World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 293

teacher.They should be learnt from spirituality enlightened akñara-guru who has realized that highest truth and lives life in consonance with it. It is only through a guru that cone can acquire right knowledge and resolute understanding (niscaya) concerning the essential nature of God.
In regard to knowledge of God Svāminārāyana says God is the transcendental divine reality, Who is the Perfect and Infinite. As against this, the jéva is finite and imperfect and limited. God is above all our knowing and rational ways of thinking. God is ineffable and inexhaustible and is described in srutis as beyond the comprehension of human senses., mind and intellect. God's knowledge is incomprehensible to impure mind. However, to the devotees, God is knowable, when the body-mind-senses of a devotee, in the company of God or God-possessed akñraguru are divinized, and thus become capable of comprehending the essential nature of God. Thus God becomes knowable to the devotees when he chooses out of grace to reveal His essential nature to them.
Sadhanā: āśraya (refuge) is faithful dependence on God with total resignation, with a conviction that He alone is my protector, redeemer and mentor of my destiny and moulder of my ātman. For such a refugee to become eligible for the grace of God, total purification is emphasized, and it can be achieved when Ekāntika-Dharma consisting of four complimentary virtues, namely dharma i.e. righteous conduct or dutifulness, jiāna i.e. right knowledge, vairāgya i.e. detachment and māhātmyajiānayuktasneha i.e. intense love and undivided devotion to God with the knowledge of His glory and excellence is realized. All these four integral virtues together constitute Ekāntiki Dharma, the parent means for the realization of mokña. In the history of Vedāntic tradition apart from Svāminārāyana, no one has made a reference to this great tradition of Ekāntika Dharma. And the bhakti based on it is called Ekāntika Bhakti. Its roots are to be found in the Skanda Purāna. The credit goes to Svāminārāyana in reviving and reestablishing the almost forgotten heritage of Ekāntika Dharma. In the sadhanā of Ekānita Dharma, love is superior to logic, though each one of them has equally significant place in a balanced scheme of sādhanā
As a bhakti school, it advocates an active life. Svāminārāyana, therefore, insists on performance of all ethical religious and secular duties on the part of a spiritual seeker, even after he seeks refuge at the feet of God. Moral laxity, ethical exemptions and religious conditions are out of question except in the situation of serious exigency,
In Swāminārāyana theology the Guru-paramparā Continues through Akñara-brahman in whom the Supreme Lord fully manifests with all His glory, grace and greatness. God keeps His presence continuous on earth through Akñara-Guru in discipic succession, and works and redeems the seekers of salvation. So, the Akñara-Guru stands as the prathamopāya and
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