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Dvaita, Advaita, and Viśiṣṭādvaita:

Contrasting Views of Mokṣa
Stafford Betty
Published online: 15 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Stafford Betty (2010) Dvaita, Advaita, and Viśiṣṭādvaita: Contrasting Views of
Mokṣa , Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East, 20:2,
215-224, DOI: 10.1080/09552367.2010.484955

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09552367.2010.484955

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 Asian Philosophy
Vol. 20, No. 2, July 2010, pp. 215–224

Dvaita, Advaita, and Viśistādvaita:

__
Contrasting Views of Moksa
_
Stafford Betty
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The three major schools of Vedanta—S´ankara’s_ Advaita, Rāmānuja’s Vis´ist ādvaita,

__
and Madhva’s Dvaita—all claim to be based on the Upanishads, but they have evolved
very different views of Brahman, or the Supreme Reality, and the soul’s relation to that
Reality once it is liberated from rebirth, when moksa or eternal life commences. Advaita
_
teaches that liberated souls merge into the seamless blissful Brahman, the only Reality,
and finally escape their earth dreams of sin and suffering, even to the point of forfeiting
individuality. Both Vis´ist ādvaita and Dvaita are resolutely realist systems and see
__
essential differences between Brahman and souls that are never transcended, even in the
world of the liberated, visualized in these systems as a glorious paradise where
God (Vishnu) reigns in splendor over blissful souls devoted to Him everlastingly. But
whereas Madhva sees innate differences in souls, each with a greater or lesser capacity
for bliss, Rāmānuja sees a universal sameness in the quality and degree of bliss, even to
the point of equating it with the bliss of God Himself. The author points out these and
other contrasts between the three views of moksa, critiques each, then develops a view
_
of the liberated state more satisfactory (in his view) than any of the three in a marriage
of East and West.

Introduction
In January 2010 I read a paper on moksa, the Hindu liberated state following samsāra,
_
to an audience of mostly Brahmin Hindus gathered at Udupi’s famous Krishna
Temple in southwestern India. His Holiness Sri Sri Sugunendra Theertha Swamiji,
whom I met seemingly by accident at a friend’s home in California 10 years ago,
extended the invitation. The administrators of the Krishna Temple are all Vedantins
following the Dvaita school, founded by Madhva, and I had done my dissertation on
the Dvaita theologian Vādirāja. Thus the connection. What follows is a much
extended version of that talk.
_
All Vedanta schools—especially Śankara’s Advaita, Rāmānuja’s Viśistādvaita and
__
Madhva’s Dvaita, the three most famous—are concerned to conceptualize moksa
_

Correspondence to: Stafford Betty, Religious Studies, California State University, Bakersfield, CA 93311, USA.
Email: Stafford_Betty@firstclass1.csubak.edu

ISSN 0955-2367 print/ISSN 1469-2961 online/10/020215-10 ß 2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09552367.2010.484955
 216 S. Betty

in a manner that is consistent with the rest of their philosophy. We will see that each
school has a decidedly different view of moksa and that each of these views is
_
consistent, at least in the main, with other facets of the philosophy, in particular
its view of Brahman or God. Each philosophy, of course, claims to be the true
interpretation of the Upanishads. In the first section of my paper I will summarize
each school’s view of the liberated state. In the second I will give a critique of each.
In the third I will conclude with my own view—a doctored up, Westernized moksa.
_

The Liberated State (Moksa) in Advaita, Viśistādvaita and Dvaita

_ __
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_
Śankara’s Advaita claims that the world, including the Vedas, even including Īśvara
(the Lord), is not ultimately true or real, but that ultimate reality belongs only
to the infinite, eternal, unchanging, pure bliss consciousness that is Brahman, or
Paramātman. All that we see with our senses, even our private thoughts, Advaita
_
claims, are not ultimately real. As Śankara says, ‘The entire expanse of things is mere
_
illusion’ analogous to a dream (Śankara, 1962, p. 138). True, all these things have an
empirical or conventional (vyāvahārika) reality, but this semi-reality is not the final
story. This semi-reality is superimposed by our ignorance on Brahman, as when we
imagine that a rope is a snake and treat it as such, when in fact it is just our
imagination that superimposes the snake on the rope. We are like men who live out
our lives in fear of that snake that we superimpose on the rope. The rope is Brahman,
the imagined snake the product of our ignorance.
Advaita claims that liberation is brought about by the removal of ignorance from
our perception. This liberation arises from the destruction of the tendency in us to
superimpose our egos on Brahman’s Pure Consciousness. We accomplish this,
Advaita says, by deep, persistent meditation on our innately blissful inner depths,
which is Brahman as Brahman really is. Once accomplished, we will see the world
and ourselves for what they are, and we will want nothing more to do with them.
We will yearn only for unity with Brahman, and our desire will free us from further
_
rebirth. So powerful is this yearning in some cases—Śankara’s for example—that it is
possible to experience liberation even before death. In such cases death is merely the
consummation of a process already begun.
Advaita has a uniquely high estimate of the mystical state realized in deep
meditation, when the mind, or ego, completely shuts down and makes room for that
unspeakable bliss and serenity that advanced yogis praise as the most exalted state
of consciousness available to us. Advaita values it so highly that everything else, even
the individual soul, seems puny and even illusory by contrast. At the height of the
mystic’s experience one is not aware of oneself having an experience. One’s
individuality seems to merge with and disappear into Brahman. To say that one
has become a part of Brahman is not true to the experience, for Brahman does not
seem to have any parts. Advaita boldly goes on to say that what seems so is so.
Furthermore, this unspeakably profound, blissful, individuality-canceling experi-
_
ence is a foretaste of the fully liberated state after one’s final death. Śankara puts
 Asian Philosophy 217

it simply: ‘Moksha is [the Self] becoming identical with Brahman’ (Atmananda,

1960, p. 228). When that happens, there is nothing else to do. There is only eternal,
changeless bliss to enjoy.
Let us now move to Rāmānuja, the South Indian philosopher who developed the
school called Viśistādvaita, or ‘Qualified Non-Dualism’. Rāmānuja is a realist, that is,
__
he rejects all talk of māyā, or illusion. For him there is a vast universe of material
things, there are an infinite number of finite conscious souls inhabiting material
bodies, and there is Brahman. These make up three very different classes of being
and each is real. The first is incapable of any kind of awareness, the second capable
of limited awareness, the third all-aware; but none is any less, or more, real than
the other two. In addition, Rāmānuja was a devotee of Vishnu (a Vaisnava) and
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love for Him (bhakti) did not permit any final merger at liberation: Love demands
a distinction between the lover and the beloved. How can you love a Being you are
identical with?
Rāmānuja holds that the universe of souls and material objects, the very universe
we can see through the telescope or see within ourselves as we turn our gaze inward,
is the actual body of Brahman. Just as the human soul is the animator and controller
of its body, so Brahman is the animator and controller of the universe. Brahman
penetrates every atom of it; He is inseparable from it; but He is also distinct from it.
Furthermore, there is no other reality anywhere besides this all-pervading Deity—
_
thus the title advaita. But it is a qualified advaita, not a simple one like Śankara’s.
It would have been less confusing, perhaps, if Rāmānuja had been termed a Qualified
Dvaitin. I say this because for him souls and things are essentially different from
Brahman, not just apparently, and they will always be different. As Rāmānuja puts it,
Brahman ‘is immeasurably raised above all possibility of anyone being equal or
superior to him’ (Rāmānuja, 1966, p. 770).
Rāmānuja’s Brahman, besides pervading all, loves all. Himself ‘an infinity of
positive bliss’ (Rāmānuja, 1966, p. 755), he delights in attracting souls to Himself. His
mercy extends to all castes down to the lowliest. All one has to do is surrender his will
to the Lord’s, and sooner or later every soul will—in the end no soul will want to
resist his free grace. Thus Rāmānuja believes in universal salvation. This belief is
consistent with his view that all souls start out with the same spiritual equipment.
None is privileged when brought forth into manifestation. What differentiates one
from another is the choices each makes, their respective karmas, over the course
of their many lives. Just as they all start out the same, they end up the same when
finally freed from samsāra. That is, the depth and intensity of their bliss is the same.
No soul is superior to another. True, some souls are inclined more toward
meditation on the Lord, while others are inclined toward loving service to the Lord,
but neither path is superior. Moreover, there is ‘absolute equality’ between the bliss
experienced by liberated souls and the bliss of God Himself. The freed soul has ‘direct
intuition of His [God’s] own true nature’ (Rāmānuja, 1966, p. 770), but the freed
soul is not unclothed. It has a perfected spiritual body and not only enjoys the Lord’s
inner bliss but delights in Vaikuntha, the paradise that God, with the company of the
__
blessed, enjoy forever.
 218 S. Betty

Now we come to Madhva’s Dvaita. Madhva is unafraid to interpret the

Upanishads in a radically dualist manner. To him it is inconceivable to think that
the ancient sages intended to declare that Brahman and the world, or Brahman and
souls, are literally identical. Identity statements like ‘I am Brahman’ or ‘You are That’
must be taken non-literally. They mean that Brahman is the soul’s or the world’s
inner controller (antaryāmin), a position shared by Rāmānuja. If that is so, there is
no need, Madhva says, to give ground to non-dualism in any way, as Ramanuja has
done. Better to state outright and without apology that Brahman is utterly unique
and that when one looks at the universe one sees differences everywhere, not some
metaphysical unity.
Madhva recoils at all talk of sameness. In keeping with the essential teaching
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of Dvaita, each soul is not only numerically different from every other but is
qualitatively different as well. Souls come into manifestation with very different
capacities, talents, and inclinations. These differences are not the fruit of karma over
many lives, but are intrinsic to each soul. Madhva explains:
Just as vessels of different sizes, the rivers and the Ocean are all full of water
according to their respective capacities, even so, in respect of the Jı̄vas [souls], from
ordinary human beings to Brahmadeva, their fullness of bliss attained through
Sādhanas [spiritual discipline] is to be understood with reference to their varying
(intrinsic) capacities. The Sādhanas practiced by them such as Bhakti, Jñāna etc. are
nothing more than an expression of their intrinsic potentialities, which are the very
core of their being . . . . Those with limited capacities are satisfied with limited bliss
and those with comparatively greater capacities reach fulfillment with still more.
(Sharma, 1961, pp. 149–50)
As a result, no soul’s liberation experience is quite like any other’s. Each soul
experiences as much bliss as it could ever desire, but no soul is satisfied with exactly
the same degree or kind of bliss as any other. Some souls are capable of an ocean
of bliss, others with only a thimbleful, each according to its innate capacity (svarūpa).
Madhva envisions Vishnu’s paradise, Vaikuntha, as a delightful world affording
endlessly different kinds and expressions of joy. It is anything but a state in which the
bodiless soul dwells passively in perpetual meditation. Freed souls do not have bodies
like ours, it is true, but they do have bodies made of exquisitely refined matter,
which allows them to be active. They lead a life ‘of unalloyed blessedness in blissful
fellowship and communion with the Lord’ (Sharma, 1961, p. 151). In spite of
gradations between them, there is no jealousy or discord: ‘Those in a higher status
would extend their help and friendship to others below them; and the humbler would
look upon those above them with love and reverence as a true disciple would
look upon his Guru’ (Sharma, 1961, p. 151). As for Rāmānuja’s claim that the bliss
of a liberated soul is as great as God’s, Madhva answers that because our natures
are profoundly different from God’s, so must be our experience. Madhva and
Rāmānuja find no common ground on this issue.
Moreover, Madhva classifies souls presently in samsāra under three headings:
those that will eventually achieve liberation, those that will reincarnate everlastingly,
and those destined for hell. Madhva rejects universal redemption. God’s grace is
 Asian Philosophy 219

boundless, but it cannot salvage the souls of the wicked or depraved or stubbornly
ignorant. Such souls are not attracted to the Lord and the path that leads to Him.
Not even Sri Lakshmi can help them overcome their inborn tendencies. If this sounds
like eternal damnation, further analysis will reveal that it is not. For there is no God
who damns these souls. They freely choose to live in a world in which God does not
appear. The highest Heaven would be far more painful for them than a hell where
He is blessedly absent. If you ask Dvaitins how they came to this unusual view—
unusual for India—they will tell you that common observation makes it apparent.
If we are honest with ourselves, they tell us, we will have to admit that we know
men and women who are entirely content to live selfish, debased, even criminal lives
without a thought given to religion or the spiritual life. Dvaitins see no evidence that
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such beings will ever change.

Critique of the Three Moks˜ as

Advaita, as we have seen, holds that the freed soul is literally identical with Brahman
when it dies its final death. There is a complete merging of one’s identity with
Brahman; there is not the slightest residue of individuality left over. This bold claim
is consistent with other aspects of Advaita philosophy. Advaita teaches that there is
absolutely no division in Brahman. Brahman is seamless, He (or It) does not have
parts. One part of Brahman does not enjoy one kind of bliss while a different part
enjoys another. Because there are no parts, there is no room for individual souls, each
enjoying union with the Eternal Beloved upon liberation. The analogy of the water
drop striking the ocean is apt for getting this point across. The water that makes up
the drop does not disappear, but the dropness of the drop does. In other words the
drop loses its integrity as a drop. So does the soul when it merges with Brahman.
Advaitins admit this, even rejoice in it. They say they would want nothing separating
themselves from Brahman, that great Ocean of Bliss.
There is a problem here, a very grave one, as both Rāmānuja and Madhva have
appreciated. If Advaita is correct, you would not cohere in a state that would permit
you to enjoy the bliss. You would not enjoy bliss because there would not be any you
to enjoy it. The enjoyer would be extinct. In his Anu-Vyākhyāna Madhva
writes, ‘Moksha would not be worth having, if the atman [or soul] does not survive
as a self-luminous entity therein’ (Sharma, 1961, p. 144). Sharma, Madhva’s
celebrated modern interpreter, explains that the bliss of moksa must be ‘capable of
_
being actually felt and enjoyed with a full consciousness of its being so enjoyed. This
would naturally presuppose the survival of the one who experiences this state’
(Sharma, 1961, p. 145).
Not only is there a problem for the liberated individual, there is also a problem
with the conception of Brahman if this is all that liberation amounts to. What would
Brahman’s motive be for creating a universe in which the most enlightened of
creatures would end exactly where they began? Brahman splinters them off from their
natively perfect and blissful state, covers them with ignorance of their true state and
 220 S. Betty

launches them into samsāra; they undergo all the trials of many lives; they finally
manage to free themselves from their earthly attachments; then they merge back into
their original state as the splinter rejoins the Source. What has been accomplished?
Has any permanent value been added to the universe? Brahman is unchanged and the
souls have nothing to show for all their trouble.
Advaitins sometimes counter that Brahman has no motive in creating a universe.
Since He is perfectly content to be what He is, and could never wish to be anything
more, all talk of some constructive motive belittles Him; it implies that He is
imcomplete as He is. Yet He does superimpose upon Himself a universe; He hides
Himself in his māyā. His motive? Just for the sport of it, for lı¯lı¯, Advaitins tell us,
as when children play hide and seek. If you dig a little deeper and ask why Brahman
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would enjoy hiding Himself in such a manner, the answer is that it is his nature to do
so. If you insist on going still deeper and ask how it is possible for Brahman, who
knows perfect bliss, to enjoy Himself in the lives typical of human beings, or for that
matter animals, with all the suffering that comes our way, the answer is that all this
_
suffering is merely apparent. Śankara explains: ‘The pain of the individual soul . . . is
not real, but imaginary only, caused by the error consisting in the non-discrimination
of (the Self from) the body, senses, and other limiting adjuncts which are due to
_
name and form, the effects of Nescience’ (Śankara, 1962, p. 64). So Brahman’s sport,
his lı¯lā, does not really contain any pain or suffering; it contains only imagined
suffering.
Is this a legitimate way out of the problem? If the suffering is not real, then
why does Brahman put Himself through it? Śankara _ compares suffering—the kind of
suffering we live through in samsāra—to a dream that we will someday wake up
from. This analogy does not work well. No one I know wills himself to dream.
One wills himself to sleep, but not to dream. Dreams just come, unsought, but
Brahman wills Himself to dream, wills Himself to be covered by ignorance. Why?
Nothing in human experience can make much sense of it. We are left feeling
that Brahman is a very strange Being, and not an altogether wholesome one either.
If some good were derived from all the suffering He puts Himself (and us) through,
as is often the case in human affairs, then the Advaitin’s position would be defensible,
but the Advaitin does not admit of any constructive purpose. In the final analysis
Brahman’s motive in creating is unintelligible and inexplicable.
We come now to Rāmānuja. As we have seen, he believes that eventually all
souls will be liberated and that all souls are equally equipped to enjoy the bliss
of Vaikuntha. I do not see any of the logical problems here that I see in Śankara. _
__
I do not see why the scenario that Rāmānuja gives could not conceivably be the case.
When we leave this world for Vaikuntha, we leave a real world for another real world.
__
_
We do not awake from a dream into a reality, as with Śankara. We are on terra firma
from start to finish and that appeals to common sense.
There are problems with this vision and no one better brings them out than
Madhva and other Dvaitins. They attack on three fronts. First, the claim that God’s
experience is identical to the freed soul’s is surprising and self-contradictory.
Viśistādvaita teaches that souls and God, while inseparable, are essentially and
__
 Asian Philosophy 221

everlastingly different, so how can their experiences be the same? To make such a
claim would be the same as claiming that a master’s pet dog, loved and loving back,
can love in the same way as the master. How can this be? Thinking that we can
identify our inner life with God’s is a mistake. It would pull Him down to our level
and in effect make Him less lovable, less God. The creature and the Creator can never
be the same and neither can their experiences.
Second, the same logic that applies to God and souls applies also to one soul and
another, though less drastically. Dvaitins, as we have seen, find no evidence that souls
emanated from the divine Source with equal abilities and inclinations. On the
contrary, they appear to be quite different. Souls are as different from each other and
have always been as different, as their fingerprints. You can put them in classes
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because of resemblances, but you cannot thereby annul their uniquely different
natures (svarūpa). That being so, it is illogical to conclude that the quality and degree
of one soul’s bliss in moks˜ as is exactly similar to another’s.
Third, there is a more basic problem with Brahman if souls and things make up his
body, as Rāmānuja claims. If you say that God has a body that is finite, as the
universe with all its souls and material objects certainly is, you limit God.
You circumscribe his experience, you drag Him down to the level of the creature,
you violate his unique transcendence. The Dvaita scholar B. N. K. Sharma writes:
‘Say what you might, no genuine Theist could, for a moment, consent to tie down his
Deity (as does the Viśistādvaitn) to an existence perpetually ‘qualified’ by attributes
__
(Vis´esas) one of which is sentient (Cit) and the other insentient (Acit)!’ (Sharma,
_
1960, p. 91). Sharma holds that Madhva rescues theism from Rāmānuja’s wobbly grip
and supplies a ‘much needed corrective’ (Sharma, 1960, p. 93). If God has a body,
it is one worthy of Him, not the mud of matter and the ignorance of souls!
We now come to Dvaita. As we have seen, Dvaita teaches that Brahman, while
residing in us as our inner animator, is absolutely different from us in nature—as
different, for example, as Mahatma Gandhi was from the movement he inspired.
Gandhi was the genius that animated and to a certain degree guided India’s
movement toward self rule, but he was not the movement itself. In the same way,
even though we are intimately connected to Brahman and ever dependent on Him,
even though we can draw very close to him in our pūjās and our meditations, we are
not He. It is we who suffer and sin, not Brahman. Dvaita shields Brahman from
any involvement in our calamities and misdeeds. Not only are we not, in our depths,
Brahman; we are not even his body, as Rāmānuja claims. Brahman, or God, or
Paramātman is infinite and we are finite. He is unfailingly good and we are good only
sometimes. His knowledge and power are infinite, while ours is finite and imperfect.
Dvaita de-radicalizes the so-called identity statements in the Upanishads. It puts
humanity in its proper place and leaves God in his. For that reason, God’s bliss
cannot be equated, or even seriously compared, with the bliss of liberated souls
in Vaikuntha. Furthermore, as we saw above, no soul’s bliss is exactly the same as any
__
other’s. Indeed, souls are so different from each other that some will merit everlasting
bliss in Vaikuntha, while others will choose everlasting hell. Still others choose
__
everlasting rebirth.
 222 S. Betty

Some critics think that this doctrine of the ‘three types’ of souls is a weakness
in Dvaita philosophy, even a fatal flaw. Is it plausible, they ask, that Brahman would
have breathed forth creatures whom He knew would exclude themselves from his
company perpetually? In excluding certain types of souls from moksa, does it not
_
contradict other parts of its doctrine? Hiriyanna is one critic who thinks so: ‘This is
rather a strange conclusion to reach for a doctrine which is so thoroughly theistic
and . . . places so much reliance on divine grace. It not only means that the element
of evil will ever persist in the universe, but also restricts the scope of human freedom
and the power of divine grace’ (Hiriyanna, 1932, p. 192). Such a conclusion might be
plausible if the nature of souls were beyond Brahman’s control, but Madhva makes
it clear that everything in the universe is completely under his control. What God’s
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motive in creating such ill-equipped souls might have been is unexplained and
potentially self-contradictory. How could a loving Master–Architect have brought
forth beings so obdurately evil? That He did so seems to implicate Him in the
evildoing.

Conclusion
Which of these views of moksa makes the most sense? We have seen that all have
been challenged, all have their problems. Is one more plausible than the other two?
Perhaps some kind of compromise between contending views would be most fruitful.
Or will we have to look elsewhere for a more plausible account? In any case, whatever
appears here from this point on is entirely my own thinking. I make no claim to its
being the ‘right moksa’. It is just the one that works best for me, that weds plausibility
_
to lasting joy.
Advaita is for me a non-starter. Even if it were possible to somehow imagine
how eternal, changeless, seamless bliss could be enjoyed by an individual fully merged
in Brahman, the passivity and duration of the experience, based as it is on an
indefinitely extended samādhi, would not attract me. A bliss that was always the same
throughout all eternity, and that maintained its beatific pitch, with never a lull or a
respite, is to me off-putting. It suggests to me the motive behind Brahman’s dive into
māyā in the first place: boredom with the eternal sameness of it all, but as we have
seen, such an experience by a surviving released soul is not contemplated by Advaita.
As I see it, a true Advaitin wants to exit not only our world but any world. He wants
to turn in his stripes. I do not.
Dvaita is attractive to me because it gives ultimate value to individuals. Every soul
that has ever been manifested is distinct from every other and that is attractive to me.
We value diversity in our family members and our friends. We even value it in twins.
What makes twins interesting is not so much their sameness as their very real
differences in spite of their apparent sameness. Perfect clones—exact duplicates
of each other at every level, from body to personality to character—would prove a
disappointment. But Dvaita’s commitment to an irreclaimable, everlasting badness in
some souls is, to me, unappealing and even illogical. For it is difficult, as Hiriyanna
 Asian Philosophy 223

stated above, to reconcile this view of souls with God’s perfect love and infinite
power.
That brings us back to Rāmānuja’s Viśistādvaita with its doctrine of universal
__
salvation, with each soul taking as much time as needed until it finally gets sick of sin
and suffering and surrenders to the pull of God’s grace and the bliss it promises.
Rāmānuja sees the same wickedness in some souls that Madhva sees, but he thinks
the reason for it is ignorance and a poor environment rather than an innately bad
character. Thus in the long run there is hope for everyone. In the end God will not
tolerate final defection from the immortal destiny He has built into the granite of our
being. The persistent outpouring of his grace will eventually win over even the most
hardened soul. Without violating the sinner’s will to resist the Good and the
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Beautiful, God will skillfully attract his wayward child back to the fold, however
much time it may take.
Rāmānuja’s view of God’s love and gentle but persistent power appeals to me,
but his doctrine of the sameness of souls does not. If moksa is not a wonderful
_
tapestry of souls, each having its own distinct color and shade; or if it is not a
supremely beautiful symphony of souls, each having its own unique sonority in that
sublime harmony; then the divine design is less interesting and lovely than it could
be. Madhva seems to appreciate this point more than Rāmānuja, but I part company
with Madhva when he ranks each soul higher or lower than others in some kind of
innate pecking order. In resisting this tendency I side with Rāmānuja. In the final
analysis I weed out what I see as the weakness in each point of view and blend their
strengths: moksa is a beatific democracy of souls as different from each other as the
_
engineer from the artist, or the philosopher from the physicist, all equally loved by
the Creator and loving Him back in a manner unique to their natures; but with none
favored or pedigreed above others in some kind of never-ending caste system.
Moksa can be better than even this—you will perhaps have to forgive me for what
_
might seem a typical Western restlessness. In none of the three Vedantas do we find
a view of moksa entailing growth or progress. The assumption seems to be that once
_
you are liberated, once you are done with rebirth, you have no more work to do,
no more growth to look forward to. I find this static view of the liberated soul
unappealing.
What might take its place? If I were a soul newly liberated, I would be surprised
and disappointed to find that there were no more challenges to overcome, nothing
more I needed to learn, no means of outgrowing the present limitations of my mind
and heart, no possibility of growing closer to God. Ten thousand years after my final
death and exit from samsāra, would I be no more evolved than I was when I first
came over? Would there have been no growth in all those years? Could I not look
forward to even more growth in the next ten thousand? Paramahansa Yogananda
described moksa as ‘ever new bliss’ and I think that he is correct, but how can
_
something be new if there is never any change? How can bliss remain blissful if it
grows stale from too much repetition? When the devotee imagines herself
unceasingly fulfilled by her meditation on God, and therefore needing no further
growth in bliss, has she looked at the matter perceptively? Has she not sold herself
 224 S. Betty

short in thinking herself incapable of a still deeper delight? I think she has. I think
that God’s radiant infinity can never be exhausted and that moksa is the experience of
_
discovering ever more fully, without end, the delights of that infinity. I suspect,
moreover, that this ongoing discovery will lead to a desire to serve Him by serving
others. What others? I am not suggesting that liberated souls will desire rebirth
in samsāra as bodhisattvas—which is a Buddhist ideal—but that there will be plenty
of work to do in Vaikunt ha. I suspect, and hope, that teaching and learning will be a
__
prominent feature of moksa. Teachers will usually be senior souls rich in experience,
_
while students will be junior souls more recently come over. In endless, unimaginable
ways souls will minister to each other as they dive ever more deeply into communion
with each other and with God. If I am wrong in this speculation, then at some point
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the Advaita solution would become attractive to me: I would prefer to turn in
my identity rather than endure an endlessly changeless state of being. In my view,
growth and change are crucial to any meaningful moksa.
_

References
Atmananda, Swami. (1960). S´ankara’s
_ teachings in his own words (2nd ed.). Bombay: Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan.
Hiriyanna, M. (1932). Outlines of Indian philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Rāmānuja. (1966) The Vedānta sūtras with the commentary by Rāmānuja (George Thibaut, Trans.)
(2nd ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
_
Śankara. (1962). The Vedānta sūtras of Bādarāyana with the commentary of S´ankara
_ (Vol. 2)
_
(George Thibaut, Trans.). New York: Dover.
Sharma, B. N. K. (1960). A history of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and its literature (Vol. 1).
Bombay: Booksellers’ Publishing.
Sharma, B. N. K. (1961). Madhva’s teachings in his own words. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.