation of Vishnu just as there are Hindus who don't think Vishnu is the ultimate reality at all but Shiva (shaivism) or Mahadevi (shaktism)--these are all personal perspectives. To the rest of the world, the violence in South Asia (not just India) is nothing new in the world. There's less violence in India today than India of the past because there wasn't "one" country but Hindu kingdoms--of varying "hindu" beliefs. Alexander, the Christians, Muslims--these are all new problems. But the reason there could be a Mughal or British Colonial presence is because the violence is normal to humans. Hindus were not any more "tolerant" than the Celtics, or Arabs, or whoever--we accept violence because it's the reality. But, yes, Hindu history is just as violent as any other history. The reason Tamil Nadu is predominantly Hindu today is because of the violence just as the Sindh of Pakistan is today Muslim because of the violence. The Tamil were not Hindus and the Sindhis were not Muslim 🙂 Of course, the same is true about the Bengalis, the Marathis, or a lot of other major groups of Hindus today.
Shantanu Panigrahi
Ahmad Ali, A Seeker of the truth goes through those material stages of analysis and finally synthesises his or her conception of Reality. At that point all human activities were just food for thought. One becomes unconcerned about who is doing what are why. It is all about individual freedom of thought and Rationalism. All about Realisation. When one Realises one is free.