Shankaracharya – Reconcile apparent differences by focusing on unifying deeper purpose

Transcript

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Hare Krishna. On the sacred day of the appearance of Shankaracharya, we have the opportunity to contemplate on the inconceivable ways in which the Lord asks His devotees to contribute to His cause. So, the Lord’s cause is to ultimately liberate all living beings from material existence.
But depending on the level of consciousness of the living beings, they may or may not be ready for becoming liberated thus. So, Shankaracharya was asked by the Lord to preach impersonalism. The Padma Purana has an elaborate discussion, a section wherein Lord Vishnu tells Lord Shiva to share, to teach this impersonal message and then Shankaracharya, Lord Shiva also tells this to Parvati that I am going to do this.
Mayakalpita devi kalabrahmana murtina mayavada satchastram prachannam baudham uchyate. So, he’s telling that this asatshastra in Kali Yuga I’ll preach is really coward Buddhism. So, actually, just as he taught coward Buddhism, he himself was coward.
He’s a coward devotee. Now, Vaishnavanamithashambhu, Shankaracharya is considered to be Lord Shiva. Sorry, Lord Shiva is considered to be topmost of all the devotees of Lord Vishnu.
And Shankaracharya is an expansion of a manifestation of Lord Shiva. So, he is at his heart a devotee. But at that particular time when Buddhism had spread all over India, Buddhism was ruling all of India.
Actually, from 5th century BCE, Buddhism appeared and it spread so rapidly, so wide, especially after Ashoka and kings like him. Buddhism was ruling entire India and Vedic culture was being rejected because of that. People were becoming atheistic, non-theistic and it was an emergency.
And because people’s consciousness had become so had gone so much down that they could not understand the Vedic conclusion at that time. So, Shankaracharya preached an intermediate doctrine, which was acceptable to Buddhists and which is also acceptable to the broad Vedic teachings. So, that was the doctrine of Brahma Sathya.
So, Shankara talked about Brahman as the highest reality and Buddhism had talked about Shunya as the highest reality. So, voidism, Shunya Vada is actually Buddhism. So, now actually Shankara’s Brahman and Buddhism’s Shunya are actually intellectual clones.
That means they are practically identical. Just the name is different. Like when a being is cloned, then at that time, all the physical attributes are similar, but it is a different being with a different name.
So, it is like that. And people who are attracted to that Buddhist Shunya, Shankaracharya told him, that is what you are attracted to, that is there in the Vedic culture also. And this was the original culture of the land and there is so much more in the Vedic literature.
Why are you giving it up? And he united everyone and he brought people back into the Vedic fold and those followers of the Vedas who at that time were divided into various groups, he united them by also instituting Panchopasana, that is five different deities you can worship and understand that all of you are followers of the Vedas. So, neglect your differences, focus on your similarities. And actually, it was a massive operation which Shankaracharya did to bring people back in the Vedic fold.
And eventually after that, Ramacharya, Madhacharya, they all came and they brought the conclusion of the Vedic teachings, which even Mahaprabhu established most attractively as the Chintabhedabhed. But Shankaracharya played this role in which he established a teaching which was vital and indispensable at his times, but which would have to be countered later. And the Lord sent subsequent Acharyas like Ramacharya and Madhacharya and himself Kenacharya and Mahaprabhu to do the subsequent countering.
But the essential point is that whatever was done, was done with the plan of the Lord and just as sometimes the Lord may ask His devotee to fight against Him, not because the devotee is demoniac, like it happens with, say, Jaya and Vijaya being cursed to become demoniac, but Bhishma was not at all demoniac. Bhishma fought against the Lord because of the Lord’s will. Similarly, Shankaracharya may have to preach a message which is not exactly according to the Lord’s complete conclusion.
In fact, Mayavad, if taken literally as the highest truth, can be anti-devotional. If understood as a contextual teaching, it can prepare the ground for the acceptance of the Vedas and eventually for the acceptance of the Vedic conclusion of pure devotion. But although just as Bhishma was misunderstood, he accepted that and he continued to do his service.
Similarly, Shankaracharya, although people misunderstand him thinking that he is himself Advaitin, that he himself is an impersonalist, people misunderstand him and think of him not as a great devotee, that he actually is, but he accepted the misunderstanding and he served the Lord because that was the Lord’s will. So, we also gain firm faith in the conclusive understanding of the Vedic scriptures and we get the faith to reconcile any contradictions that we may find in the Vedic scriptures and reconcile them by the understanding of the unifying, elevating, higher purpose of the Lord. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.