In Sanatana-dharma how did the divisions of Dvaita and Advaita occur?

Transcript

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The divisions in Sanatana Dharma’s history of say one of Dvaita and Advaita of Bhakti and impersonalist when did they start how did they historically develop? The Upanishads they talk about the absolute truth in terms which are both personalist and impersonalist.
The Ishopanishad talks about from the personalist point of view the other Upanishads which talk about from the impersonalist point of view. So the idea is that the Vedic texts they offer what you could call as user friendly spirituality. What that means is whatever is the level of consciousness of the reader accordingly you make spiritual advancement.
So people who are very fried out with worldly relationships worldly emotions if you tell them in the spiritual world there are relationships I don’t want to go there. So then for them ok, spiritual world is the realm of oneness. That’s what will attract that is also given.
So historically both of these originate from the Vedic scriptures and both of them are meant for the spiritual elevation of different people who are coming from different backgrounds. Now at one particular time in Indian history the because there was so much casteism discrimination against lower caste so much other sub religious ideas started percolating in that because of the discrimination and other factors many people rejected Hinduism and they became they adopted Buddhism or Jainism. So from 5th century BC to around 5th century AD many parts of India were ruled by either Buddhists or Jain kings.
So actually speaking if you consider the area of classical let’s call classical Greek classical age. So at that time more books propagating atheism were written in Sanskrit than any other world language not in Greek, not in Persian because Buddhists and Jains these religions ideologically don’t accept the existence of God. So at that time around 6th century Sripad Shankaracharya came and his purpose was to unify the followers of the Sanatana Dharma and to bring back those who had gone off.
So he presented, so Buddhism had the idea of there is there is what they call as Shunya Shunya is voyeurism now voyeurism can have multiple understandings what they mean by it but their idea is that absolute truth has whatever exists ultimately it has no attributes, it has no qualities they call it Shunya. So then Shankaracharya because that was the that was the pervading conception of people at that time, so Shankaracharya presented at that time the teachings of the Upanishads which talks about the Brahma. So he said that the Buddhistic conception of Shunya and the conception of Brahma as drawn from the Upanishads by Shankaracharya they were intellectual clones practically at an intellectual level similar that’s why people this is what you want? Vedic Dharma also, why do you want to go out? Of course it’s always true that power corrupts.
So Buddhism also had some issues that came up, Jainism also had some issues came up, so many many people came back to the Vedic Dharma at that time. After Shankaracharya, Ramacharya came and Ramacharya said so Shankaracharya said okay you want oneness, there is oneness here only. But then Ramacharya came and said yes there is oneness but within the oneness also there is variety.
Shankaracharya taught Advaitavada, Ramacharya taught what is called Vishishta Advaita. There is oneness but there is some qualified oneness, Vishishta. And what was that qualified oneness? His example was, the defining metaphor of Ramacharya was that the relationship of the body of the soul and the body.
So he said the universe is the body and Vishnu is the soul. So at one level we can say that the body and the soul are different. At another level, the body acts according to the will of the soul.
Similarly, all living beings are meant to act according to the will of Vishnu. And when they act according to the will of Vishnu, then there is harmony and there is happiness. So he said there is oneness but what is the nature of that oneness? There is oneness of harmony.
And then, so if you consider the pendulum, Shankaracharya presented oneness, Vishishta Advaita said, there is oneness but there is variety in it. Then Madhavacharya came. Madhavacharya said, actually what oneness? Advaita.
He says, where do you see oneness? You look at one particle of matter and another particle of matter. When one leap and another leap, there are differences. If you talk of Panchamabhed, there is, there are basically three tattvas in nature.
You could say matter, consciousness and the infinite and the supreme. In Sanskrit we can call it as Jagat, Jeev and Jagdish. So in the Jagat, there is variety among different particles.
The Jeeva, each Jeeva is different. So there is difference between matter and matter. There is difference between Jeeva and Jeeva.
There is difference between matter and Jeeva. There is difference between Jeeva and Ishwara. And there is difference between matter and Ishwara.
It is Panchamabhed. So he took the pendulum to the other side. And then Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu he said, yes, there is oneness, but there is also the relationship within the one. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu taught what is called Achintabhedabhed. So Bhed and Abhed.
There is oneness and there is difference also. But how both of them are working, that is Achintabhedabhed. That is inconceivable.
So he brought the pendulum back to the middle balanced state. So you could say that Buddha, if you see, is symbolized with Shunya. Not like this.
He is Shunchunya. That means Shunya, everything absolute to the zero. Shankara is symbolized with one.
Everything is one. Madhvacharya is symbolized with two. It is duality.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is symbolized with both hands upraised. There is two-ness, but there is a joyful ecstatic relationship between the two. Hands upraised, he symbolizes dancing.
He is depicted as dancing. So that is the holistic understanding where the oneness and the two-ness are harmonized by understanding that there is oneness in the nature. Everyone is spiritual.
Oneness in belonging, because we are all ultimately the part of the absolute truth. At the same time, there is two-ness in the sense that there is reciprocation of love.