Class 102, vivekacūḍāmaṇi

In this profound class, Acharya Tadany resolved one of the deepest paradoxes in Vedānta by demonstrating that while the Upaniṣads declare that everyone loves the Self (ātmā) alone, and all worldly love is conditional (capable of turning into sorrow when conditions change), the same scriptures uphold universal love as the highest ideal, the apparent contradiction dissolves when we distinguish between two types of self-love: the limited, possessive, conditional love of the ignorant ego (ajñāni), which demands, controls, and manipulates, versus the limitless, unconditional love of the wise (jñāni), who recognises the Self as the cause (kāraṇam) of the entire universe, so that loving the Self naturally becomes loving all beings and things, because there is no “other” separate from That. 

Using the classic wave-water analogy and the Yājñavalkya-Maitreyī dialogue, Acharya Tadany proved through Sanskrit grammar that love for means (sādhana priyam) and goals (sādhya priyataram) is comparative, but love for the Self (ātmā priyatamam) is superlative, the ultimate, unchanging source of all affection, revealing that we never love anything for its own sake, but always for the happiness it promises us, and therefore ātmā alone is sadā ānanda svarūpaḥ (eternally of the nature of bliss), never a source of sorrow (duḥkha rahita). 

The class concluded with the liberating path: first fully experience and own conditional love (without bypassing), then gradually expand it until self-love becomes universal love, dissolving all separation and fulfilling the ultimate purpose of Vedānta—not acquiring more objects of love, but recognising the infinite love that we already are.

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