Duality teaches us that every aspect of life is created from a balanced interaction of opposite and competing forces. Yet these forces are not just opposites; they are complementary. They do not cancel out each other, they merely balance each other like the dual wings of a bird. The symbol of duality is Infinity.
With the concept of duality, it is said that you can’t fully understand one side of the dual nature of something without comparing and fully understanding the opposing side. For example, you couldn’t understand what the concept of ‘up’ is without having a ‘down’ to compare and contrast. Same applies for in-out, hot-cold, sweet-sour, young-old, male-female, on, the list goes. If we don’t have an opposing counterpart, then it can’t have any value to us.
Multiple layers are at work to generate what you currently experience on Earth. These layers exist independently of each other and yet interact almost directly. The first layer, the one most of us are most sure of, is yourself: your mind, your consciousness, that which experiences. The second layer is your body: your brain, the flesh and bone that contains and produces your consciousness, that which translates external stimuli as sense experience. The third layer is the rest of the universe: an entity within itself, of which you play a part but cannot understand and perceive directly (because the second layer, your body, acts as a barrier).
The separation between the first and third layers is the cause for the “duality.” It is precisely because your mind cannot directly experience the universe that a duality is formed, which separates understanding, meaning, and truth into two parts: relative and absolute.
The nature of duality is what makes society as a whole a collective “illusion”, a collective perspective or angle of looking at something. It is a true and real angle but doesn’t account for all possible angles. It cannot be all the possible angles; perception is limited to one angle. This is important to understand because it means that we can collectively view everything from another angle, a possibly better angle. To say that money is this important, that a thing is taboo, that one race is better than another, that one sex or gender is superior, or this distinction and that distinction… is seeing things from one angle. These are all relative truths, and they are far from absolute. Although these perceptions are true and false at the same time, it is their false nature that allows for the redefining of all things.
When we see objects in 3D, it is materialization of dualistic nature of light in the form of waves. There are no physical objects in this and beyond this universe. All are energy waves and oscillating at different frequencies. We or anything is called conscious observer, starts observing, the wave materializes into an object, trillion times faster than your senses. Tada you see objects all around you. So when we see deep into space, we the Conscious observers see the materialization of the light waves. No objects in spaces, just waves. The waves collapses into duality and materializes as objects.
Creation is based on duality. This duality came alive due to the Nature or Prakrithi and Purusha Or the point of stillness. Prakrithi disturbs Purusha for cosmic play. The creation emerges from nothingness. The creation is sustained by the point of singularity or Bindu or Dot or Black Hole.
Dvaitha Vedantha
Dvaita Vedanta identifies Atman (soul) and Brahman as two separate and non-interchangeable entities. Dvaita classifies everything in the universe into two realities, Brahman alone and Paratantra, i.e., dependent realty (the souls and inanimate matter)
Propounded by Sri Madhvacharya, Dvaita Vedanta describes brahman as superior to all souls and is perfect in aspects. The brahman knows all past, present, and future and has all the knowledge in the universe, most powerful, compassionate, and wise. The only way to salvation (moksha) is to feel love and devotion toward the supreme. The supreme soul (Brahman) is independent, and all other souls are dependent on him. Dvaita Vedanta, identifies Brahman in the form of Maha Vishnu However, here Vishnu is not considered part of Trimurti, but brahman itself (Absolute reality).
Who is Brahman?
Dvaita Vedanta explains brahman as supreme of everything in the universe, and this world/universe is not illusionary but is the actual creation of Brahman. Therefore, there is an eternal distinction between absolute reality and individual self-reality. Thus, the universe owes god for its creation. God knows every soul and all its actions. The soul’s actions are subject to god, but God has been kind enough to provide us freedom of will. We are free to make decisions and have our will and choices, but God has eyes and can influence our decisions.
Madhvacharya explains “Agyaana” as mistaken knowledge and can be corrected through devotion and salvation. Here one focuses on creating a special bond between God and the devotee. Devotion can be done in various ways; by reading scriptures, chanting mantras, and performing selflessness and kindness. The goal is not to reach a higher state but bhakti itself. The journey to achieve god is itself a goal.
The bonding of the Jivas (souls) to the cycle of life and death results from their ignorance towards the very true nature of the god. That is why the adoration of God is the ultimate moksha and frees the soul from the cycle of the world. However, as per Madhava, the liberated soul does not become God but exists as a separate reality. The concept of spiritualism is less pronounced here. Most of the followers of Dvaita embraced Vaishnavism (worship of Vishnu as a supreme reality).
Davita Vedanta differentiates god, other souls, and inanimate matter in the following points:
- The difference between individual souls (Jivatman) and god (Paramatma)
- Between matter (inanimate, insentient) and god
- Between individual souls
- Between matter and god
- Between various types of matter
Gradation of reality
Though existence is reality, Madhvacharya recognizes that the highest expression of reality is the metaphysical independence of every other form in infinite reality regarding its powers and activity. Everything in finite reality is therefore grounded in independent reality-brahman and needs it for its becoming and being. Existence is one aspect of reality; it does not exhaust it, nor is it the highest expression. God is above a mere being that is of primary significance to the religious consciousness.
Attributes of Brahman
Here, God has two aspects of divinity- the perfection of being (sarvagunapurnatavam) and freedom from all limitations (sarvadosagandhavuratam). God is the highest form of perfection conceivable by human intelligence. The perfection of the divine is to be understood in terms of an unlimited pervasion in time, space, and fullness of attributes. Only god can have these threefold perfections. Everything else in the universe lacks one or many attributes.
God is above all change and limitation. His nature remains the same at all times and places. His form consists of reality, absolute consciousness, and unlimited bliss and if we accept such a subtle power, abiding in God, only we can attain moksha (liberation).
Madhva and Sankara
The main tenet of Madhva’s Dvaita Vedanta is that the Vedic tradition teaches a fundamental difference between the human soul or atman and the ultimate reality, brahman. This is markedly different from the earlier Advaita Vedanta, which Madhva often vociferously attacked. Sankara’s A-dvaita or “non-dualist” Vedanta (9th century) argued that the atman is completely identical with brahman. According to Sankara, the atman experiences a false sense of plurality and individuality when under the influence of the delusive power of maya. While maya has the ambiguous ontological status of being neither real nor unreal, the only true reality is brahman. A soul becomes liberated from the cycle of rebirth (punar-janma) by realizing that its very experience of samsara is an illusion; its true identity is the singular objectless consciousness that constitutes pure being or brahman.
Madhva and Ramanuja
While Ramanuja’s system of Visistadvaita Vedanta or “qualified non-dualism” modifies Sankara’s position on the soul’s identity with brahman, Madhva also rejected it. Ramanuja assumes a plurality of individual souls whose identity remains intact even after liberation but maintains that the souls share the essential nature of brahma. The souls are eternal particles issuing from brahman, who as their source retains its transcendence. Ramanuja maintains Visnu’s distinct difference from the human soul and his supremacy as creator and redeemer. Ramanuja identifies brahman with Visnu, holding that brahman is saguna, i.e. possesses attributes, in contrast to Sankara’s attributeless or “nirguna” brahman.
Dvaita Vedanta
Like Ramanuja, Madhva identifies brahman with Visnu. However, he argues that any system that allows for any identification of the atman with brahman undermines Visnu’s supremacy, compromises His status, and strips devotional acts of their meaning. Madhva’s insistence on the modal distinction between the atman and brahman, wherein the former is inalterably dependent upon–and therefore, fundamentally different from–the latter, insures Visnu-as-brahman‘s complete and utter transcendence of the human soul. For Madhva, this view alone makes devotion [bhakti] an essential component of religious belief and practice. Attaining Visnu’s grace is the soul’s only hope of achieving liberation [moksa] from the cycle of rebirth (samsara).
Like Ramanuja, Madhva opposes Sankara’s conception of Brahman as nirguna or without qualities and as a pure self- consciousness. Madhva views Visnu as preeminent above all other deities on the basis of His unique characteristics. This emphasis on Visnu’s particular collocation of attributes that renders Him distinct from all other gods, human souls, and the material world reveals another critical component of Madhva’s philosophy which is his acceptance of an ontological plurality as a fundamental facet of being. Indeed, Madhva rejects the notion that brahman is the only truly existent entity (tattva) and he maintains that, even though living beings and inert matter are dependent upon Brahman, such dependence differentiates them from Him and makes them discrete entities (tattvas). Thus, reality in Madhva’s system consists of three basic elements: God, the souls (jivasi), and insentient matter (jada).
Madhva’s pluralistic ontology is founded on his realist epistemology, which in turn affects his Vedic hermeneutics. He argues that God and the human soul are separate because our daily experience of separateness from God and of plurality in general is presented to us as an undeniable fact, fundamental to our knowledge of all things. Madhva’s emphasis on the validity of experience as a means of knowledge is intended to refute the nondualist position that the differences we experience in daily life are ultimately a shared illusion with the ambiguous ontological status of being neither real nor unreal. In Madhva’s view, Advaita’s denial of the innate validity of knowledge acquired through sense perception completely undermines our ability to know anything since we must always question the content of our knowledge. This questioning would encompass our knowledge of the sacred canon, which is accessible to us only through our ability to perceive it and to draw inferences from it. Madhva argues that perception and inference must be innately valid and the reality they present us with must be actually and ultimately real since such a position is the only one that allows us to know the content of the Vedas. The Vedas alone are responsible for teaching us about the nature of the self and brahman.
This aspect of Madhva’s realist epistemology is important not only because it bolsters Madhva’s claim that the atman and brahman are permanently distinct as revealed to us by experience, but because it means that the sacred texts must be read in consonance with the data we receive from our everyday experience, even though the Vedas present us with knowledge of a supra-sensible realm. Madhva argues that the Vedas cannot teach non-difference between the atman and brahman or a lack of true plurality since this would directly contradict our experience. In Madhva’s view the sacred texts teach pancabheda, the five-fold difference between 1. Visnu and jivas 2. Visnu and jada 3. jiva and jada 4. one jiva and another and 5. one form of jada and another.
Madhva’s belief in the innate difference of one soul from another led to some interesting doctrines in his system. He believed in a hierarchy of jivas, based upon their innate configurations of virtues (gunas) and faults (dosas). For example, Visnu is supreme because He possesses all qualities in their most fulfilled and perfect form. Furthermore, because Madhva believed that souls possess innate characteristics and capacities, he also maintained that they were predestined to achieve certain ends. This perspective put Madhva at odds with traditional Hindu views of the karma theory wherein differences in social and religious status are explained via past moral or immoral acts. For Madhva, each individual being possesses an innate moral propensity and karma is merely the mechanism by which a given soul is propelled towards his or her destiny.
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