Posted on: 01 Jul 2021
[Pādanamaskāraṃ Swāmi, some Facebook user in advaita forum stated the meaning of Īśvaro guru rātmeti mūrtibheda vibhāgine in Dakṣiṇā Mūrti stotram composed by Śaṇkara as: There is no difference between Īśvara, Guru and Ātman. What is the interpretation of this composition and how to reply to that person? At Your lotus feet, Durgaprasad.]
Swāmi replied: The dance of Kṛṣṇa in Brundāvanam and the advaita philosophy of Śaṇkara were entirely with different backgrounds and were unfortunately misunderstood in the absence of the knowledge of those true backgrounds. The first background of Kṛṣṇa was to test the sages in the three strong worldly bonds in the competition of bond with God. The second background of Śaṇkara was to turn atheists in to theists and to give confidence for a depressed soul. You are unifying God, guru and the ordinary soul. If all these three are one entity only, what is the necessity of spiritual effort or sādhanā since the ordinary soul itself is God? Since guru is also God, God need not preach to any soul to become God or to get the grace of God because every ordinary soul is already God. This is just like a mad person preaching to himself advising the self to become mad. Hence, such unity will be mocked even by a just born baby! All this is the wishful thinking of an incapable person to follow the spiritual path. A beggar feels himself as the king and does not make any effort to earn because he feels that he is already the richest king. This avoids all the unnecessary strain in doing the effort. Even if one becomes a king, he will be enjoying bliss feeling that he is the great king. If the beggar also enjoys this bliss feeling that he is the great king, what is the difference between the real king and the beggar feeling himself as king? This imaginary philosophy has spoiled the humanity from doing their duties of pravṛtti and nivṛtti also.
These people take Śaṇkara as their source for this kind of mad philosophy. Śaṇkara created this philosophy in completely different circumstances for a positive program, which is to turn the atheists in to theists. By following the same mad philosophy, Śaṇkara really turned atheist in to theist. When He arrived, He was surrounded fully by atheists. Atheist will not believe in the existence of God other than himself. There is no other way for anybody except this mad philosophy. Following this, Śaṇkara told the atheist that he is the God. Every atheist agreed to this because there is no God other than himself. Next, Śaṇkara told that the atheist exists and this is also agreed by the atheist since everybody will agree to this. Nobody will say that he does not exist. Then Śaṇkara told finally that God exists because the soul is God, the soul exists and hence, God exists. The atheist himself told by his own tongue that God exists and became theist.
When the atheist asked Śaṇkara that if he (atheist) is God, why he is not possessing the miraculous powers of God. Śaṇkara told that the practical ignorance can be removed only by pure mind, which can be achieved only when the atheist-converted-theist worships God. Attracted by the unimaginable profit (that one is God already) the converted theist became devotee. In this way, Śaṇkara made the atheist to become devotee and this was supported by Rāmānuja, who consoled the devotee that the soul is not God but a tiny part of God. Madhva appeared finally by saying that the soul is neither fully God nor part of God because the soul is separate entity, which is the servant of God. Śaṇkara while saying that the converted atheist shall serve God during his worship has already introduced the philosophy of Madhva. In this way a very long program was planned by Śaṇkara for which the first step is this mad philosophy. For a very good purpose of converting atheist in to theist, then converting him in to devotee and then converting him in to servant, this mad philosophy was used as the beginning step. Without following the further steps, certain people, who were very very ambitious to get a free lottery of 1 crore rupees for a free ticket (not even one rupee is spent to purchase the ticket because the soul is already God and there is no trace of effort to become God) have stuck to this first step only and continued this mad philosophy till their death!