Personalist Behavior
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Impersonalism or personalism, what is the real difference?
It is not so much in the doctrine, but in the behavior that the real test comes. The problem is projection. We see the body or the religious affiliation and so on and we don't see the soul, the person. That happens, sadly, as often if not more with people who identify themselves as theists, because they see the religious affiliation as the identifier, i.e., they see the upādhi or covering as the truth, and not the spiritual being.
Now whether you call that spiritual truth Brahman or anything else, if you accept that the person with whom you are engaged is a sacred entity, and you treat them accordingly, that is personalism. Whether you do so on the level of full realization or as an aspect of sādhana.
If you believe God is a bearded old man or a flute-playing cowherd, but you treat other people as objects, in whatever guṇa of nature, you are an impersonalist.
Our personalist philosophy ultimately tells us to see Krishna in the proximate personality in our I-Thou or dual relationships or in our I-We communal relationships. What we do in the singular remains that, singular. And therefore represents only the baby step in spiritual life. Genuinely achieving the singular means being equipped with the spiritual character and knowledge to function in the dual and plural. It seems rather premature to think that one can really progress to Love without an adequate culture of individual character. And so the hopes of many a romantic materialist are dashed.
The impersonalist philosophies or spiritual paths emphasize the letting go, the negation of any belief or doctrine to describe reality, so that one can enter into an unmediated experience of it.
They may consider bhakti a helpful means, an ālambana that also can be an obstacle, which is in fact true. If I see God as something "out there" and am unable to recognize his direct presence in the immediate, then even God becomes an obstacle to higher realization.
Nevertheless, we say that personhood, relationship and love are the highest values, and that this should be reflected in our philosophy also. But at the same time, the practices of the impersonalist schools, i.e., the negation of upādhis, entering into a direct experience of the Other as an experience of the Sacred by recognizing the essential unity of all things, etc., are essential for a personalist as well. In this respect there is really no difference.
Most people nowadays who adhere to impersonalist doctrines, spiritual or material, will in fact agree with the idea that love is the highest value. But that does not mean that they have any more awareness than a kaniṣṭha Vaishnava -- and vice versa. In both cases, they there is a huge difference between pretending to know and real knowing, between the experience of the Divine limited to a trivial or accidental epiphany or two and the person who has become a beacon of true spiritual love.
Now whether you call that spiritual truth Brahman or anything else, if you accept that the person with whom you are engaged is a sacred entity, and you treat them accordingly, that is personalism. Whether you do so on the level of full realization or as an aspect of sādhana.
If you believe God is a bearded old man or a flute-playing cowherd, but you treat other people as objects, in whatever guṇa of nature, you are an impersonalist.
Our personalist philosophy ultimately tells us to see Krishna in the proximate personality in our I-Thou or dual relationships or in our I-We communal relationships. What we do in the singular remains that, singular. And therefore represents only the baby step in spiritual life. Genuinely achieving the singular means being equipped with the spiritual character and knowledge to function in the dual and plural. It seems rather premature to think that one can really progress to Love without an adequate culture of individual character. And so the hopes of many a romantic materialist are dashed.
The impersonalist philosophies or spiritual paths emphasize the letting go, the negation of any belief or doctrine to describe reality, so that one can enter into an unmediated experience of it.
They may consider bhakti a helpful means, an ālambana that also can be an obstacle, which is in fact true. If I see God as something "out there" and am unable to recognize his direct presence in the immediate, then even God becomes an obstacle to higher realization.
Nevertheless, we say that personhood, relationship and love are the highest values, and that this should be reflected in our philosophy also. But at the same time, the practices of the impersonalist schools, i.e., the negation of upādhis, entering into a direct experience of the Other as an experience of the Sacred by recognizing the essential unity of all things, etc., are essential for a personalist as well. In this respect there is really no difference.
Most people nowadays who adhere to impersonalist doctrines, spiritual or material, will in fact agree with the idea that love is the highest value. But that does not mean that they have any more awareness than a kaniṣṭha Vaishnava -- and vice versa. In both cases, they there is a huge difference between pretending to know and real knowing, between the experience of the Divine limited to a trivial or accidental epiphany or two and the person who has become a beacon of true spiritual love.
(FB memories July 17, 2015)
Comments
Notes
Śrī Devi said: O Kuleśa! I want to hear about the Tests of Guru and Śiṣya. O My Lord! Also tell Me about the Order of Instruction and the kinds of Initiations.
Īśvara said: Listen O Devi! I am telling what You have asked, merely hearing it purifies the mind.
No Liberation without Initiation and No Initiation without Ācārya:
It has been laid down by Lord Śiva that there can be no Liberation without Initiation and this Initiation cannot be there without a traditional Ācārya.
Therefore, after knowing the principles through Tradition and the like one should secure a Guru capable of giving internal instruction; otherwise, the Mantras would become fruitless.
The Devatās provide protection only to those Gurus who are promoters of Tradition, who know the Mantras, Āgamas and follow the Samayācāra.
Though himself unattached the Guru, after understanding the rights of the disciple for some time, on the command of Lord Śiva, vest him with authority.
Initiation means Union with Para Śiva and Liberation after Death: See 1.
For him who is so invested with authority, there is verily union with Para Śiva and at the end of his bodily life there is eternal Liberation - so has been declared by Śiva.
Therefore, O My Beloved! One should seek with all efforts to have a Guru of unbroken Tradition originating from Para Śiva Himself.
1. J.D., the meaning here is two-fold; liberation upon the natural death of the body, and liberation in this body and life - from the yogic death (the lucid being leaving the physical body in the breathless state) and returning to the body from the shining womb of all creation (twice born).
Continue reading:
https://archive.org/details/Kularnava/page/n230/mode/1up?view=theater
Such thinking (carefully conditioned from cradle to grave) serves only one purpose, to ensnare unknowing souls into the servitude of those whom have engineered such cold deception.
"Cui bono?"
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKndDT6hwYg