Vedanta-sutra and the Fall of the Jiva
BY: DEENANATH DASA
Feb 19, AUSTRALIA (SUN) — Desiring to relieve the suffering of devotees unkindly subjected to repeated articles containing copious collections of remotely related grab-bag snippets of quotes melded, twisted and wrought to fit predetermined and sastrically unsupported conclusions, please find the final sutra of the Vedanta-sutra (4.4.22) accompanied by the commentaries of two exalted personalities, Srila Baladeva Vidhyabushana and Sri Ramanujacarya who, desiring to refute false interpretations of Vedic literature, make crystal clear a subject muddied by those who refuse to take the words of sastra as the basis of their philosophical position, yet persist and insist that their conclusions are authoritative.
Please note the repetition Srila Vyasadeva has used within the sutra, and consider that this is his final word in the entire Vedanta-sutra. For those without the time or inclination to read the following sutra or commentaries, the summary is as follows (words in parenthesis mine):
Vedanta-sutra 4.4.22:
Anavrttih sabdad anavrttih sabdat: "No return, because of [the statements of] the scriptures. No return, because of [the statements of] the scriptures."
Srila Baladeva Vidhyabushana:
"This truth is understood only by taking shelter of the scriptures. The words of the sutra are repeated to indicate the conclusion of the book."
Sri Ramanujacarya:
"The repetition of the words of the sutra indicates the conclusion of this body of doctrine."
Regards,
Deenanatha dasa
COMMENTARY BY BALADEV VIDYABHUASHANA
Translation by Kushakratha dasa
Adhikarana 11: The Liberated Soul Never Returns
Vishaya [thesis or statement]: Now will be explained the truth that the
liberated soul has the association of the Supreme Personality of
Godhead eternally.
Vishaya [the subject to be discussed]: All scriptural statements
describing the soul's entrance into the spiritual realm of the Supreme
Lord are here the subject of discussion.
Samshaya [doubt]: Does the liberated soul stay in the spiritual world
eternally, or does he not stay there eternally?
Purvapaksha [the opponent speaks]: The spiritual world is a place like
Svargaloka or any other place. As one may fall down from Svargaloka, so
one may also fall down from the spiritual world. Therefore the
liberated soul does not necessarily stay in the spiritual world
eternally.
Siddhanta [conclusion]: In the following words the author of the sutras
gives His conclusion.
Sutra 4.4.22
anavrttih shabdad anavrttih shabdat
an – without; avrttih – return; shabdat – because of the scriptures.
No return, because of the scriptures. No return, because of the scriptures.
A devotee who faithfully worships and serves the Supreme Lord and then
goes to the Lord's spiritual world, never returns. How is that known?
The sutra explains, shabdat [because of the scriptures]. In the
Chandogya Upanishad [4.15.6] it is said:
etena pratipadyamana imam manavam avartam navartante
"They who enter the spiritual world never return to the world of men."
In the Chandogya Upanishad [4.15.1] it is said:
sa khalv eva vartayan yavad ayusham brahmalokam abhisampadyate. na ca
punar avartate.
"Leaving this life, he enters the spiritual world. He never returns."
In the Bhagavad-gita [8.15-16] Lord Krishna declares:
mam upetya punar janma duhkhalayam ashasvatam
napnuvanti mahatmanah samsiddhim paramam gatah
"After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogis in devotion, never
return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they
have attained the highest perfection."
a-brahma-bhuvanal lokah punar avartino ‘rjuna
mam upetya tu kaunteya punar janma na vidyate
"From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all
are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But
one who attains My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again."
Here someone may express the following fear: "Lord Hari is
all-powerful, the master of all, perhaps at some point in time He may
throw the liberated soul out of the spiritual world. Or perhaps the
liberated soul may at some time voluntarily leave the spiritual world."
There is no need to fear in this way, for Lord Krishna has explained in
Bhagavad-gita [7.17]:
priyo hi jnanino tv artham aham sa ca mama priyah
"Of these, the wise one who is in full knowledge in union with Me
through devotional service is the best. For I am very dear to him, and
he is very dear to Me."
Lord Krishna also declares in Shrimad-Bhagavatam [9.4.68]:
sadhavo hrdayam mahyam sadhunam hrdayam tv aham
"The pure devotee is always in the core of My heart, and I am always in
the heart of the pure devotee. My devotees do not know anything else
but Me, and I do not know anyone else but them."
In these words the mutual love of the Lord and His devotee is
described. In Shrimad-Bhagavatam[9.4.65] Lord Krishna declares:
ye daragara-putraptan pranan vittam imam param
hitva mam sharanam yatah katham tams tyaktum utsahe
"Since pure devotees give up their homes, wives, children, relatives,
riches, and even their lives simply to serve Me, without any material
improvement in this life or in the next, how can I give up such
devotees at any time?"
In Shrimad-Bhagavatam [2.8.6] it is also said:
dhautatma purushah krshnapada-mulam na muncati
mukta-sarva-parikleshah panthah sva-sharanam yatha
"A pure devotee of the Lord whose heart has once been cleansed by the
process of devotional service never relinquishes the lotus feet of Lord
Krishna, for they fully satisfy him, as a traveller is satisfied at
home after a troubled journey."
In this way the scriptures explain that the Supreme Personality of
Godhead will never abandon His devotee and the devotee will always
ardently love the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Supreme
Personality of Godhead is always truthful and His desires are always at
once fulfilled. He is an ocean of love for they who take shelter of
Him. He washes away the ignorance that made His devotees turn from Him.
Once He brings back to Himself His dear devotees, who are His parts and
parcels, the Supreme Personality of Godhead will not again let them go.
In the same way the individual soul, who had been searching for
happiness and who finally has turned from the pathetic, wretched, pale
reflection of happiness he had for many births sought in the material
world in many ways, and who now, by the mercy of the bona-fide
spiritual master has understood the truth of the Supreme Personality of
Godhead, of whom he is a part and parcel, who now has no desire apart
from the Supreme Lord, who is now purely engaged in devotional service
to the Supreme Lord, and who has now attained the Supreme Lord, whose
spiritual form is filled with limitless bliss, and who is the merciful
friend and master, will never desire to leave such a Lord. In this way
the truth is understood from the scriptures. This truth is understood
only by taking shelter of the scriptures. The words of the sutra are
repeated to indicate the conclusion of the book.
(end Srila Baladev-vidhyabushana's commentary)
COMMENTARY BY RAMANUJACARYA
Translation by George Thibaut (1904)
4.4.22. Non-return, according to Scripture; non-return, according to Scripture.
"We know from Scripture that there is a Supreme Person whose nature is absolute bliss and goodness; who is fundamentally antagonistic to all evil; who is the cause of the origination, sustentation, and dissolution of the world; who differs in nature from all other beings, who is all- knowing, who by his mere thought and will accomplishes all his purposes; who is an ocean of kindness as it were for all who depend on him; who is all-merciful; who is immeasurably raised above all possibility of any one being equal or superior to him; whose name is the highest Brahman.
And with equal certainty we know from Scripture that this Supreme Lord, when pleased by the faithful worship of his Devotees--which worship consists in daily repeated meditation on Him, assisted by the performance of all the practices prescribed for each caste and asrama--frees them from the influence of nescience which consists of karma accumulated in the infinite progress of time and hence hard to overcome; allows them to attain to that supreme bliss which consists in the direct intuition of His own true nature: and after that does not turn them back into the miseries of samsara.
The text distinctly teaching this is 'He who behaves thus all his life through reaches the world of Brahman and does not return' (Chandogya. Upanishad. VIII, 15). And the Lord himself declares 'Having obtained me great-souled men do not come into rebirth, the fleeting abode of misery; for they have reached the highest perfection. Up to the world of Brahma the worlds return again, O Arjuna; but having attained to me, O son of Kunti, there is no rebirth' (Bhagavad-gita VIII, 1, 5-16).
As, moreover, the released soul has freed itself from the bondage of karma, has its powers of knowledge fully developed, and has all its being in the supremely blissful intuition of the highest Brahman, it evidently cannot desire anything else nor enter on any other form of activity, and the idea of its returning into the samsara therefore is altogether excluded. Nor indeed need we fear that the Supreme Lord when once having taken to himself the Devotee whom he greatly loves will turn him back into the samsara. For He himself has said, 'To the wise man I am very dear, and dear he is to me. Noble indeed are all these, but the wise man I regard as my very Self. For he, with soul devoted, seeks me only as his highest goal. At the end of many births the wise man goes to me, thinking all is Vasudeva. Such great-souled men are rarely met with' (Bhagavad-gita VII, 17-19).--The repetition of the words of the sutra indicates the conclusion of this body of doctrine. Thus everything is settled to satisfaction."
(end Sri Ramanuja-acarya's commentary)
