SHANKARA: India’s Greatest Impersonalist Meditated on Lord Krishna

Srila Prabhupada chastises impersonalist yogis and swamis, the nominal followers of the ninth-century teacher Sankara, in this commentary on Sankara’s Meditation on the Bhagavad Gita: Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Whereas Sankara, the greatest of the impersonalists, offers his due respects to Krishna and His book Bhagavad Gita, the foolish say that we need not surrender to the personal Krishna.

–1–
O Bhagavad-gita,
Through Thy eighteen chapters
Thou showerest upon man
The immortal nectar
Of the wisdom of the Absolute.
O blessed Gita,
By Thee, Lord Krsna Himself
Enlightened Arjuna.
Afterward, the ancient sage Vyasa
Included Thee in the Mahabharata.
O loving mother,
Destroyer of man’s rebirth
Into the darkness of this mortal world,
Upon Thee I meditate.
–2–
Salutations to thee, O Vyasa.
Thou art of mighty intellect,
And thine eyes
Are large as the petals
Of the full-blown lotus.
It was thou
Who brightened this lamp of wisdom,
Filling it with the oil
Of the Mahabharata. 

Purport

Sripada Sankaracarya was an impersonalist from the materialistic point of view. But he never denied the spiritual form known as sac-cid-ananda-vigraha, or the eternal, all-blissful form of knowledge that existed before the material creation. When he spoke of Supreme Brahman as impersonal, he meant that the Lord’s sac-cid-ananda form was not to be confused with a material conception of personality. In the very beginning of his commentary on the Gita, he maintains that Narayana, the Supreme Lord, is transcendental to the material creation. The Lord existed before the creation as the transcendental personality, and He has nothing to do with material personality. Lord Krsna is the same Supreme Personality, and He has no connection with a material body. He descends in His spiritual, eternal form, but foolish people mistake His body to be like ours. Sankara’s preaching of impersonalism is especially meant for teaching foolish persons who consider Krsna to be an ordinary man composed of matter.

No one would care to read the Gita if it had been spoken by a material man, and certainly Vyasadeva would not have bothered to incorporate it into the history of the Mahabharata. According to the above verses, Mahabharata is the history of the ancient world, and Vyasadeva is the writer of this great epic. The Bhagavad-gita is identical with Krsna; and because Krsna is the Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead, there is no difference between Krsna and His words. Therefore the Bhagavad-gita is as worshipable as Lord Krsna Himself, both being absolute. One who hears the Bhagavad-gita “as is” actually hears the words directly from the lotus lips of the Lord. But unfortunate persons say that the Gita is too antiquated for the modern man, who wants to find out God by speculation or meditation.

–3–
I salute Thee, O Krsna,
O Thou who art the refuge
Of ocean-born Laksmi
And all who take refuge
At Thy lotus feet.
Thou art indeed
The wish-fulfilling tree
For Thy devotee.
Thy one hand holds a staff
For driving cows,
And Thy other hand is raised–
The thumb touching the tip
Of Thy forefinger,
Indicating divine knowledge.
Salutations to Thee, O Supreme Lord,
For Thou art the milker
Of the ambrosia of the Gita.

           Purport

Sripada Sankaracarya explicitly says, “You fools, just worship Govinda and that Bhagavad-gita spoken by Narayana Himself,” yet foolish people still conduct their research work to find out Narayana; consequently they are wretched, and they waste their time for nothing. Narayana is never wretched nor daridra; rather, He is worshiped by the goddess of fortune, Laksmi, as well as by all living entities. Sankara declared himself to be “Brahman,” but he admits Narayana, or Krsna, to be the Supreme Personality who is beyond the material creation. He offers his respects to Krsna as the Supreme Brahman, or Parabrahman, because He (Krsna) is worshipable by everyone. Only the fools and enemies of Krsna, who cannot understand what the Bhagavad-gita is (though they make commentaries on it), say, “It is not the personal Krsna to whom we have to surrender ourselves utterly, but the unborn, beginningless Eternal who speaks through Krsna.” Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Whereas Sankara, the greatest of the impersonalists, offers his due respects to Krsna and His book the Bhagavad-gita, the foolish say that “we need not surrender to the personal Krsna.” Such unenlightened people do not know that Krsna is absolute and that there is no difference between His inside and outside. The difference of inside and outside is experienced in the dual, material world. In the absolute world there is no such difference, because in the absolute everything is spiritual (sac-cid-ananda), and Narayana, or Krsna, belongs to the absolute world. In the absolute world there is only the factual personality, and there is no distinction between body and soul.

–4–
The Upanisads
Are as a herd of cows,
Lord Krsna, son of a cowherd,
Is their milker,
Arjuna is the calf,
The supreme nectar of the Gita
Is the milk,
And the wise man
Of purified intellect
Is the drinker. 

Purport

Unless one understands spiritual variegatedness, one cannot understand the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. In the Brahma-samhita it is said that Krsna’s name, form, quality, pastimes, entourage, and paraphernalia are all ananda-cinmaya-rasa–in short, everything of His transcendental association is of the same composition of spiritual bliss, knowledge, and eternity. There is no end to His name, form, etc., unlike in the material world, where all things have their end. As stated in the Bhagavad-gita, only fools deride Him; whereas it is Sankara, the greatest impersonalist, who worships Him, His cows, and His pastimes as the son of Vasudeva and pleasure of Devaki.

–5–
Thou son of Vasudeva,Destroyer of the demons Kamsa and Canura,Thou supreme bliss of Mother Devaki,O Thou, guru of the universe,Teacher of the worlds,Thee, O Krsna, I salute.

          Purport

Sankara describes Him as the son of Vasudeva and Devaki. Does he mean thereby that he is worshiping an ordinary, material man? He worships Krsna because he knows that Krsna’s birth and activities are all supernatural. As stated in the Bhagavad-gita (4.9), Krsna’s birth and activities are mysterious and transcendental, and therefore only the devotees of Krsna can know them perfectly. Sankara was not such a fool that he would accept Krsna as an ordinary man and at the same time offer Him all devotional obeisances, knowing Him as the son of Devaki and Vasudeva. According to the Bhagavad-gita, only by knowing the transcendental birth and activities of Krsna can one attain liberation by acquiring a spiritual form like Krsna’s. There are five different kinds of liberation. One who merges into the spiritual auras of Krsna, known as the impersonal Brahman effulgence, does not fully develop his spiritual body. But one who fully develops his spiritual existence becomes an associate of Narayana or Krsna in different spiritual abodes. One who enters into the abode of Narayana develops a spiritual form exactly like Narayana’s (four-handed), and one who enters into the highest spiritual abode of Krsna, known as Goloka Vrndavana, develops a spiritual form of two hands like Krsna’s. Sankara, as an incarnation of Lord Siva, knows all these spiritual existences, but he did not disclose them to his then Buddhist followers because it was impossible for them to know about the spiritual world. Lord Buddha preached that void is the ultimate goal, so how could his followers understand spiritual variegatedness? Therefore Sankara said, brahma satyam jagan mithya, or, material variegatedness is false but spiritual variegatedness is fact. In the Padma Purana Lord Siva has admitted that he had to preach the philosophy of maya, or illusion, in the Kali-yuga as another edition of the “void” philosophy of Buddha. He had to do this by the order of the Lord for specific reasons. He disclosed his real mind, however, by recommending that people worship Krsna, for no one can be saved simply by mental speculations composed of word jugglery and grammatical maneuvers. Sankara further instructs:

bhaja govindam bhaja govindam
bhaja govindam mudha-mate
samprapte sannihite kale
na hi na hi raksati dukrn-karane

“You intellectual fools, just worship Govinda, just worship Govinda, just worship Govinda. Your grammatical knowledge and word jugglery will not save you at the time of death.”

–6–
Of that terrifying river
Of the battlefield of Kuruksetra
Over which the Pandavas victoriously crossed,
Bhisma and Drona were as the high banks,
Jayadratha as the river’s water,
The King of Gandhara the blue water-lily,
Salya the shark, Krpa the current,
Karna the mighty waves,
Asvatthama and Vikarna the dread alligators,
And Duryodhana the very whirlpool–
But Thou, O Krsna, wast the ferryman!
–7–

May the spotless lotus of the Mahabharata
That grows on the waters
Of the words of Vyasa
And of which the Bhagavad-gita
Is the irresistibly sweet fragrance
And its tales of heroes
The full-blown petals
Fully opened by the talk of Lord Hari,
Who destroys the sins
Of Kali-yuga,
And on which daily light
The nectar-seeking souls,
As so many bees
Swarming joyously–
May this lotus of the Mahabharata
Bestow on us the highest good.

–8–
Salutations to Lord Krsna
The embodiment of supreme bliss,
By whose grace and compassion
The dumb become eloquent
And the lame scale mountains–
Him I salute!

Purport

Foolish followers of foolish speculators cannot understand the meaning of offering salutations to Lord Krsna, the embodiment of bliss. Sankara himself offered his salutations to Lord Krsna so that some of his intelligent followers might understand the real fact by the example set by their great master, Sankara, the incarnation of Lord Siva. But there are many obstinate followers of Sankara who refuse to offer their salutations to Lord Krsna and instead mislead innocent persons by injecting materialism into the Bhagavad-gita and confusing innocent readers by their commentaries, and consequently the readers never have the opportunity to become blessed by offering salutations to Lord Krsna, the cause of all causes. The greatest disservice to humanity is to keep mankind in darkness about the science of Krsna, or Krsna consciousness, by distorting the sense of the Gita.

–9–
Salutations to that supreme shining one
Whom the creator Brahma, Varuna,
Indra, Rudra, Marut, and all divine beings
Praise with hymns,
Whose glories are sung
By the verses of the Vedas,
Of whom the singers of Sama sing
And of whose glories the Upanisads
Proclaim in full choir,
Whom the yogis see
With their minds absorbed
In perfect meditation,
And of whom all the hosts
Of gods and demons
Know not the limitations.
To Him, the Supreme God, Krsna, be all salutations–
Him we salute! Him we salute! Him we salute!

           Purport

By recitation of the ninth verse of his meditation, quoted from the Srimad-Bhagavatam, Sankara has indicated that Lord Krsna is worshipable by one and all, including himself. He gives hints to materialists, impersonalists, mental speculators, “void” philosophers, and all other candidates subjected to the punishment of material miseries–just offer salutations to Lord Krsna, who is worshiped by Brahma, Siva, Varuna, Indra, and all other demigods. He has not mentioned, however, the name of Visnu, because Visnu is identical with Krsna. The Vedas and the Upanisads are meant for understanding the process by which one can surrender unto Krsna. The yogis try to see Him (Krsna) within themselves by meditation. In other words, it is for all the demigods and demons who do not know where the ultimate end is that Sankara teaches, and he especially instructs the demons and the fools to offer salutations to Krsna and His words, the Bhagavad-gita, by following in his footsteps. Only by such acts will the demons be benefited, not by misleading their innocent followers by so-called mental speculations or show-bottle meditations. Sankara directly offers salutations to Krsna, as if to show the fools, who are searching after light, that here ls light like the sun. But the fallen demons are like owls that will not open their eyes on account of their fear of the sunlight itself. These owls will never open their eyes to see the sublime light of Krsna and His words the Bhagavad-gita. They will, however, comment on the Gita with their closed owl-eyes to mislead their unfortunate readers and followers. Sankara, however, discloses the light to his less intelligent followers and shows that the Bhagavad-gita and Krsna are the only source of light. This is all to teach the sincere seekers of truth to offer salutation to Lord Krsna and thus surrender unto Him without misgivings. That is the highest perfection of life, and that is the highest teaching of Sankara, the great learned scholar whose teachings drove the voidist philosophy of Buddha out of India, the land of knowledge. Om tat sat.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Sincerity is invincible

«Sincerity is Invincible». Bhakti Lalita Devi Dasi. (In English with Russian subtitles). "Sincerity is invincible." Bhakti Lalita Devi Dasi. Thailand, Chiang Mai

The main element - is sincerity. The main component of our spiritual life - sincerity. This means that we will be sincere, from our spiritual life, and will remain so for the whole of the spiritual life and in our practice of devotion. This is significant.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj says: "Sincerity is invincible." You'll be invincible, being sincere. You nothing can stop, prevent, or destroy you if you are sincere. Here the most important thing for us - to keep this sincerity, to possess her. We always strive to stay alert and monitor, discipline the mind and senses - how we think, what we want, what we feel. We tried to tend them in the center, to God, to concentrate around Krishna, and not directed to their own selfish ends, or "I". And it requires some self-control, consciousness in our daily practice. Always remember: "What are my intentions? Why am I here? Why did I come from? "Has always recognized the sincerity of the time, when you come from and why did you come in search of the truth, trying to Krishna, because the way you are waiting for verification.

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There may be many obstacles and so many temptations as your progress, there are many pitfalls that must be avoided - thank ... Canuck, fireplace, pratistha. Canuck - wealth can come to you. Women and men can come and offer himself. You may be able to enjoy [kamini]. Glory [pratistha] will come to you. Becoming a great devotee, you will find glory. You will have to face these three phenomena on their spiritual journey: Kanak, fireplace, pratistha.

We know that the means of getting rid of it - stay in such a consciousness in which we can always offer our wealth to the Lord. Any man or woman belongs to the Lord, all of them - His servants are for Him, for His pleasure. And all the glory may be offered to the Guru. You could hear a classification that Kanak, wealth, designed to Narayana: Lakshmi - Narayana.

Kamini, women, - for Krsna, and pratistha - for Guru. They are worthy recipients of these three phenomena. But if we try to assign them, are defeated. These three phenomena can be the cause of our failure. We may not have such intentions, when we begin our spiritual life. We come because "it is the truth, it touched my heart, and I want to devote my life." We begin to practice and gain the relationship.

But later on we can face these three phenomena in our spiritual life. Somewhere on the way we are trapped temptation. And that's where you should try to be discreet, be aware of all these things and do not fall victim to them. Our sincerity will help us at this time. Sincerity teach us: "No, I do not want wealth for yourself - it all belongs to the Lord." Use it for the Lord, give unto the LORD. Any man, woman, any kind of pleasure, "No, I'm not an exploiter - tell us sincerity. - I'm not an exploiter, a servant, and all the people - all men and women - are also designed to Krishna, not for my pleasure. "

If pratistha comes, the mood of sincerity we can think of: "Guru has given me everything. We are here because of the Guru. We would not be here if it were not for the grace of our Guru. He - the one who bestows all. He gave us the link, Krishna-us, gave us all the opportunity to practice and preach. We are here only by his grace, and all the glory belongs to the Guru, nothing for me. " This is the mood of sincerity, and it will save us. We need to keep it for the rest of the spiritual life, and then we will be safe.



Translation and transcription performed Priyanana Devi Dasi

Ramana Maharshi: Biography

In I896 a sixteen-year-old schoolboy walked out on his family and, driven by an inner compulsion, slowly made his way to Arunachala, a holy mountain and pilgrimage centre in South India. On his arrival he threw away all his money and possessions and abandoned himself to a newly-discovered awareness that his real nature was formless, immanent consciousness. His absorption in this awareness was so intense that he was completely oblivious of his body and the world; insects chewed away portions of his legs, his body wasted away because he was rarely conscious enough to eat and his hair and fingernails grew to unmanageable lengths.

After two or three years in this state he began a slow return to physical normality, a process that was not finally completed for several years. His awareness of himself as consciousness was unaffected by this physical transition and it remained continuous and undimmed for the rest of his life. In Hindu parlance he had `realized the Self’; that is to say, he had realized by direct experience that nothing existed apart from an indivisible and universal consciousness which was experienced in its unmanifest form as beingness or awareness and in its manifest form as the appearance of the universe.

Normally this awareness is only generated after a long and arduous period of spiritual practice but in this case it happened spontaneously, without prior effort or desire. Venkataraman, the sixteen-year-old schoolboy, was alone in an upstairs room of his uncle’s house in Madurai (near the southern tip of India) when he was suddenly gripped by an intense fear of death.

In the following few minutes he went through a simulated death experience during which he became consciously aware for the first time that his real nature was imperishable and that it was unrelated to the body, the mind or the personality. Many people have reported similar unexpected experiences but they are almost invariably temporary. In Venkataraman’s case the experience was permanent and irreversible. From that time on his consciousness of being an individual person ceased to exist and it never functioned in him again.

Venkataraman told no one about his experience and for six weeks he kept up the appearance of being an ordinary schoolboy. However, he found it an increasingly difficult posture to maintain and at the end of this six week period he abandoned his family and went directly to the holy mountain of Arunachala.

The choice of Arunachala was far from random. Throughout his brief life he had always associated the name of Arunachala with God and it was a major revelation to him when he discovered that it was not some heavenly realm but a tangible earthly entity. The mountain itself had long been regarded by Hindus as a manifestation of Siva, a Hindu God, and in later years Venkataraman often said that it was the spiritual power of Arunachala which had brought about his Self-realization. His love for the mountain was so great that from the day he arrived in I896 until his death in I950 he could never be persuaded to go more than two miles away from its base.

After a few years of living on its slopes his inner awareness began to manifest as an outer spiritual radiance. This radiance attracted a small circle of followers and, although he remained silent for most of the time, he embarked upon a teaching career. One of his earliest followers, impressed by the evident saintliness and wisdom of the young man, decided to rename him Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi – Bhagavan means Lord or God, Sri is an Indian honorific title, Ramana is a contraction of Venkataraman and Maharshi means `great seer’ in Sanskrit. The name found favor with his other followers and it soon became the title by which he became known to the world.

At this stage of his life Sri Ramana was speaking very little and so his teachings were transmitted in an unusual fashion. Instead of giving out verbal instructions he constantly emanated a silent force or power which stilled the minds of those who were attuned to it and occasionally even gave them a direct experience of the state that he himself was perpetually immersed in.

In later years he became more willing to give out verbal teachings, but even then, the silent teachings were always available to those who were able to make good use of them. Throughout his life Sri Ramana insisted that this silent flow of power represented his teachings in their most direct and concentrated form. The importance he attached to this is indicated by his frequent statements to the effect that his verbal teachings were only given out to those who were unable to understand his silence.

As the years passed he became more and more famous. A community grew up around him, thousands of visitors flocked to see him and for the last twenty years of his life he was widely regarded as India’s most popular and revered holy man. Some of these thousands were attracted by the peace they felt in his presence, others by the authoritative way in which he guided spiritual seekers and interpreted religious teachings, and some merely came to tell him their problems.

Whatever their reasons for coming almost everyone who came into contact with him was impressed by his simplicity and his humbleness. He made himself available to visitors twenty-four hours a day by living and sleeping in a communal hall which was always accessible to everyone, and his only private possessions were a loin-cloth, a water-pot and a walking-stick. Although he was worshipped by thousands as a living God, he refused to allow anyone to treat him as a special person and he always refused to accept anything which could not be shared equally by everyone in his ashram.

He shared in the communal work and for many years he rose at 3 a.m. in order to prepare food for the residents of the ashram. His sense of equality was legendary. When visitors came to see him – it made no difference whether they were VIPs, peasants or animals – they would all be treated with equal respect and consideration. His egalitarian concern even extended to the local trees; he discouraged his followers from picking flowers or leaves off them and he tried to ensure that whenever fruit was taken from the ashram trees it was always done in such a way that the tree only suffered a minimum amount of pain.

Throughout this period (I925-50) the centre of ashram life was the small hall where Sri Ramana lived, slept and held court. He spent most of his day sitting in one corner radiating his silent power and simultaneously fielding questions from the constant flow of visitors who descended on him from every corner of the globe. He rarely committed his ideas to paper and so the verbal replies given out during this period (by far the most well documented of his life) represent the largest surviving source of his teachings.

These verbal teachings flowed authoritatively from his direct knowledge that consciousness was the only existing reality. Consequently, all his explanations and instructions were geared to

convincing his followers that this was their true and natural state. Few of his followers were capable of assimilating this truth in its highest and most undiluted form and so he often adapted his teachings to conform to the limited understanding of the people who came to him for advice. Because of this tendency it is possible to distinguish many different levels of his teachings.

At the highest level that could be expressed in words he would say that consciousness alone exists. If this was received with skepticism he would say that awareness of this truth is obscured by the self-limiting ideas of the mind and that if these ideas were abandoned then the reality of consciousness would be revealed. Most of his followers found this high-level approach a little too theoretical – they were so immersed in the self-limiting ideas that Sri Ramana was encouraging them to drop that they felt that the truth about consciousness would only be revealed to them if they underwent a long period of spiritual practice. To satisfy such people Sri Ramana prescribed an innovative method of self-attention which he called self-enquiry. He recommended this technique so often and so vigorously that it was regarded by many people as the most distinctive motif in his teachings.

Even then, many people were not satisfied and they would continue to ask for advice about other methods or try to engage him in theoretical philosophical discussions. With such people Sri Ramana would temporarily abandon his absolute standpoint and give appropriate advice on whatever level it was asked. If he appeared on these occasions to accept and endorse many of the misconceptions which his visitors had about themselves it was only to draw their attention to some aspect of his teachings that he felt would help them to better understand his real views.

Inevitably, this policy of modifying his teachings to meet the needs of different people led to many contradictions. He might, for example, tell one person that the individual self is non-existent and then turn to another person and give a detailed description of how the individual self functions, accumulates karma and reincarnates.

It is possible for an observer to say that such opposing statements may both be true when seen from different standpoints, but the former statement clearly has more validity when it is viewed from the absolute standpoint of Sri Ramana’s own experience. This standpoint, summarized by his statement that consciousness alone exists, is ultimately the only yardstick by which one can realistically assess the relative truth of his widely differing and contradictory statements. To whatever extent his other statements deviate from this it may be assumed that to that extent they are dilutions of the truth.





Source : from David Godman Book “be As You Are”  (Excellent Book on Ramana Maharshi Teachings)

WHO is GURU ?

Guru is a spiritual guide and teacher who leads a disciple or pupil (sisya or chela) onto the spiritual path, directing him into final realization. At the proper point the guru will bestow initiation on his disciple and give him the sacred saying (mantra) that will guide him for the rest of his life.


According to the tantrics, the human guru is but a manifestation on the phenomenal plane of the Supreme Guru. Traditionally the guru incarnates the highest value anyone may look for in a human being. Ideally the disciple lives for twelve years with his guru learning the Way of Life. A true guru never advertises nor does he look for disciples. The true guru exists, with his disciples in the depths of silence, relying on voluntary contributions for sustenance. One must seek out his guru who will test his would-be disciple severely, even to the point of rejecting him. One retains his guru for life. On acceptance, at the beginning of the relationship, the guru often, if not invariably, demolishes the disciples ego in order to rebuild.