Different Missions

We must realise that when Madhva and Aurobindo came to this world they had entirely different missions.Madhva came mainly to reject the false interpretaion of advaita philosophy and give the correct interpretation of the scriptures.That was the most important thing to him.He came when Kali was ruling roost . and since all devatas except him were under the influence of Kali , he was sent to earth to give correct interpretation of scriptures.When Kali is dominant , then it is the time for salvation , so Madhva gave the correct path to salvation and he did not decimate the invading Asuric forces , to avoid the interrupting the flow of the Kali Age.

After Kali comes the Satya Yuga cyclically and so Shiva was sent to interpret the scriptures suitable to the Satya Yuga.In Satya Yuga there is relatively greater freedom and the freedom to make mistakes , so Aurobindo's interpretation should be seen in this light.

In the Yoga tradition there is not hell or heaven , sin and merit.Instead we talk of state of existence , thus andham tamas is a state of darkness for Aurobindo rather than a real place where the souls addicted only to knowledge travel to , as Madhva has interpreted.Like wise we talk of right and error in Yoga instead of merit and sin.Thus to consider the impersonal aspect to be superior to the Personal aspect is a grave error for Aurobindo , but Madhva says such consideration is one of the manifestation of the nine types of hatred towards god that leads to eternal hell.

Isha Upanishad

Isha Upanishad What we are looking at is paradigmal similarities and not exact details.

Madhva interprets Isha Upanishad , conveying its true essence as a revelation that asks us to embrace the world as Lords creation and perform works dedicated to Him and not to reject this world.

kurvanneveha karmani jijivisecchatam samah evam tvayi nanyatheto'sti na karma lipyate nare

One must desire to live even a hundred years by doing prescribed karma only. Thus is it right for you, not otherwise; [if this is done, then] sin will not bind the human.

Aurobindo came mainly to put an end to the other worldly spirituality of Adi Shankara which glorified inaction.Thus he interprets it as :

2. Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this; action cleaves not to a man.

His interpretation emphasises on action over and above inaction , he does not emphasies on sin.And thats also correct since even merit can cause bondage and the interpretion by Aurobindo is more suited to the times , for all works done in knowledge does not bind.

Reason for Creation

Madhva holds that Vishnu created this universe for his own bliss.Ananda was the reason for creation.Just like a father marries and evolves a family for the sake of his own bliss , so too Vishnu for the sake of his own Ananda created this Universe.He partakes the delight of the creatures but not the suffering, which are of the creatures own making.

Sri Aurobindo describes how from out of an Omnipresent Reality, the Absolute (what is known as Brahman in the East) the universe was created, as unconscious, ignorant, divided forms. He goes on to say that the reason that the universe was created from the Absolute is for the purpose of delight. Furthermore, in order to achieve the Absolute's goal of delight in the creation, we as humans must evolve beyond our lower nature to rediscover our higher nature, including the hidden spirit in life. In that process of discovering our higher nature and spirit, we experience the delight of existence, fulfilling the very purpose for which the Absolute created the universe.

Transcendent & Immanent

Another unique aspect of god head that we see in M works is that of God as being transcendental but also immanent.God in this world as much as Vishnu in Vaikunta.This is revealed in the very first mantra of the Isha Upanishad -- Isha vasyam idam sarvam --- "All this is for the habitation of the Lord".

This idea is stressed by M and he says Vishnu is both Anu and Vibhu and he exists within every atom and even within the Jivas and also in far off Vaikuntha , he pervades his creation.

A also stresses this aspect of God as immanent in his works many times.

The Gita accepts the human Avatarhood; for the Lord speaks of the repeated, the constants manifestation of the Divine in humanity, when He the eternal Unborn assumes by His Maya, by the power of the infinite Consciousness to clothe itself apparently in finite forms, the conditions of becoming which we call birth. But it is not this upon which stress is laid, but on the transcendent, the cosmic and the internal Divine; it is on the Source of all things and the Master of all and on the Godhead secret in man. It is this internal divinity who is meant when the Gita speaks of the doer of violent Asuric austerities troubling the God within or of the sin of those who despise the Divine lodged in the human body or of the same Godhead destroying our ignorance by the blazing lamp of knowledge. It is then the eternal Avatar, this God in man, the divine Consciousness always present in the human being who manifested in a visible form speaks to the human soul in the Gita, illumines the meaning of life and the secret of divine action and gives it the light of the divine knowledge and guidance and the assuring and fortifying word of the Master of existence in the hour when it comes face to face with the painful mystery of the world. This is what the Indian religious consciousness seeks to make near to itself in whatever form, whether in the symbolic human image it enshrines in its temples or in the worship of its Avatars or in the devotion to the human Gum through whom the voice of the one world-Teacher makes itself heard. Through these it strives to awaken to that inner voice, unveil that form of the Formless and stand face to face with that manifest divine Power, Love and Knowledge(EOG , introduction)

There are many better examples which I would like to give in the future to stress this point.

In fact we see that Aurobindo has infact lifted many sentences straight out of Madhvas works , verbatim , and it should come as no surprise to us.We often quote A as it is as it often not possible to better his presentation and obviously Lord Shiva thought it better to let his Master Vayu Deva speak for himself.

Neither antiquity nor modernity can be the test of truth or the test of usefulness.Verification by experience and experiment is the only standard of truth, not antiquity, not modernity.

Madhva said the same thing when he was confronted by the followers of Shankara who stated that since their commentary was the oldest it was the truest one.

Creator & Destroyer

Kala asmi lokakshayaya Pravriddha --- Time I am , the Great Destroyer of the Worlds.

One of the unique features of M philosophy is its unique conception of God as both the creator and destroyer.In other words while all Vaishnava Acharyas have conceived god as the all compasssionate and the creator , nobody has touched upon the destructive aspect of Vishnu , Vishnu who as Krishna declared himself to be the destroyer of all worlds.There in lies the reason for India's repeated defeats at the hands of its innumerable enemies.After Shankara's mayavada had plunged the land into rigorous ascetism and deprived it of all vitality and kshatriya glory , the vasihnava acharyas came to expound on devotion but yet failed to give the complete vision of God.Thus from ascetism to sentimental often mindless devotion was what Indians took to letting the enemies get the better of them. It was left to M therefore to give the complete vision of god , not only as Krishna as the lover , as Chaitanya most famously gave us all , Krishna as the little adorable baby as Vallabha taught us to see him , but also as Krishna , the great destroyer of the worlds , the one who instigates Arjuna to perform terrible deeds in the battle field and thereby encourage men to take to all works , sarvakarmani.

It was infact this complete vision of God , as both the creator and destroyer of the worlds that allowed the Vijayanagar Empire to come into existence.Thus while all Vaishnava Acharyas weakened India often times , Madhva strengthened India by giving us the complete vision of God.

In fact he even goes onto say that even carnal pleasure performed as an offering to God becomes purified and does not cause bondage.

Thus due to his conception of god which covers everything , he is called PurnaPrajna , or one who has complete knowledge.

In fact Madhva in his commentary on the Isha Upanishad mantra says that one must know god as both the creator and destroyer and knowing him only as the creator is sinful.Knowing god as the destroyer frees us from worldy miseries and knowing him as the creator gives us Moksha.

We find a similar ideas being expounded by A in his works.God as the destroyer figures prominently in his works and he vigorously emphasises on it.

"Hindus make a mistake in loving shiva but failing to adore Rudra"

"The sweet dance of Brindavana is incomplete without the death-dance of kurukshetra"

"Destruction is the first condition of progress inwardly; the man who does not destroy his lower self-formations, cannot rise to a greater existence"

The "Essays on the Gita" is a masterful work by Aurobindo in which he brings forth repeatedly this biune formation of Vishnu as the creator and destroyer.

"Indian spirituality knows that God is Love and Peace and calm Eternity, - the Gita which presents us with these terrible images, speaks of the Godhead who embodies himself in them as the lover and friend of all creatures. But there is too the sterner aspect of his divine government of the world which meets us from the beginning, the aspect of destruction, and to ignore it is to miss the full reality of the divine Love and Peace and Calm and Eternity and even to throw on it an aspect of partiality and illusion, because the comforting exclusive form in which it is put is not borne out by the nature of the world in which we live. This world of our battle and labour is a fierce dangerous destructive devouring world in which life exists precariously and the soul and body of man move among enormous perils, a world in which by every step forward, whether we will it or no, something is crushed and broken, in which every breath of life is a breath too of death. To put away the responsibility for all that seems to us evil or terrible on the shoulders of a semi-omnipotent Devil, or to put it aside as part of Nature, making an unbridgeable opposition between world-nature and God-Nature, as if Nature were independent of God, or to throw the responsibility on man and his sins, as if he had a preponderant voice in the making of this world or could create anything against the will of God, are clumsily comfortable devices in which the religious thought of India has never taken refuge. We have to look courageously in the face of the reality and see that it is God and none else who has made this world in his being and that so he has made it. We have to see that Nature devouring her children, Time eating up the lives of creatures, Death universal and ineluctable and the violence of the Rudra forces in man and Nature are also the supreme Godhead in one of his cosmic figures. We have to see that God the bountiful and prodigal creator, God the helpful, strong and benignant preserver is also God the devourer and destroyer. The torment of the couch of pain and evil on which we are racked is his touch as much as happiness and sweetness and pleasure. It is only when we see with the eye of the complete union and feel this truth in the depths of our being that we can entirely discover behind that mask too the calm and beautiful face of the all-blissful Godhead and in this touch that tests our imperfection the touch of the friend and builder of the spirit in man. The discords of the worlds are God's discords and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of his supreme harmony, the summits and thrilled vastnesses of his transcendent and his cosmic Ananda. "(Essays on the Gita , second series , chapter X , the vision of the world-spirit,(1)Time the destoryer,(in 'Arya' May 1919)

He saw in Night the Eternal's shadowy veil,
Knew death for a cellar of the house of life,
In destruction felt creation's hasty pace
Knew loss as the price of a celestial gain
And hell as a short cut to heaven's gates. (Savitri)

A Fire that seemed the body of a god
Consumed the limiting figures of the past
And made large room for a new self to live. (Savitri)

This is the figure of the supreme and universal Being, the Ancient of Days who is for ever, sanatanam purusham puranam, this is he who for ever creates, for Brahma the Creator is one of the Godheads seen in his body, he who keeps the world always in existence, for he is the guardian of the eternal laws, but who is always too destroying in order that he may new-create, who is Time, who is Death, who is Rudra the Dancer of the calm and awful dance, who is Kali with her garland of skulls trampling naked in battle and flecked with the blood of the slaughtered Titans, who is the cyclone and the fire and the earthquake and pain and famine and revolution and ruin and the swallowing ocean. And it is this last aspect of him which he puts forward at the moment. It is an aspect from which the mind in men willingly turns away and ostrich-like hides its head so that perchance, not seeing, it may not be seen by the Terrible. The weakness of the human heart wants only fair and comforting truths or in their absence pleasant fables; it will not have the truth in its entirety because there there is much that is not clear and pleasant and comfortable, but hard to understand and harder to bear. The raw religionist, the superficial optimistic thinker, the sentimental idealist, the man at the mercy of his sensations and emotions agree in twisting away from the sterner conclusions, the harsher and fiercer aspects of universal existence. Indian religion has been ignorantly reproached for not sharing in this general game of hiding, because on the contrary it has built and placed before it the terrible as well as the sweet and beautiful symbols of the Godhead. But it is the depth and largeness of its long thought and spiritual experience that prevent it from feeling or from giving countenance to these feeble shrinkings.(Essays on the Gita , second series , chapter X , the vision of the world-spirit,(1)Time the destoryer,(in 'Arya' May 1919)

No real peace can be till the heart of man deserves peace; the law of Vishnu cannot prevail till the debt to Rudra is paid.

It is possible to go ahead and give infinite examples , as Aurobindo repeatedly stresses the destructive aspect of the Eternal Being in all his works.But I believe the few above that I have given will suffice.

Introduction

The philosophies of Madhva and Aurobindo are identical in all respects , the differences is there only in form and not in essence.It is Madhva's philosophy presented in the language of Yoga and occult and modern evolution.It is the kshatriya interpretation of Madhvas philosphy and also its most brilliant presentation of Ideas and Concepts of Madhva.

The Madhvas philosphy has both brahminical and kshatriya aspects to it , but the SI Brahmins have
generally laid stress on the brahminical aspect , Mokhsa , acquistion of vedic knowledge and ascetism and morality , almost completely ignoring , especially in modern times the kshatriya
aspect which enabled the Vijayanagar Empire to come into existence.

Aurobindo came to establish the kshatriya aspect of Madhvas philosphy.

Madhvas philosphy can be used to establish an ideal wordly society as well as for Moksha purposes.The Kannada brahmins have chosen to concentrate primarily on Moksha completely ignoring worldy welfare.


We regularly see symposiums on "Advaita and Management" , "Advaita and Politics" and such other things , yet we rarely come across a single book , paper or essay on the relevance of tattvavada to worldly life.Even Iyengars have written many books of how VA will help in bringing about unity among the hindus and erasing all the evils of the hindu society , but we rarely see any such effort on the part of the Madhvas.They are simply not concerned about this world at all.

Actually tattvavada can be used to enhance national security and economics , politics and education , yet we hardly see anywhere the T perspective on all these things.

Aurobindo came to establish tattvavaada for worldy benefit.

In the coming weeks , we shall try to explore some of the similarities in both the philosophies and see how they benefit the world.

(The above analysis is wrong. But it remains as a record of the course of my thoughts)