TEXT 114
tanra dosa nahi, tenho ajna-kari dasa
ara yei sune tara haya sarva-nasa
SYNONYMS
tanrahis (Lord Siva's); dosafault; nahithere is none; tenhohe; ajna-kariobedient order-carrier; dasaservant; araothers; yeianyone; sunehears (the Mayavada philosophy); taraof him; hayabecomes; sarva-nasaeverything lost
TRANSLATION
"Sankaracarya, who is an incarnation of Lord Siva, is faultless because he is a servant carrying out the orders of the Lord. But those who follow his Mayavadi philosophy are doomed. They will lose all their advancement in spiritual knowledge.
PURPORT
Mayavadi philosophers are very proud of exhibiting their Vedanta knowledge through grammatical jugglery, but in the Bhagavad-gita Lord Sri Krsna certifies that they are mayayapahrta-jnana, bereft of real knowledge due to maya. Maya has two potencies with which to execute her two functions-praksepatmika-sakti, the power to throw the living entity into the ocean of material existence, and avaranatmika-sakti, the power to cover the knowledge of the living entity. The function of the avaranatmika-sakti is explained in the Bhagavad-gita by the word mayayapahrta-jnanah.
Why the daivi-maya, or illusory energy of Krsna, takes away the knowledge of the Mayavadi philosophers is also explained in the Bhagavad-gita by the use of the words asuram bhavam asritah, which refer to a person who does not agree to the existence of the Lord. The Mayavadis, who are not in agreement with the existence of the Lord, can be classified in two groups, exemplified by the impersonalist Sankarites of Varanasi and the Buddhists of Saranatha. Both groups are Mayavadis, and Krsna takes away their knowledge due to their atheistic philosophies. Neither group agrees to accept the existence of a personal God. The Buddhist philosophers clearly deny both the soul and God, and although the Sankarites do not openly deny God, they say that the Absolute is nirakara, or formless. Thus both the Buddhists and the Sankarites are avisuddha-buddhayah, or imperfect and unclean in their knowledge and intelligence.
The most prominent Mayavadi scholar, Sadananda Yogindra, has written a book called Vedanta-sara, in which he expounds the philosophy of Sankaracarya, and all the followers of Sankara's philosophy attribute great importance to his statements. In this Vedanta-sara Sadananda Yogindra defines Brahman as sac-cid-ananda combined with knowledge and without duality, and he defines ignorance (jada) as knowledge distinct from that of sat and asat. This is almost inconceivable, but it is a product of the three material qualities. Thus he considers anything other than pure knowledge to be material. The center of ignorance is considered to be sometimes all-pervading and sometimes individual. Thus according to his opinion both the all-pervading Visnu and the individual living entities are products of ignorance.
In simple language, it is the opinion of Sadananda Yogindra that since everything is nirakara (formless), the conception of Visnu and the conception of the individual soul are both products of ignorance. He also explains that the visuddha-sattva conception of the Vaisnavas is nothing but pradhana, or the chief principle of creation. He maintains that when all-pervading knowledge is contaminated by the visuddha-sattva, which consists of a transformation of the quality of goodness, there arises the conception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is the omnipotent, omniscient supreme ruler, the Supersoul, the cause of all causes, the supreme isvara, etc. According to Sadananda Yogindra, because isvara, the Supreme Lord, is the reservoir of all ignorance, He may be called sarva-jna, or omniscient, but one who denies the existence of the omnipotent Supreme Personality of Godhead is more than isvara, or the Lord. His conclusion, therefore, is that the Supreme Personality of Godhead (isvara) is a transformation of material ignorance and that the living entity (jiva) is covered by ignorance. Thus he describes both collective and individual existence in darkness. According to Mayavadi philosophers, the Vaisnava conception of the Lord as the Supreme Personality of Godhead and of the jiva, or individual soul, as His eternal servant is a manifestation of ignorance. If we accept the judgment of Lord Krsna in the Bhagavad-gita, however, the Mayavadis are to be considered mayayapahrta-jnana, or bereft of all knowledge, because they do not recognize the existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead or they claim that His existence is a product of the material conception (maya). These are characteristics of asuras, or demons.
Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, in His discourses with Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya, said:
jivera nistara lagi' sutra kaila vyasa
mayavadi-bhasya sunile haya sarva-nasa
Vyasadeva composed the Vedanta-sutra to deliver the conditioned souls from this material world, but Sankaracarya, by presenting the Vedanta-sutra in his own way, has clearly done a great disservice to human society, for one who follows his Mayavada philosophy is doomed. In the Vedanta-sutra, devotional service is clearly indicated, but the Mayavadi philosophers refuse to accept the spiritual body of the Supreme Absolute Person and refuse to accept that the living entity has an individual existence separate from that of the Supreme Lord. Thus they have created atheistic havoc all over the world, for such a conclusion is against the very nature of the transcendental process of pure devotional service. The Mayavadi philosophers' unrealizable ambition to become one with the Supreme through denying the existence of the Personality of Godhead results in a most calamitous misrepresentation of spiritual knowledge, and one who follows this philosophy is doomed to remain perpetually in this material world. Therefore the Mayavadis are called avisuddha-buddhayah, or unclean in knowledge. Because they are unclean in knowledge, all their austerities and penances end in frustration. Thus although they may be honored at first as very learned scholars, ultimately they descend to physical activities of politics, social work, etc. Instead of becoming one with the Supreme Lord, they again become one with these material activities. This is explained in Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.2.32):
aruhya krcchrena param padam tatah
patanty adho 'nadrta-yusmad-anghrayah
In actuality the Mayavadi philosophers very strictly follow the austerities and penances of spiritual life and in this way are elevated to the impersonal Brahman platform, but due to their negligence of the lotus feet of the Lord they again fall down to material existence.

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