| Salvation can be
obtained only through the grace of God responding to the call of bhakti and by meansof
Prapatti or absolute self-surrender. Karma and jnana are only means to bhakti. The
released souls attain to the nature of God and never to identity with Him. They remain
atomic in size and dependent on God. They live in fellowship with Him either serving Him
or meditating on Him. Thus they never lose their individuality. They are only released
from samsara. And, as this re lease comes, if at
all, only after quitting the body, there is no such thing as Jivanmukti according
to Ramanuja.
From this brief account it will be seen that Ramanuja's Visistadvaita differs from
samkara's Advaita in the following points: -
1. To Ramanuja God is always personal endowed with various perfection’s. But to
Samkara God is both personal and supra
personal. In relation to the world He is conceived as being endowed with various perfect
qualities, but in Himself He is really higher than anything we can conceive and therefore
above personality.
2. To Ramanuja the world is absolutely real, being an
inseparable Prakara or mode of God. But to Samkara the world is only relatively real. It
is real to the individual soul only so long as its individuality lasts.
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