Resolving the conflicts of Vedantic philosophy

Vedanta, as I have discussed earlier, forms the last section of the Vedas and is the storehouse of the greatest spiritual thoughts known to mankind.

Vedanta, as it evolved over the past about 2000 years has three distinct streams:

·        Advaita

·        Dvaita

·        Vishistadvaita

Advaita was postulated by Shri Shankaracharya and has the following principles:

There is a supreme Brahman which is the universal consciousness. Due to the innate powers of this Brahman, the illusion called this world with the seemingly disparate living entities is formed. Each entity though seemingly has its own little consciousness or Atman, in effect, all atmans are same and all atmans are same as Brahman.

Dvaita was postulated by Shri Madhvacharya and has the following principles:

There is a supreme entity which is called as Vishnu. The universe that is created by Vishnu is totally distinct from Him. Each individual entity has its own Atman or consciousness. Each atman is separate from one another and totally different from Vishnu.

VishishtaDvaita was postulated by Shri Ramanujacharya and has the following principles:

There is a supreme entity which is the universal consciousness. Both living entities and non-living entities are distinct from this entity. However this philosophy says that these entities though separate are manifestations of the supreme entity.

I used to wonder as to how these brilliant thinkers, could come up with totally different interpretations of the same Upanishad, which is the base for all the three streams. I tried to think through an example and try to see the commonality across the three streams.

Let’s assume that during the early stage of the universe, a thinker saw the sea, the river, the lake, the well etc. He would probably realize that the commonality of all this was water and wonder what the source of this water could be. Was it rain? But then what was the source for the rain? The sea? But then what gave water to the sea? Finding it impossible to resolve the origin of water, the thinker possibly postulated that there was one source of water and that was something unseen.  He probably went deeper and realized it was hydrogen plus oxygen, probably went even further and realized it was only protons and electrons. He probably went around and realized that everything was just protons and electrons and further deeper, probably just photons or tachyons or whatever. In effect, he was saying that the essence of this whole creation was nothing but that basic material (Brahman). Then he would have come back and told others about it. But the normal people who saw the stormy sea, the flowing water, the deep well would have found it difficult to visualize that all these separate entities were just photons/tachyons. . So the thinker would have told them about a universal source (Vishnu) and separate entities of water, each with their own distinct characteristics and forms (separate atmans). So in effect, the thinker was telling that Vishnu was unique and each atman was unique and distinct and separate from Vishnu. This was perfectly logical as seen from the perspective of someone with limited thinking capability and was happy to know that there was distinction among entities. This in effect was Dvaita philosophy.

Now, let us take another teacher who also realized that there was an unseen source of water (God or Vishnu). Since it could not be seen, it manifested itself in distinct forms (ocean, river, lake). Hence, even though each entity was distinct and separate from the unseen source, each entity was just a manifestation of the unseen source. This in effect was VishishtaDvaita philosophy.

Now, let us take the third teacher. He also realized that there was an unseen source of water . He probably went deeper and realized it was hydrogen plus oxygen, probably went even further and realized it was only protons and electrons. He probably went around and realized that everything was just protons and electrons and further deeper, probably just photons or tachyons or whatever. In effect, he was saying that this whole universe was nothing but that basic material (Brahman) and everything else was just an illusion created by some unique power (Maya) of this basic entity. This in effect is Advaita philosophy.

So, I believe that the great masters all had the same vision, but because their audiences were different, they had to explain the reality in terms which could be understood by their respective audiences. Just as we cannot explain that energy and mass are the same to a first standard student, but can explain E= MC squared to a senior physics student, in the same way, different teachers explained the concept of universality in different ways to their audiences.