Madhva
Fri, 02/01/2008 - 15:21 — admin
Historically speaking, Madhvacharya is the most modern of the four founder-acharyas. Madhvacharya appeared in the year 1239 A.D. and remained on this planet for nearly 80 years. Even as a young child, he was a great mystic and performed many extraordinary deeds. At 11 years of age, he left home without seeking consent from his parents and accepted the renounced order of life (sannyas).13 He lived in a small village not far from the place he was born, studying under the guidance of his spiritual master. Madhvacharya was of immense physical stature and strength, and once when his companion Satya Tirtha was attacked by a tiger he succeeded in killing the beast with his bare hands. The Chaitanya Charitamrita describes another event in which the party he was traveling with was attacked by a roving band of thieves. Madhvacharya personally dispensed with all of them.
After some time, Madhva, who was already a great scholar, traveled throughout India, both preaching and enriching his own philosophical understanding.
Eventually he arrived at Badarikashram, high in the Himalayan mountains, where he is said to have met Sri Vyasadeva, under whose tutelage his wisdom14 increased multifold. Madhva was an extraordinarily powerful preacher, and he became famous even within his own lifetime for his logical arguments against Shankara’s Mayavadi philosophy, which equates the individual soul with the Supreme Soul and relegates the Absolute Truth into the category of a formless spirit.15 Madhva’s Dvaita philosophy of pure dualism declares that God is eternally a person, but does not deny His impersonal energy known as the “clear light” or “Brahman effulgence.” He considered the Supreme Person, Sri Krishna, to be ever distinct from His creation. Just as the sun produces unlimited quantities of sunshine, but remains undiminished and unchanged, so the Supreme Personality of Godhead remains ever the same, although manifesting unlimited energies. Although He creates the material world, He remains separate from it.
Madhvacharya placed special emphasis on teaching that after liberation the soul retains her individuality. The individual soul and the Supreme Soul are thus eternally persons. To emphasize this point, he often held up two fingers while speaking, and this has come to be his logo. Whereas Shankara is often pictured with one finger aloft, representing his “all is one without distinction” doctrine, Madhva is regularly pictured with two fingers extended, one to represent the individual soul and one the Supreme Soul.
If life is materially based, then why don’t we see it springing from matter in the natural world? And why can’t we create life from matter in our laboratories?Madhva
Science of Identity Foundation – Siddhaswarupananda
Historically speaking, Madhvacharya is the most modern of the four founder-acharyas. Madhvacharya appeared in the year 1239 A.D. and remained on this planet for nearly 80 years. Even as a young child, he was a great mystic and performed many extraordinary deeds. At 11 years of age, he left home without seeking consent from his parents and accepted the renounced order of life (sannyas).13 He lived in a small village not far from the place he was born, studying under the guidance of his spiritual master. Madhvacharya was of immense physical stature and strength, and once when his companion Satya Tirtha was attacked by a tiger he succeeded in killing the beast with his bare hands. The Chaitanya Charitamrita describes another event in which the party he was traveling with was attacked by a roving band of thieves. Madhvacharya personally dispensed with all of them.
After some time, Madhva, who was already a great scholar, traveled throughout India, both preaching and enriching his own philosophical understanding.
Eventually he arrived at Badarikashram, high in the Himalayan mountains, where he is said to have met Sri Vyasadeva, under whose tutelage his wisdom14 increased multifold. Madhva was an extraordinarily powerful preacher, and he became famous even within his own lifetime for his logical arguments against Shankara’s Mayavadi philosophy, which equates the individual soul with the Supreme Soul and relegates the Absolute Truth into the category of a formless spirit.15 Madhva’s Dvaita philosophy of pure dualism declares that God is eternally a person, but does not deny His impersonal energy known as the “clear light” or “Brahman effulgence.” He considered the Supreme Person, Sri Krishna, to be ever distinct from His creation. Just as the sun produces unlimited quantities of sunshine, but remains undiminished and unchanged, so the Supreme Personality of Godhead remains ever the same, although manifesting unlimited energies. Although He creates the material world, He remains separate from it.
Madhvacharya placed special emphasis on teaching that after liberation the soul retains her individuality. The individual soul and the Supreme Soul are thus eternally persons. To emphasize this point, he often held up two fingers while speaking, and this has come to be his logo. Whereas Shankara is often pictured with one finger aloft, representing his “all is one without distinction” doctrine, Madhva is regularly pictured with two fingers extended, one to represent the individual soul and one the Supreme Soul.