Attitude to Impersonalism

Dear devptees,

    Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! My humble pranams! This is taken from an article published by ISKCON, but it applies to all Vaishnavas in general.

Questions about attitude toward impersonalism

Q: I want to hold all beings in a spirit of love and acceptance. I want to accept others' decisions about their spiritual path and continue to be open to associating and not always try to convert anyone away from their chosen path. That is a major concern to me. What do you and ISKCON think about this?

A: As Vaisnavas we would say that there is no truth beyond Krishna. This is confirmed by Krishna in the BG 7.7, where He states, "There is no truth superior to Me". ISKCON is dedicated to spreading the glories of the Personality of God, not His impersonality. Lord Krishna in His form as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has said that the Mayavadis are offenders at His lotus feet, since they maintain that the personal aspect of God is ultimately an illusion and that the impersonal aspect, or the oneness is the final state of transcendence.

Actually this debate between the personalists and the impersonalists, the Vaisnavas and the Mayavadis, has been going on for thousands of years in India. The disciplic succession that ISKCON descends from has been very active in this debate. If you study our history you will find that all the great acaryas of our line of teachers have been very adamant in their refutations of the Mayavadi philosophy. Madhvacarya traveled all over India to refute the Buddhist and Mayavada philosophies. Lately Srila Bhaktisiddhanta and Srila Prabhupada have been very heavily on the case of impersonalistic philosophies. Why? Because impersonalism ruins the chance of the individual soul to engage in loving service to Krishna. Therefore the Mayavadis have been described as offenders by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. It is the duty of the disciple to faithfully render the teachings of his spiritual master, without adding or subtracting anything. Therefore it is the duty of everyone in ISKCON to strongly speak out against Mayavada philosophy.

Of course we would never, ever suggest that someone should not be free to choose whatever spiritual path he feels comfortable with. Even Krishna does not interfere with the living entity's free will. But it is also the mission of ISKCON to disseminate proper spiritual knowledge into society, and to preach the glories of the Personality of Godhead.

There is no need to disturb anyone's mind. But if the question arises or there is a public debate, it is the duty of the Vaisnava preacher to present the philosophical conclusions of the disciplic succession. And the Vaisnava conclusion is in direct opposition to the Mayavadi conclusion. There is simply no way around this clash of ideas.

Q: People of differing spiritual views, I believe, should be accepted and respected.

A: That is true. One should respect all living entities, no matter what their beliefs are. But it is not that we have to respect a philosophy if it is wrong or speculative. Then it is our duty to point this out. We will of course respect - not necessarily agree to - anyone's belief. What else can we do? None can be forced to think in a certain way. But we have to provide the our alternative so that people can choose for themselves. Just like your kids. It is not that you respect and condone everything they do. Sometimes you simply have to get on their case and tell them what they are doing or thinking is plain wrong, isn't it?

Q: Sometimes I perceive a bit fanatic approach among Vaisnava devotees. This attitude is one of my fears about giving the Vaisnava path a try, honestly.

A: Krishna says in BG that His devotee should take care to respect all living entities and not give them any trouble. But He also says that one should preach the conclusions of Bhagavad-gita. Usually a Vaisnava will not preach to those who are not receptive or who do not want to hear, but sometimes - like in a public debate - it has to be done for the sake of those who listen in on the debate.

I think you should not fear giving the Vaisnava path a try. In whatever path you choose in life you are bound to meet opposition as well as neophytes within the process itself who will turn you off by their immaturity. This is after all Kali-yuga - the age of quarrel and hypocrisy. What can be done? If you choose a Mayavada path you will also find that they hate the conclusions of Krishna consciousness.

Discussion about advaita and God

Q: You ask, "Do you understand how insignificant we are on this planet?" I do not relate to the word "insignificant". As part of consciousness, I feel neither significant nor insignificant.

A: Depends on our angle of vision. If "we" denotes human and other beings (living organisms) on this Earth which is just a tiny speck in the universe then we are surely insignificant.

Being more precisely defined as parts of consciousness as you say, then we can be considered significant as eternal, knowledgeable and blissful entities, parts and parcels of the Supreme Whole.

Now follows the important question - what is the nature of that Supreme Whole/Consciousness/Brahman etc.? This question is as old as the history of human philosophy itself. There are two general opinions, expressed as two main schools of philosophy - impersonalistic and personalistic.

Mainstream Judaism, Advaitism (followers of Sankara), Taoism etc. fall into impersonalistic category whereas personalism is promulgated by Christianity and Vaisnava sampradayas (schools). ISKCON is a branch of one of them, Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya, and presents the acintya-bhedabheda-tattva, "doctrine of inconceivable oneness and difference", the ultimate synthesis of all personal-impersonal approaches. This philosophy is based on a deep understanding of Vedic literature, which is considered a supreme evidence in all Indian philosophies.

The Supreme Reality is understood to have both impersonal (lower) and personal (higher) aspect and this seeming paradox is "inconceivable". Still, we offer explanations enabling to partially understand it, so we are not agnostics.

Q: I have trouble with the various older writings which phrase reality in terms of a feudal society. While I realize that these teachings do lead to knowledge, I also suspect that we are transitioning to a higher level of consciousness where the individual will relate directly to higher consciousness.

Of course, I also recognize that my "suspicion" may merely be a reflection of my Jewish orientation to the cosmos. We do not believe in intermediaries. That is one reason we do not understand Catholics who have Mary and various saints for intervention. Thus, if there is a single GOD, like a FATHER, we would related directly without asking mother to intercede.

However, to me the idea of a GOD, the Father, is a limited notion which segments the totality of consciousness. People who are accustomed to families with someone telling other people what to do can understand a cosmos which is set up in the same fashion. Likewise, people can understand a cosmos which basically reflects the familial pattern on a larger scale with Lords taking the place of the father.

A: As I explained, the Vedas hold a contrary view - the totality of consciousness or Brahman is a subordinate aspect of personal God, Bhagavan. This can be understood by a simple logic - the superior must include the inferior. Brahman, being an effulgence of Bhagavan, is dependent on Him, not the other way around. One can approach God either directly through meditation or through intermediaries like spiritual masters and saints through prayer and devotional service. However, He prefers the second way and to its followers He reveals His full, personal aspect, whereas to others He reveals Himself only partially, as "Light" or "Total Consciousness".

These universal hierarchies are not superimposed from the earthly reality by humans but just the opposite is true - our earthly social structures are reflections of a higher, universal structure.

Q: Consciousness invests itself into certain forms, which depending upon the state of their nervous systems, can or cannot perceive that they are not little children or servants, but merely facets of the totality. The fact that certain organisms happen to have nervous systems which allow them to more readily perceive the totality of the universe does not make them superior - just fortunate.

A: Nice example of the relation between our nervous system and us (particles of consciousness) is that of relation between a computer and its user. If you have just an old 486 you are pretty limited and disadvantaged in comparison with a Pentium user, although as persons, living entities, you are both on the same level.

However, we, living entities, _are_ children of God and also His servants. Only because we did not like it we were sent to this material world full of suffering. Being servant of God does not mean to suffer (as we have experienced in the position of servants in this world) but to be happy in His company.

The word "fortunate" suggests a random occurrence but in reality our present hardware (bodies) depends on our previous actions. This is called a law of karma, a physical law of action/reaction on a subtle level.

Q: I recognize that on this level there are lots of individualized aspects of consciousness and that they see themselves as separate and distinct from each other. I imagine that on higher levels of consciousness, there may be other particularized manifestations that think that they are separate and distinct from each other.

A: This separation is experienced only on the bodily level which unfortunately prevails more or less in the whole material world.

Q: I do not see any reason to think that just because some entity is on another level that it is necessarily all-knowing. There may be a different set of errors for different levels of consciousness.

A: Yes. Only really all-knowing and supremely blissful entity is the Supreme One. Others possess different grades of perception/reasoning abilities, knowledge and happiness. They - consciously or unconsciously - look for the higher expressions of these features as their ideals and models because they inwardly understand their own imperfections and want to compensate them.

Q: To the extent the Lord-master, Father-child approach reinforces the idea of distinct entities, it leads people away from an understanding of the totality of Oneness.

A: Totality of Oneness, however, does not fulfill their expectations, at least not forever, because on the stage of being immersed in oneness there is a lack of impressions and activities which are inherent to us, even on the purely transcendental level.

Q: The value of believing in the hierarchical approach is that it imposes order on society. Chaos is not good. Unfortunately, order imposed from the top-down also leads to oppression.

A: This is our experience in this material world. But it is not natural for us to be here. Therefore we suffer all kinds of tribulations, oppression being just one of them. Our home is in the spiritual world, where everything shares the same nature as God - eternity, knowledge and bliss - and hierarchy there is qualitatively completely different than here.

Q: The visionary sees the totality of the universe and his "light" often brings coherence to society. After his passing, his followers establish institutions. At first they usually want to teach, but when other people do not follow, the become angry and demand obedience to "God's Will". Soon there is oppression in the name of God, which may lead to some outward coherence, but oppression breeds hostility, resentment, anger and rage... which always result in incoherence.

A: Fanaticism has many varieties, religious is just one of them. Often a nationalistic fanaticism is disguised as a religious one. Srila Prabhupada used to say, "Religion without philosophy is sentimentalism or fanaticism, and philosophy without religion is dry speculation". History shows ample cases. Vaisnava philosophy has both heart (transcendental devotion) and head (transcendental knowledge) and therefore Vaisnavism in general never fell into the above mentioned traps, what to speak of oppression and hostilities.

Q: Thus, I like to think that we, as an entire species, are moving to a higher level where we can dispense with the hierarchical approach with its inevitable oppression. Eventually direct perception will result in coherence without oppression. Maybe not. Maybe biological organisms are inherently incoherent. But this leads me to speculate how the totality of the universe can have incoherence as one of its attributes.

A: We are inherently incoherent with matter, our present bodies and this material world which is "programmed" to be incoherent with us for our rectification.

Q: Maybe I will get out my copy of the Bhagavad-gita and pursue it for a while.

A: Very good! And get also Isopanisad, to fully understand the personal vs. impersonal nature of Absolute Truth, Krishna, from the foremost of Upanisads.

To summarize your text: You are basically rejecting the materialistic religious ideas in favor of impersonalism. But you have to go further, to the perfect stage of transcendental eternal religion, sanatana-dharma. That is also our goal. We are endeavoring and it works.

Daaso'smi,
Srinath

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