Tattva-viveka
Dangerous to hear mayavada philosophy?
Shyamananda Das - September 10, 2010 7:16 am
Dandavat pranams, revered vaishnavas.
I am giving one friend an introduction to our tradition, based on Swami's book "The Joy of Self". There Swami recommends that one studies both Advaita Vedanta and Gaudiya Vedanta to compare. But I have also heard that Sri Chaitanya said that if one hears mayavada philosophy one is doomed.
Obviously our acharyas must have studied Advaita Vedanta to be able to defeat it.
I would be thankful for your thoughts on how to balance this.
Thank you.
Swami - September 10, 2010 12:21 pm
Dandavat pranams, revered vaishnavas.
I am giving one friend an introduction to our tradition, based on Swami's book "The Joy of Self". There Swami recommends that one studies both Advaita Vedanta and Gaudiya Vedanta to compare. But I have also heard that Sri Chaitanya said that if one hears mayavada philosophy one is doomed.
Obviously our acharyas must have studied Advaita Vedanta to be able to defeat it.
I would be thankful for your thoughts on how to balance this.
Thank you.
How can you defeat something you know nothing about? The idea is to hear about it in a particular context.
Madan Gopal Das - September 10, 2010 12:28 pm
As a comparitive study it is essential to know the arguments of advaita-vada. Adopting those ideas is another thing. A bhakta will always find the advaita-vada interpretation of scripture to be insulting to the Lord, because it's core tenant is the dissolving of the relationship that makes bhakti possible.
While educating your friend about the differences between bhakti-vedanta and advaita-vedanta, you just have to be expert at demonstrating the inferiority of the advaita-vada. Hearing about mayavada philosophy from a mayavadi is dangerous. Hearing about mayavada from a bhakta can generate sukrti for bhakti. Milk touched by the lips of a serpent may become nectar (maybe a lassi?) after being touched by a devotee.
Gaura-Vijaya Das - September 11, 2010 1:57 am
The aggression needed before during the time of Madhava is not required now. I think Sukadeva or Sridhara Swami's preaching style is more in tune with the times where pluralism is bound to stay and any idea of one exclusive monolithic religion or philosophy has to be abandoned. You just preach comparatively about different traditions and let people make the choice. That is what is the call of today. No need to coerce people to follow only one particular tradition and become fanatics. this is just my opinion. I found it better to avoid many devotees like rocana than so called mayavadi snakes.
Swami - September 12, 2010 1:49 am
The aggression needed before during the time of Madhava is not required now. I think Sukadeva or Sridhara Swami's preaching style is more in tune with the times where pluralism is bound to stay and any idea of one exclusive monolithic religion or philosophy has to be abandoned. You just preach comparatively about different traditions and let people make the choice. That is what is the call of today. No need to coerce people to follow only one particular tradition and become fanatics. this is just my opinion. I found it better to avoid many devotees like rocana than so called mayavadi snakes.
I completely agree.
Shyamananda Das - September 15, 2010 4:51 am
Thank you all for your answers. Sri Radhastami ki jaya!
Yamuna Dasi - October 1, 2010 9:34 am
Recently I was reading "Bhakti Yoga" by Swami Vivekananda and I was surprised how well he was able to present the ideas of bhakti to the broad public, and also by the very fact he wrote such a book. I was also surprised that he is known as a follower of Advaita Vedanta but in the book he seems to understand very well Dvaita and is also able to present it well and by such an excellent presentation to inspire a person to follow the bhakti path.
We usually think that the followers of Advaita preach "I am God" but in the books of Swami Vivekananda and also of Paramahamsa Yogananda, I've seen that no matter that they belong to the Advaita line, they were quite aware of the danger of such claim and say it is wrong. From other side if Radhika would say "I am one with my beloved Govinda" I suppose neither the devotees nor the gopis would object her words. It was also very interesting for me to read in Mahabharata that due to her devotion to Krishna Draupadi was also named "Krishna". This is also a kind of sign for unity using even the personal intimate name of God for another person and nobody objected saying "this is the persona name of God and it should be used for him alone". Maybe this is the imperfection of the mind working in a binary way who wants to be "or/or" rather than "and/and", hoping that by dividing the object of study in pieces will be able better to grasp them and thus know the object better.
This makes me feel that "personalist" or "impersonalist" is not a label so easy to pin down. There are "personalists" with impersonal views or attitudes as well as "impersonalists" worshiping deities and writing books about bhakti yoga glorifying it and naming it a "supreme" and "natural" path for the soul.
Gauravani Dasa - October 3, 2010 2:29 pm
I haven't read any of Vivekananda's writings but impersonal realization is the goal for advatians. They may perform some bhakti in the form of deity worship, etc. but they do so with a view to eventually cease worshiping. Brahman realization involves no relationship between isvara and the jiva because there is no distinction between the two--they are one.
Vikvekanada's outreach emphasized karma-yoga in the form of service to human beings, specifically because his philosophy stated that there is no difference between humans and God. But again, that service does not continue after liberation, i.e., the path is not the goal.
This conception is vary far from the Gaudiya ideal where our path and goal is to serve Guru and Gaura eternally, with or without liberation.
Regarding "or/or" "and/and" 
, I find Srila Sridhara Maharaja's explanation of acintya-bhedabheda particularly profound:
In the teachings of the Nimbarka sampradaya, known as dvaitadvaita-vada, both difference (dvaita) and oneness (advaita) between the Lord and his energies are accepted, but this is not qualified as acintya, inconceivable. Mahaprabhu’s philosophy is also of bhedabheda, oneness and difference, but the necessary qualification is given: acintya. The demarcation between the two—the oneness and the difference—is not in the hand of anybody, it is reserved with him, with the Lord. Whatever we find, whatever is existing, is, in general, existing as both common with, and different from, him, the Absolute; but that is not a rigid thing. It depends on him; he can change the line of demarcation anytime, anywhere. The line of demarcation is acintya. Where that line may be, where it happens one time, we should not think that it will happen that way every time. It depends on the sweet will of the ultimate reality. So, Nimbarka's dvaitadvaita is very akin to Mahaprabhu's acintya-bhedabheda, though with this difference.
Braja-sundari Dasi - October 3, 2010 5:00 pm
As far as I remeber Draupadi`s name was Krishnaa, apparently female.
Bhrigu - October 4, 2010 6:40 am
The external reason for that name was her dark complexion, but it is nice to think of it as reflecting her near relationship with Krishna as well.
Yamuna Dasi - October 21, 2010 11:08 pm
Wow, this is so interesting! Thank you!
I was always (till now) thinking that achintya (inconceivable) refers to the limitations of our mind, that the simultaneous oneness and difference is a mind-blowing philosophical idea, a kind of provocation for the mind with the goal to put it aside in our search and approach to divinity, something like the budhistic coans (for example "we know how the clap of 2 hands sounds, but how does it sound the clap with one hand?"). But I never thought that achintya refers to the ever-changing "reality, the beautiful". The quote of Shridhara M. explains it so brightly!
It's like dancing Argentinean tango. In this dance none of the couple has his/her own balance since they are bending to each other in such a way, that the balance point is out of the control of neither of them being mutually dependent. Thus in order not to lose balance and break the dance the woman has to be completely surrendered to the leading of the man, total sharanagati. Her contribution is to be surrendered and only in this way the incredible dynamically changing balance happens. Once when I watched Argentinean tango this similarity with vaishnava ideal inspired me to give such a lecture on the Sunday program "Argentinean tango with Krishna".
Today I was reading in "Autobiography of a yogi" by Yogananda the following:
"The cosmic law cannot be stopped or changed, so it's not bad for the human to enter in harmony with this law."
And this is true. But the vaishnava philosophy reveals a higher level of harmony, the ever-changing dynamic one.
And to learn the art of "being in harmony" seems to me so similar to learning French language - first one has to learn the rules, and only then the exceptions. 
And then the exceptions of the exceptions, which are not a return to the rules, but just as they are... exceptions of the exceptions...
I haven't read any of Vivekananda's writings but impersonal realization is the goal for advatians. They may perform some bhakti in the form of deity worship, etc. but they do so with a view to eventually cease worshiping. Brahman realization involves no relationship between isvara and the jiva because there is no distinction between the two--they are one.
Vikvekanada's outreach emphasized karma-yoga in the form of service to human beings, specifically because his philosophy stated that there is no difference between humans and God. But again, that service does not continue after liberation, i.e., the path is not the goal.
This conception is vary far from the Gaudiya ideal where our path and goal is to serve Guru and Gaura eternally, with or without liberation.
Regarding "or/or" "and/and"