Comment to 'Reincarnation: Who Is It That Travels?'
  • He followed the Bhagavad Gita faithfully but when he referenced the Upanishads to it, he caused a confusion, perhaps because he is in advaita sect, where the ultimate objective is Oneness.

    The antar atma he mentioned which is all pervasive is not the individual atma (jivatma). In the Gita there are two types of atmas with the paramatma or antaratma being the Supreme Being who supports everything and the atma being the limited eternal being who supports everything in its body only and who does not support everything.

    He avoids explaining individuality and suggest that it is apparent or likely only as a reflection of the antaratma or the Supreme Being. This will lead down to a dark alley, where there is no atma and there is only antaratma, where all there is, is a sun and its reflections in those buckets of water.

    That is absurd.

    I say this, both realities are there where we have the limited selves and the unlimited overlord self. There is a relationship between the limited selves and the overlord self but that does not mean that it is a relationship of there being an overlord self only with illusion limited selves.

    The limited selves even though limited are reality. The effort to dismiss them is ludicrous because they are perpetual even though they have hang-ups and are not in the position of the overlord self.

    As an advaita Vedantist, his job is to erase the significance of the limited selves because there is a discovery where one realizes that because of being limited or not in total control, one will be subject to trauma.

    However this teacher is one of the best of the Vedantists I heard in a long time because he tried his best to stick to the Gita as much as his lineage could possibly tolerate.