Bringing Back the Essence

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1) Buddha – No God

One of the most disturbing elements of scriptural misuse was the indiscriminate slaughter of animals under the pretext of Vedic sacrifice. Thinking they were practising ‘religious’ life, people were actually inflicting pain upon innocent animals, accruing heaps of karmic reactions, degrading their consciousness, and distancing themselves from God. The Lord thus appeared as Buddha, an incarnation in which he denied (or didn’t overtly discuss) the existence of God. He also rejected the validity of the Vedic scriptures. Instead, His focus was to teach people the principle of non-violence (ahimsa) as the foundation of spirituality. Without that basic ethical standard, it’s practically impossible to progress further on the spiritual journey. These teachings became popular, and powerful emperors like Asoka spread Buddhism across India and beyond.

2) Sankaracarya – Denied Difference (between us and God)

Sankaracarya, an incarnation of Lord Siva, travelled through India discussing, debating and discoursing with the purpose of re-establishing the spiritual authority of the Vedas. He accepted various aspects of Buddhism, but taught about spiritual oneness with Brahman (nirvisesa) rather than the voidism and nothingness of Buddhism (sunyavada). Thus, his philosophy was essentially a compromise between atheism and theism – he established the Supreme in impersonal terms (Brahman), and denied any difference between the soul and God.

3) Ramanujacarya – Detected Difference

Though Buddhism and impersonalism grew, a series of South Indian poet saints challenged those teachings. Known as the alvars, they penned beautiful songs glorifying devotion to God as the ultimate perfection of life. Their influence culminated in the appearance of Ramanujacarya in the eleventh century. His philosophy, known as ‘qualified monism,’ detected that there was a difference between the individual soul and God. This opened up the opportunity for spiritual personalism, where one could actually engage in a loving relationship with God (bhakti-yoga).

4) Madhvacarya – Emphasised Difference

The thirteenth century signaled the appearance of Madhvacarya, a great teacher who preached pure dualism – that God and the individual souls are eternally individual, unchanging realities, who can never be considered identical. His powerful refutation of the impersonal teachings was a crucial milestone in the evolution towards pure theism.

5) Sri Chaitanya – Harmonised Difference

The various stages of theological evolution culminated in the appearance of Sri Chaitanya, Lord Krishna Himself, who taught the philosophy of acintya bheda abheda tattva – “Simultaneous oneness and difference.” Though the same in quality, He said, the individual souls and God are different in quantity. We always remain eternal loving servants of the Lord. By coming in the guise of a devotee (bhakta-avatara), Sri Chaitanya practically demonstrated how to live as a devotee, and the incredible states of happiness and ecstasy that such devotion generates.

Sri Chaitanya, then, is the personality who harmonised the teachings of each preceptor, and incorporated them into the Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya Sampradaya, which is the lineage He inaugurated. Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains how Sri Chaitanya took two principles from each acarya:

Sri Chaitanya to Nimbarkacarya: “Later, when I begin the sankirtana movement, I myself will preach, using the essence of the philosophies of the four of you. From Madhvacarya I will receive two items: his complete defeat of the mayavadi [impersonal] philosophy and his service to the murti of Krishna, accepting it as an eternal spiritual being. From Ramanujacarya I will accept two teachings: the concept of bhakti unpolluted by karma and jnana, and service to the devotees. From Visnuswami’s teachings I will accept two elements: the sentiment of exclusive dependence on Krishna and the path of raga-bhakti. And from you [Nimbarkacarya] I will receive two great principles: the necessity of taking shelter of Radha and the high esteem for the gopis’ love of Krishna.” (Bhaktivinoda Thakura, Navadvipa Mahatmya, Chapter 16)