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Re: [advaita and vishistadvaita]

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M.S.HARI Madabhushi Sarangarajan Hari • November 3, 2000 


Dear Badri Narayanan,

>According to advaita jeevatma and brahman(god) are not 
>diffrent but the same.Liberation lies in jeevatma realizing 
>that god is within himself..
>According to our philosophy jeevatma and parmatma are not 
>same ,but jeevatma is a part of Brahman or God.
>Is my understanding partially corrrect?

Let me not answer your question in detail but answer it 
briefly as follows. The subject is deep and complicated
and I am not sure whether how many will like to know the
differences between advaita and visishtadvaita in detail.
Your understanding is partially correct. Advaita
does NOT believe in "Liberation lies in jeevatma realizing 
that god is within himself..". As per classical 
Advaita, the only Brahman who wrongly understood himself as jIvAthman
in dream "jagath" which is mithyA, gets his avidya removed by 
abhEda-jgnyAnam and realizes himself as nirvISEsha chin mAthram.
This is advaita's liberation. In advaita, there is no scope 
to realize that "god is within jeevatma" because there is actually 
no God in advaita. In advaita, the God, jIvAthma and matter are all 
unreal. This advaita is nothing by sUnya-vAdam in polished manner. 
For further details, please refer "prachanna bowdha bangAdhikAram"
of "para-matha-bhangam" by SwAmy NigamAntha MahA DESika with
the help/guidance of scholars where one can clearly understand
that advaita is nothing but sUnya-vAdam and atheism.

According to our philosophy (VisishtAdvaita), what you say is
correct - "jeevatma and parmatma are not same, but jeevatma is 
a part of Brahman or God". The paramAtma is Brahman (God) who
is SrIman NArAyaNa (VishNu, VAsudEva)
"jeevAthama is a part of Brahman" This
means that the jeevAthman is the SarIram, prakAram, apruthak
sidhda viSEshaNam of Brahman. 

At this point, I would like to say that Brahman is a name 
(epithet) of SrIman NArAyaNa. The term NArAyaNa itself is
sufficient to bring out all the concepts of VisishtAdvaita
clearly. 

Thanks & Regards
M.S.HARI RAmAnuja Daasan (mshari@usa.net)


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