Advaita Vedanta and Sri Ramakrishna’s Divine Immanence

Preliminary note: I want to admit at the start that I have the utmost respect for Swami Medhananda, and I consider him to be a vastly superior scholar in the domain Advaita Vedanta and Ramakrishna-Vivikenananda studies. Furthermore, in full disclosure, I have not finished reading his book Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic Cosmopolitanism. Some might think this automatically disqualifies me from having anything worthwhile to say in response to Swami Medhananda’s philosophical arguments about the relation between Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta and Sri Ramakrisha’s divine immanence.

That might be true. Nevertheless, I have felt compelled to pause my reading of his book to begin a dialectic based on this one isolated passage because it is so philosophically interesting and has been swirling in my head since I read it, and I can have no philosophical rest until I get my words out as my terrible non-scholarly habit is to get clear on my own thoughts by means of writing publically on this blog, which inevitably draws out my feelings and thought, for better or worse.

So let me be clear that I do not mean to offer this blog post as any kind of serious critique of Swami Medhananda, nor to position it as a “critique” at all, but merely a dialectical response, a thinking-through, meant in a constructive manner, in shared reverence of both the Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa and his brilliant, innovative disciple Swami Vivekananda, both of whom I hold as saints of the highest order. Let this post be an offering to their divinity.

As always, I am indebted to the wonderful lectures of Swami Sarvapriyananda for my understanding of Advaita Vedanta. Without him, I would have no clarity on this beautiful and pure philosophical tradition (which is not to suggest I have any clarity.)

[EDITED FOLLOW-UP]

I have done a bit more reading into Swami Medhananda’s book, and have changed my mind regarding the below analysis as a valid interpretation or criticism of Medhananda’s argument for Vivekananda’s Integral Advaita. I considered deleting it as an object lesson to the limitations of shoddy scholarship but decided I will leave it up as an homage to myself to try not to make similar mistakes in the future and the importance of patience. Sometimes this blog is a dangerous vehicle for my own projections and biases without any teacher to correct my juvenile mistakes.

So lesson learned: it is perhaps less than wise to make comments on someone’s scholarly work before fully engaging it in. (Also, refer to the excellent comment from Pratap Kumar Mandal below.) As such, the below analysis on the relation between the “world-denying” Advaita Vedanta of Shankara and that of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda should be read as my own personal philosophical attempt to make sense of the mystical paradoxes of transcendence and immanence as I understand them from my Western perspective. I still more or less stand by my analysis from the perspective of a Westerner attempting to make sense of these paradoxes of nonduality, but I retract any supposed accuracy as far as an analysis of the historical-cultural-contextual reading of the distinction between traditional Advaita and Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Advaita.

Sri Ramakrishna and Integral Advaita

In his wonderfully erudite and groundbreaking book Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic Cosmopolitanism, Swami Medhananda cogently argues that Swami Vivekananda’s mature understanding of Advaita Vedanta is importantly distinct from the “world-denying and quietist” nondualism of Shankara and, instead, is better characterized as honing closer to the “Integral Advaita” of his Guru Sri Ramakrishna. Swami Medhananda convincingly explains this distinction between “world-denying” Advaita and “Integral” Advaita in terms of Sri Ramakrishna’s distinction between the jñānī  and the vijñānī:

“The jñānī, according to Ramakrishna, is the traditional Advaitin who has attained the spiritual realization that the impersonal nondual Brahman alone is real and the universe is unreal. The vijñānī, however, first attains knowledge of Brahman and then achieves the even greater, and more comprehensive, realization that Brahman “has become the universe and its living beings.” For Ramakrishna, then, both the jñānī and the vijñānī are Advaitins, since they both maintain that Brahman is the sole reality. However, while the jñānī has the acosmic realization of nondual Brahman in nirvikalpa samādhi, the vijñānī returns from the state of nirvikalpa samādhi to attain the richer, world-inclusive nondual realization that the same Brahman realized in nirvikalpa samādhi has also manifested as everything in the universe. Hence, unlike the jñānī, the vijñānī combines knowledge and devotion by worshipping everything and everyone as real manifestations of God.” ~ Swami Medhananda, Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic Cosmopolitanism

I want to emphasize that I have the utmost of respect for Swami Medhananda’s great and original insights and scholarly acumen regarding the philosophy of Vivekananda, and acknowledge his knowledge of this area of research is vastly superior to my own.

Nevertheless, while I am certainly no scholar of Shankara, nor have I studied as in-depth the philosophical nuances of Ramakrishna’s teachings, I wonder whether this distinction of “world-denying Advaita” and “Integral Advaita” is itself a genuine philosophical demarcation of fundamental ontological difference, or instead, as I suspect, represents two sides of the same coin relative to one’s personal preferences of spiritual emphasis and inclination, and operates more as demarcation within the domain of spiritual instruction rather than a product of scholarly metaphysical reasoning.

Ultimate Reality vs Relative Reality

According to Swami Medhananda, the “world-denying” Advaita of Shankara states that “the impersonal nondual Brahman alone is real and the universe is unreal.”

However, while this summary statement is certainly accurate in the proper Vedantic context, in my humble opinion, I think we can this state this summary more precisely through a more charitable and plausible reading of Shankara that says, “the impersonal nondual Brahman alone is ultimately real and the manifest universe as name and form is only relatively or transactionally real, but ultimately unreal.”

In my opinion, this clarification alone is enough to erase any genuine philosophical difference between the jñānī and the vijñānī, rendering the two “phases” of Advaita to be indicative of one’s personal spiritual disposition rather than an articulating of genuine ontological distinction at the fundamental level of reality that separates the rarefied nonduality of Shankara with Ramakrishna’s own emphasis on the transcendent qua the immanent.

According to Swami Meghananda, “Integral Advaita” is set apart from “world-denying” Advaita Vedanta by claiming that the manifest cosmos is a “real manifestation” and not “unreal.”

But in my decidedly unlearned and amateurish opinion, this is fully compatible with Shankara’s “world-denial” so long as we are super clear in specifying that the plural world of name and form is “really” a manifestation at the relative level but ultimately unreal insofar as name and form is a product of Maya but not ultimately real.

After all, a mirage of water is really there as an illusion in our experience even if ultimately the mirage is not real. The wave in the ocean really is a wave at the relative level even if at the ultimate level of reality it does not exist apart from the ocean.

The word “really” does a lot of work for us depending on how we specify the “realness” of reality and always keep exactly clear about whether we mean ultimately real or relatively real.

The world of name and form can be fully and unreservedly “real” at the relative level but disappear into unreality at the absolute level just as waves can be “really real” qua waves at the wave level but “really unreal” qua waves at the ocean level.

In other words, the pure nondualism of “world-denial” need not deny that our experiences of multiplicity and plurality are unreal at the relative level. We really do experience tables, chairs, trees, rocks, rivers, etc. As Swami Sarvapriyananda says, 

“Reality of nonduality does not contradict experience of duality.”

We could also reconstruct this statement as,

“Ultimate reality of nonduality does not contradict the relative reality of the experience of duality.”

These experiences of duality are really real qua manifestations at the transactional or relative level. One can “deny the world” at the absolute level while simultaneously “affirming the world” at the relative level.

But ultimately at the absolute level, all this multiplicity is but a ripple in the ocean of Pure Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, which alone is real at the Absolute Level of reality.

Why is there a ripple at all? Solely due to ignorance.

Dissolution of Contradiction

Thus, so long as we are careful to keep separate the distinction between the absolute and the transactional levels of reality, there is zero contradiction between the “world-denying” Advaita of Shankara and the “Integral” Advaita of Ramakrishna because what it means to “deny” the world depends on if we are denying relative vs absolute reality.

Instead, it is a matter of emphasis depending on one’s personal needs as a spiritual aspirant—those of a “philosophical bent” gain the most from a focus on the absolute level while others of a devotional or karmic bent gain the most from focusing on God and Her manifest glories at the relative level.

What I believe Ramakrishna is getting at with his distinction between the jñānī and the vijñānī is a spiritual teaching warning us that the jñānī is an allegory for a misguided Advaitan who ignores the reality of their experiences of plurality at the transactional level in favor of an ill-fated craving for an experience of nondual samadhi while forgetting that the transactional world of plurality is itself a wave in the ocean of Existence-Consciousness and thus a relatively real manifestation of that very ocean of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss which can also serve as an equal arena for nondual samadhi in practices such as devotion.

The vijñānī on the other hand is able to live in the world of transactional plurality while holding fast to the conviction that underneath it all is the Ultimate Reality manifesting as the plurality. 

The vijñānī is able to “see through” the plurality to the underlying substratum of Oneness while simultaneously not getting lost in the complete absorption of samadhi. Just as when you know a visual illusion is a visual illusion the illusion doesn’t go away, so also knowing that plurality is an illusion of nondual Brahman doesn’t make the plurality disappear from your everyday consciousness.

Thus, I humbly submit my thesis that the difference between the jñānī and the vijñānī is not meant to spell out analytically distinct schools of metaphysical interpretation defining two contra-poised ontological theories of reality, but rather, point to a spiritual lesson in not forgetting that our everyday experiences of plurality are ultimately real at the absolute level insofar as they are ultimately one and the same as Brahman, and cannot but exist apart from Brahman as Brahman itself is Pure Existence.

Thus, in my humble opinion,  a useful understanding of the difference between the absolute and relative levels of reality according to “world-denying” Advaita makes it perfectly clear that to deny the world at the absolute level of reality is not at all incompatible with the inclusion or integration of the world into Brahman at the relative level.

Accordingly, there is ultimately no difference between Shankara’s Advaita and Ramakrishna’s Advaita except a matter of spiritual emphasis according to one’s personal ontological-religious proclivities. 

[EDITED FOLLOW-UP]

I want to share in the main post body a comment I received in response to this article from Pratap Kumar Mandal because I thought it was so good. It calls into question the historical-contextual-cultural validity of my above analysis and points out the limitations of my Western perspective.

Your conjecture that “world-denying advaita” and “Integral Advaita” being same ontological position…does not make sense in India Socio-Cultural-Religio-Philosophical context. In India, Sankarachaya has been and still is formidable icon whom nobody can ignore. His pedestal-like status makes it harder for contemporary Indian philosophers ( whether Swami Vivekananda or others) to explicitly denounce him. But in effect, as Pratap Bhanu Mehta say “Whole contemporary Indian philosophy is revolt against Sankarachaya “. Sankarachaya’s radical nondualism accompanied by Maya/cosmic neiscene explicitly imply that there is no reality in common-sense world. In extreme version of this deny householder’s salvation and ethical basis. This became huge problem in Colonial period, as Colonial subjugation seemingly being Maya, not Real.
Even today, elites of India ( mainly upper caste stock) explain away poverty ,inequality and suffering as Maya or Karma.

In non-Indian or western milieu, you may presume “world denying Advaita ” and ” Integral Advaita” are identical…but not do India. Here stake is high.

Related Links

Sri Ramakrishna, Jesus Christ, and the New Age of Incarnation

What is Brahman in Advaita Vedanta?

The Future of Christianity is Advaita Vedanta

Jung and Religion: Meditations of Christian Theology

Christianity and Advaita Vedanta: The Kingdom of God is Within