Why do the different Vaishnava traditions have a different understanding of the Absolute Truth?

From Praveen P

As the Absolute Truth is one and as all the Vaishnava traditions are considered bona fide, then why do they have different understandings of the Absolute Truth?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Praveen Prabhu.
The different Vaishnava sampradayas have a different understanding even of God. So if the followers of different traditions go back to Godhead and attain God in the particular conception that they have learned in their tradition, then what is the exact nature of Godhead? Answer, when we try to understand the absolute truth, the first thing we have to understand is that we cannot understand the absolute truth. What does that mean? That means that the beginning premise is that the absolute truth is infinite and we are finite.
In fact, in Christian theology, there are two trends of thought which are similar to something in the Vaishnava theology also. They are called as apophatic theology and capophatic theology. That means they say that ultimately whatever we try to understand about God, we are imposing material conception or transcendence because we cannot think of anything beyond matter.
So therefore, they say that the way to God is to get rid of all conceptions. The way to think about God is by stopping thinking. So this is something similar to the Mayavadi or Buddhistic tradition of voidism or impersonalism.
So this is there in Christianity also. And they also have the revolutionary side where they say that by the grace of God, the positive revolution may also arise in our heart. So this is a universal problem wherever we come, wherever deep thinkers have considered God that how does the tiny human mind, which is definitely finite, understand the infinite absolute truth? So the answer has been given differently by different traditions.
And in our tradition, the answer is that it is a chain theory. So it’s inconceivable. So we conceive Him not for the purpose of understanding Him, but for the purpose of loving Him.
So Bhaktivinoda Thakur describes in his Chaitanya Shikshamrita that the same mountain can be seen differently by people who are observing from different perspectives. Similarly, Plato saw that mountain of the absolute truth from the west and Patanjali saw it from the east. Jesus saw it from one place and Vyasa saw it from another place.
But they were all looking at the same mountain of the absolute truth and they have given us their understandings. We understand that ultimately the absolute truth is not a matter of verbal description or even intellectual conception. The absolute truth is a matter of devotional realization.
So verbal description refers to physical senses. Intellectual conception refers to the subtle mind, the subtle body basically. But beyond the mind and the body is the soul.
At the level of the soul, there is experience. So at the level of the experience, we understand how it can be that the absolute truth can manifest himself in different ways to different people. So yes, the different traditions may have different understandings of the absolute truth, but none of them deny the fact that he’s a person.
None of them deny the fact that he has many qualities. None of them deny the fact that he has many relationships. None of them deny that he’s a God of unending love and that relationships with him are the source of supreme ecstasy.
So in that sense, in the understanding of absolute truth, there is tattva and there is rasa. So the significance of difference in tattva and difference in rasa is different. Now if the tattva is with respect to the material world, then that tattva as I mentioned earlier in another answer is that that is ultimately to be transcended.
So that we can understand the absolute truth as a person. And then none of the Vaishnava sampradayas deny the point of the absolute truth as a person. But how we relate to him as a rasa, that is different.
So early in the morning when Krishna is seen by Yashodamayi and Krishna is seen by the gopis, his hair is disheveled and there are some dust marks on his face. And he is looking exhausted, his clothes are disheveled. So at such time, those markings on his body are interpreted differently by the gopis and by Yashodamayi.
Yashodamayi thinks, oh, Yashodamayi is seeing Krishna. In Vatsalya Vasant, he is thinking, oh, Krishna, did he fall down from his bed? Did he hurt himself? Where did all this dirt come up? Did I not clean the house at night? Other gopis think, oh, Krishna, you know, he was performing pastimes with, which gopi was so fortunate that Krishna was performing pastimes with her at night. So now what is the reality? Now because both of them are in different rasa, of course, it is a very esoteric example, but the point which I am making here is simple.
That say when both Yashodamayi and Krishna serve food to him, and in one sense, when Krishna eats that food, they both relish it. But the way Yashodamayi relishes Krishna taking the food, and the way Radharani relishes Krishna taking the food cooked by her, it’s different. Why? Because the relationship is different, the rasa is different.
So the principle over here to understand is, the differences in rasa arise because the absolute truth is reciprocal. So, Brahmacharya’s prayers describe that different devotees, according to their dhya, their intelligence, they try to contemplate the absolute truth differently. And what is your glory? Sadhanugrahaaya Out of your mercy on the devotees, you manifest that kind of form.
So that is Krishna’s great love. So the inability to understand the absolute truth in completeness is because of the intensity of the absolute truth, because the absolute truth is infinite. And the relative differences in understanding the aesthetic aspects of the absolute truth are not because of his infinity, but they are because of his reciprocity.
So there are two reasons why there can be differences in the understanding of the absolute truth itself. Because we are seeing him from different perspectives, so we see different aspects of him. That’s why we may have different understanding.
And second is, even if we see the same aspect, like I described the body markings on Krishna, because we have different rasas, we may understand it differently. So because of the infinity and because of the reciprocity of the absolute truth, the different devotees have different understandings. And these understandings can be reconciled by some intellectual analysis, but actually they don’t have to be reconciled.
They have to be relished. Because every devotee in the particular rasa that he is in will relish the relationship with the absolute truth. And it’s only when we get into the mode of relishing that the contradictions disappear.
So otherwise, if we are in the mode of analyzing, it is important, but then we will miss the rasa over there. So the focus is always on relating the absolute truth, not as the object of understanding, but as the object of love, object of loving. And through the love, a deeper understanding awakens.
That removes all doubts from the level of the heart itself, not from the level of the head, or not from the level of verbal gymnastics with respect to word play. Thank you. Very interesting.