Ramanuja’s Brahman—A Personal God With Attributes
According to Ramanuja,
whatever is, is Brahman; but, Brahman is not of a homogeneous
nature. It contains within Itself elements of plurality on account
of which It truly manifests Itself in a diversified world.
Ramanuja’s Brahman is essentially a Personal God, the all-powerful
and all-wise Ruler of a real world, permeated and animated by His
spirit. There is thus no room for the distinction between Param
Nirguna and an Aparam Saguna Brahman, between Brahman and Isvara.
Ramanuja’s Brahman is Savisesha Brahman, i.e., Brahman with
attributes.
Ramanuja’s Brahman is
not the Impersonal Absolute, but He is a Personal God, with the
qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and infinite love. God is
Saguna. When the Vedic texts declare that He is Nirguna, it means
that there are no base or lower qualities such as sorrow, pain,
mortality, change and old age in Him.
The Lord is
interpenetrating everything. He is the essence of the soul. He is
the Antaryamin or the Inner Ruler. He is one with the soul. He is
all-pervading (Vibhu). He is the Supreme Being. He is full of
auspicious attributes. He is of the nature of Satya (Truth), Jnana
(Intelligence) and Ananda (Bliss). Matter and soul depend on Him. He
is the Adhara or support for this world and all souls. God is the
Governor or Controller (Niyanta or Seshin) of the world. Jiva or
soul is Niyama or Sesha (one who is being controlled).
The Lord is immanent. He
is also transcendent. He is unchanging. The entire universe is
latent in Him during Pralaya. The world is projected during
creation, but this does not touch His essence. Ramanuja’s Brahman
has internal difference (Svagata Bheda). It is a synthetic whole,
with souls and matter as Its modes (Chit-Achit-Visishta). Para,
Vyuha, Vibhava, Archa and Antaryamin, i.e., the transcendent, the
group, the incarnation, the image and the immanent are the five
forms of the Lord.
Ramanuja identifies God
with Narayana who dwells in Vaikuntha with His Sakti or consort,
Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the Goddess of Prosperity. She is the Divine
Mother. She pleads with Her husband on behalf of man. She introduces
the devotee to Her Lord and obtains for him salvation. Lakshmi
occupies a pre-eminent place in Vaishnavism.
The World—A Real Part
Of Brahman’s Nature
The world, with its
variety of material forms of existence and individual souls, is not
an unreal Maya, but a real part of Brahman’s nature. It is the body
of the Lord. Matter is real. It is Achit or non-conscious substance.
It undergoes a real Parinama or evolution. Matter exists in a subtle
state as the Prakara of God during Pralaya. Hence it is eternal, but
ever dependent. It is controlled by the will of God. It is neither
good nor bad. It becomes a source of pleasure or of pain according
to the nature of the Karma of souls. It forms the object of
experience for the souls.
Prakriti has three Gunas:
Sattva, Rajas and Tamas; but, Suddha-Tattva has only Sattva. It is
pure matter. Suddha-Tattva is the substance which constitutes the
body of God and is called His Nitya-Vibhuti. The manifested world is
His Lila-Vibhuti.
The Soul—A Distinct
Individual Entity
The soul is a higher
Prakara of God than matter, because it is a conscious entity. It is
of the essence of God. According to Ramanuja, God, soul and Nature
are three eternal entities. The soul is self-conscious, unchanging,
partless and atomic (Anu). The souls are infinite in number. The
individual soul of Ramanuja is really individual. It is absolutely
real and eternally distinct from God. It has indeed, sprung from
Brahman, and is never outside Brahman; nevertheless, it enjoys a
separate personal existence and will remain a personality forever.
Three Classes of
Souls
According to Ramanuja,
there are three classes of souls, viz., Nitya (eternal), Mukta
(free) and Baddha (bound). The eternal souls have never been in
bondage. They are eternally free. They live with God in Vaikuntha.
The freed souls were once subject to Samsara, but have attained
salvation now and live with God. The bound souls are caught up in
the meshes of Samsara and are striving to be released. They wander
from life to life till they are redeemed.
Man or the individual
soul is a particle of which God is the whole. The individual soul is
like a spark of that mass of fire. The whole pomegranate fruit
represents the Brahman of Ramanuja, each seed corresponding to the
individual soul.
The Evolution Of The
Soul And Its Final Emancipation
When the individual soul
is immersed in worldliness or Samsara, its knowledge is contracted.
It gets its body according to its past Karma, and goes from birth to
death and from death to birth, till it attains Moksha or the final
emancipation. When it attains Moksha, its knowledge expands. It
knows everything. “Every action that contracts the heart of the soul
is bad, and every action that expands the heart of the soul is
good”—this is the statement of Ramanuja. The soul is marching on in
this Samsara, expanding or contracting through its good and evil
actions, till it attains the final emancipation through the grace of
Lord Narayana. The grace descends on those souls who are pure and
struggling for the divine grace.
Emancipation or Passing
into Paradise
According to Ramanuja,
Moksha means the soul’s passing from the troubles of mundane life
into a kind of heaven or paradise (Vaikuntha) where it will remain
forever in undisturbed personal bliss in the presence of God. The
liberated soul attains to the nature of God. It never becomes
identical with Him. It lives in fellowship with the Lord, either
serving Him or meditating on Him. It never loses its individuality.
There is no such thing as Jivanmukti, according to Ramanuja.
Salvation comes when the soul leaves the body.
Bhakti—The Means to
Emancipation
The final emancipation
can be obtained only through Bhakti and the grace of the Lord. The
grace of the Lord comes through devotion and Prapatti or absolute
self-surrender. Karma and Jnana are only means to Bhakti.
- from "All About
Hinduism" by Swami Sivananda