How bhakti philosophy destroys ignorance about the Absolute Truth and enlightens the spiritual soul, this is called Jungle cutting.

Srila Vyasadeva.
In spiritual discourse the term jungle cutting is often misunderstood. It does not refer to physical destruction. It refers to the careful clearing of dense philosophical confusion that blocks the soul’s direct vision of truth. Mayavada philosophy is such a jungle. It grows thick with attractive flowery language, subtle logic and apparent humility yet it conceals the personal form of the Supreme Lord behind layers of abstraction.
Mayavada teaches that the Absolute Truth is ultimately formless, impersonal and without qualities. According to this view the…
…personal form of God is a temporary manifestation meant for beginners. Liberation is defined as dissolving individuality and merging into undifferentiated existence. This idea appears elevated to the speculative mind but it quietly contradicts both lived consciousness and revealed truth. A jungle often looks beautiful from a distance but once entered it entangles, disorients and exhausts the traveler. Mayavada functions in the same way.
The first confusion created by this philosophy is the denial of personality at the ultimate level. Consciousness by its nature is personal. Awareness implies an experiencer. Love implies relationship. Meaning implies intention. To say that the source of all consciousness is ultimately without awareness is not higher logic but self negation. Mayavada attempts to explain personality as a product of ignorance yet it cannot explain how ignorance could produce what truth itself does not contain. A cause cannot give what it does not possess.
The second layer of the jungle is the misuse of humility. Mayavada often presents itself as rejecting anthropomorphism and limiting concepts of God. Yet the denial of the Lord’s personal form is itself a limitation imposed by the human intellect. It assumes that form must be material because material experience is all that the conditioned mind knows. Instead of purifying perception, Mayavada erases the object of devotion.
A crucial misunderstanding lies in the interpretation of Vedic statements that say God has no form. In the Vedas this negation refers to material form. It does not deny spiritual form.
The Supreme Lord is described as nirakara (without form.) only in the sense that He is not limited by material shape, time, decay or imperfection. To conclude from this that He has no form at all is to confuse material negation with spiritual absence. The Vedas repeatedly affirm that the Absolute possesses an eternal spiritual form beyond matter and beyond the grasp of material senses.
This is confirmed directly by Krishna Himself in the Bhagavad gita.
Bhagavad Gita 15.15/
“I am seated in everyone’s heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas, I am to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.”
Krishna further establishes His position as the ultimate source of both material and spiritual existence….
“I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.”
Bhagavad Gita 10.8
If both the spiritual and material worlds emanate from Krishna, then the impersonal Brahman cannot be the original absolute truth. An effect cannot be greater than its cause. Brahman must therefore be an emanation rather than the source.
Krishna states this explicitly in….
Bhagavad gita 14.27
“And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal, and which is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.”
These statements leave no philosophical space for the idea that Brahman is the highest reality and that the personal form of God is secondary or illusory. Brahman is real, but it rests upon Krishna. Just as light depends on its source, impersonal Brahman depends on the Supreme Person.
The authority of the Vedas rests in their original presentation by Srila Vyasadeva. He is not regarded in the Vedic tradition as a speculative philosopher or later editor, but as the empowered compiler of divine knowledge. The original Vedas, the Upanishads, the Vedanta sutra, the Mahabharata, and within it the Bhagavad gita, were composed to reveal the Supreme Personality of Godhead, not to conceal Him.
When the Vedas describe the Absolute as beyond form or qualities, this is a rejection of material limitation, not a denial of spiritual personality. This is clarified by Vyasadeva himself, who concludes his literary work with the Srimad Bhagavatam, which openly establishes the Supreme Lord as a transcendental person full of attributes, relationships and loving exchanges.
The Mayavadi reading of the Vedas did not originate from the texts themselves but from later philosophical interpretations imposed upon them. Historically these impersonal explanations became prominent many centuries after the Bhagavad gita was spoken, particularly during the early medieval period when abstract monistic systems were formalized through commentarial traditions. These traditions did not alter the Sanskrit verses, but they redefined their meaning in a way that contradicted the clear conclusions of Krishna and Vyasadeva.
Thus the philosophical jungle is not found in the Vedas themselves but in speculative explanations added later. Jungle cutting does not mean rejecting the Vedas. It means removing interpretations that obscure their conclusion.
People seek peace and this is understandable. Every soul longs for relief from suffering and disturbance. Mayavada addresses this longing by promising peace through negation. It offers silence by dissolving identity, stillness by erasing relationship and rest by withdrawing from conscious existence. This peace is the peace of nothingness achieved by the removal of the self rather than by its fulfilment.
The peace sought by Krishna’s devotees is of a completely different nature. It is not empty or static. It is alive, conscious and fully experienced. It is saturated with love, light and unimaginable bliss. This peace does not arise from denying personality but from its perfection. In bhakti, peace is not the end of experience. It is the harmony of loving exchange between the soul and the Supreme Person.
Impersonal peace ends awareness. Devotional peace fulfils it. One approach removes existence to escape suffering. The other heals existence by reconnecting it to its eternal source.
In bhakti philosophy form does not mean limitation. Form means identity. The Supreme Lord possesses an eternal spiritual form that is the source of all other forms. His form is not created by matter nor imagined by the mind. It is revealed through service, surrender and purified consciousness. When Mayavada removes this form it removes the possibility of loving exchange. What remains is silence without relationship and peace without purpose.
Another consequence of this philosophical jungle is its effect on the practitioner. By teaching that individuality is illusion it subtly undermines responsibility, gratitude and service. If the self is ultimately unreal then love becomes provisional and compassion becomes a temporary strategy. Bhakti on the other hand affirms eternal individuality as the foundation of eternal relationship. The soul does not disappear in liberation. It awakens.
Jungle cutting therefore means clearing away these misconceptions with clarity and compassion. It is not an attack on persons but on ideas that obscure truth. When the philosophical jungle is cleared the personal form of God is not imposed. It is revealed. The heart recognizes what the intellect could not reach alone. The Supreme is no longer an abstract principle but the all attractive centre of meaning, consciousness and love.
Mayavada promises freedom by negation. Bhakti offers freedom through connection. One leads into an endless forest of concepts. The other opens a clear path to the eternal Person who was never absent but only hidden.
A Mayavadi is one who follows the philosophy of impersonalism. A Mayavadi believes that the ultimate reality is impersonal Brahman and that the personal form of God is a temporary appearance created by illusion. According to this view individuality is false and liberation means dissolving the self into undifferentiated oneness. In Gaudiya Vaishnava understanding this philosophy is called Mayavada because it covers the personal Absolute with illusion rather than revealing Him.
Devarsiratha dasa
Vanaprastha
Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada 1973
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Ps..AI helped with the linguistic assistance in finalizing this text. It did not create the philosophical content or determine the conclusions. All credit for its substance belongs to our Acāryas and their divine teachings.

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