There is categorical difference (1) between the individual soul (jiva) and Godhead, (2) between one individual (jiva) and another, (3) between matter and Godhead, (4) between individual soul (jiva) and matter and (5) between one form of matter another form. Shree Madhvacharya accepts this fivefold difference as real.
Individual souls (jivas) are divided into three classes, according as their original nature is made of either (1) intelligence and bliss, or (2) of a mixture of intelligence and joy and misery of ignorance, or (3) of unmixed misery and ignorance. Individual souls (jivas) are provided with physical and mental bodies in accordance with their actions of the previous cycle (kalpa), at the beginning of material creation. Individual souls (jivas) are infinite in number. One’s proper nature or the capacity of attaining to it is eternal and belongs eternally to all individual souls. It is the primal cause of all efforts of all individual souls. Action (karma), although destructible, is eternal in the continuity of its flow or sequence. Previously performed activity (karma), which is without a beginning, is the second cause. There is the third cause in the shape of the effort at the time of the performance of the act. All these are subject to Vishnu, Lord of the material energy (maya). In other words Godhead awards the worldly course of individual souls by means of these three causes, but they have no power over Him as He is the Lord of material energy (maya). Liberation (mukti) is the realization of their own proper natures by persons endowed with the luminous, self-expressive (sattvic) quality, on the dissolution of the symbolic material body, by the practice of devotion. It is not something adventitious but only the continued establishment of the individual soul in his own proper nature.
The external material cases, super-imposed on the real or spiritual nature of the soul, are two in number, viz., (1) the case forged by the soul and (2) the envelope bestowed by the material energy of Godhead (maya). When Godhead is favorably disposed He destroys completely the coating of nescience caused by the soul and removes the screen of the material energy (maya) which is a gift of the Divinity. Thereupon the soul is enabled to see with his spiritual eye the Supreme Person dwelling in his own heart. The devotion that is aroused after the beatific vision is the highest or unalloyed, being devoid of all foreign impulses in the shape of physical activity (karma), etc. It is only by devotion that the favor of Godhead is attained. This leads to liberation (mukti), being the attainment of the feet of the Vishnu. This is followed by devotion in her real, proper form which is not the means but the goal. The initial stage in the process, is listening with faith to the words of Scriptures glorifying the greatness of Godhead, from the lips of devotees (sadhus).
Shree Madhvacharya admits the authority of the triple evidence of (1) direct perception, (2) inference, and (3) revelation (agama). The last is sub-divided into (1) those Scriptures that are not made by any person, and (2) those so made. To the first of these groups belong the Vedas such as Rig-, etc., Upanishad, the formula that deliver from mental function (mantram), Brahmanas, the concluding portion of the Veda (parishishta), etc. To the second group are assigned History (Itihasas), supplementary accounts (Puranas), fivefold knowledge (pancha-ratra), etc. The Puranas, etc., help inunderstanding the real significance of the Vedas. The Puranas are of three kinds, viz., (1) Sattvika, (2) Rajasika, and (3) Tamasika. The Sattvika Puranas, such as Shreemad Bhagavatam, etc., are alone admissible as evidence of the Truth. If any portions of the Rajasika Puranas are in conformity with the statements of the Sattvika Puranas those may also be accepted as evidence. Those parts of the Rajasika Puranas that express ideas contrary to the sattvika view, where intended for deluding the atheists (daityas), and should not be accepted by righteous persons. The Tamasika Puranas were concocted for deluding evil-minded persons (daityas). All Puranas, in so far as they support the satttvik view, are admissible as evidence.
The following views of Shree Madhvacharya are also interesting. The servant of Vishnu (Vaishnava), the All-pervasive Lord, is the highest of all animate beings (jivas). The worship of Vishnu alone is to be performed. All worship of other gods is forbidden. Everything is gained by uttering the Name of Hari. The Vaishnava, even if he be sprung from a chandala family, is the revered of all. Vaishnavas are to be served with zeal and no offence must be permitted against them. The brahmana is recognized by straightforwardness, the shudra by duplicity of conduct.
Shree Chaitanya is the disciplic successor of Shree Madhvacharya and ultimately of Shree Brahma, the original Founder after whom the community (sampradaya) is named as the Brahma sampradaya. The order of spiritual succession (amnaya) up to the present time from Shree Brahma, as preserved in the Brahma-Gaudiya sampradaya, is as follows: (1) Shree Krishna, (2) Brahma, (3) Narada, (4) Vyasa, (5) Madhva, (6) Padmanabha, (7) Nrihari, (8) Madhava, (9) Akshobhya, (10) Jayatirtha, (11) Jnanasindhu, (12) Dayanidhi, (13) Vidyanidhi, (14) Rajendra, (15) Jayadharma, (16) Purushottama, (17) Vyasatirtha, (18) Lakshmipati, (19) Madhavendra Puri, (20) Ishvara (Advaita, Nityananda), (21) Shree Chaitanya, (22) (Swarupa, Sanatana) Rupa, (23) (Jiva) Raghunatha, (24) Krishnadasa, (25) Narottama, (26) Vishvanatha, (27) (Baladeva) Jagannatha (28) (Bhaktivinode) Gaurakishore, (29) Shree Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Shree Barshabhanavidayitadas. All these are paramahansas and Shree Chaitanya’s undifferentiated servitors. The writer is devoid of all aptitude for service and endeavors to have his mind humbly fixed on the lotus feet of Shree Guru Shree Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, as the unworthy object of his causeless mercy and of his associated counterparts.
The view of the four Founder-Acharyas of the respective Vaishnava communities (sampradayas) briefly noticed above, stand in such close and organic relation to the teaching of Shree Chaitanya and to one another that their relationship will be best brought out in course of the narrative and at the proper place, in the light of the philosophy of Shree Chaitanya which, as I have already noticed, reconciles, harmonizes and perfects them. For the present it will be sufficient for our purpose to notice in regard to these four schools that the system of Shree Chaitanya, although it is identical with none of them, either wholly or partially admits the special excellence of certain features of each. Thus, for example, Shree Chaitanya accepts more or less the eternal specific Form of the Divinity as Embodiment of all-existence, all-knowledge and all-bliss (sach-chid-ananda nitya vigraha) of Madhva, the postulations of Ramanuja regarding Divine Power, the principle of unalloyed non-dualism and of Godhead as ‘the All of his Own’ and the eternal dualistic-monotheism of Nimbarka which last has been perfected by Shree Chaitanya into the truly scientific Truth of the Doctrine of inconceivable simultaneous distinction and nondifference.
The act of Shree Chaitanya in preferring the Brahma community (sampradaya) by His entry into it as Disciple, to which Shree Madhvacharya also belongs, to the other Vaishnava schools, is explained by the fact that the doctrine of unalloyed differentialism propounded by Shree Madhvacharya which makes the mutual difference, as between Godhead, individual soul (jiva) and the material world, definite and permanent and also recognizes their eternal separate existence, keeps all individual souls (jiva) most clearly and frankly at a great distance from the fell disease of absolute monism which is the opposite pole, being the empirical denial of the essence of all theistic thought passing itself off as theism to the insidious seductions of which most worldly people are so easily liable to succumb. We shall return to this important subject in proper place.
It is the empiricists who are responsible for the origination of the current notion that theism is a product of a particular stage of material civilization in its progressive onward march. It will be our purpose to prove in the next chapter that such a view is opposed to all historical experience. It is no doubt true that the revelationists do not admit the applicability of the theory of evolution in its present form to spiritual subjects as it does not recognize the existence of any other entity except matter and mind. The history of spiritual evolution is connected with the progress of material civilization correspondingly and negatively, and not causally, the latter only serving to bring out that aspect of the former which happens to be the most intelligible to itself at the stage. This difference is wholly overlooked by materialistic evolutionists and no less by the so-called critical school of historians who have essayed to treat of spiritual events. The transcendental aspect of theism is the oldest fact known to history and, philosophically speaking, is incapable of being evolved out of the empirical consciousness.