Category:Becoming One with Impersonal Brahman
Theme Analysis
This category distinguishes the goal of the impersonalist (jñānī) and the meditator (yogī) from that of the devotee. While the impersonalists seek sāyujya, or becoming one with the impersonal Brahman effulgence (brahmajyoti), Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that this is an incomplete and ultimately rejected form of liberation for a Vaiṣṇava. The desire to merge is often born of a reactive frustration with material suffering—a self-interested attempt to escape pain by annihilating individuality. However, because the soul is eternally active and individual, the devotee rejects this static oneness as "hellish," choosing instead the highest perfection of eternal, transcendental loving service to the Personality of Godhead.
- Incomplete Knowledge: Becoming one with the brahmajyoti is not the final word in spiritual realization. Śrīla Prabhupāda notes that mature knowledge involves surrendering to the Lord and developing a sense of service, rather than simply seeking to merge into the light.
- Self-Interested Liberation: Even though the desire to become one with Brahman is more elevated than gross material desires, it is still categorized as self-interest because the focus is on personal relief from material bondage rather than the Lord's satisfaction.
- The Devotee's Preference: A devotee is willing to accept any body—material or spiritual—if it facilitates service. The idea of becoming one with the impersonal Brahman is undesirable because it terminates the possibility of fanning the Lord, offering Him prayers, or engaging in His pastimes.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Becoming One with Impersonal Brahman - A Rejected Liberation.
Pages in category "Becoming One with Impersonal Brahman"
The following 17 pages are in this category, out of 17 total.
A
- A devotee does not think like yogis & jnanis, who want to refuse a material body & become one with the impersonal Brahman effulgence. A devotee does not like this idea. On the contrary, he will accept any body, material or spiritual, for he wants to serve
- A devotee does not think like yogis and jnanis, who want to refuse a material body and become one with the impersonal Brahman effulgence. A devotee does not like this idea
- Actually they (the sannyasis who artificially think that they have become liberated) are self-interested because their goal is becoming one with the impersonal Brahman. BG 1972 purports
- Another interpretation put forward by the Mayavadis is that in every millennium different types of bodies are manifest, and when the millennium is closed all the different bodies or expansions of Brahman automatically become one
B
- Becoming one with the brahmajyoti does not represent mature knowledge. Only by surrendering unto the Lord completely and developing one's sense of spiritual service does one reach the highest perfectional stage
- Brahma satyam jagan mithya. This is all false. Now let us become Brahman, become one with Brahman." But that is also false. That idea, to become one with the Brahman, that is also false. So real reality is Krsna consciousness
I
- In that (brahma-bhuta) stage of existence, the idea of becoming one with the Supreme Brahman and annihilating one's individuality becomes hellish. BG 1972 purports
- In that condition of spiritual consciousness, the contributor, the contribution, the consumption, the performer or leader of the performance, and the result or ultimate gain-everything-becomes one in the Absolute, the Supreme Brahman. BG 1972 purports
- It is further said, "Who is that person who will not agree to worship the land of Mathura? Mathura can deliver all the desires and ambitions of the fruitive workers and of the salvationists, who desire to become one with the supreme Brahman"