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Re: superstitions (1 of 2)
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Subject: Re: superstitions (1 of 2)
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From: manish@cadence.com (Manish Tandon)
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Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 15:12:42 GMT
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Apparently-To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
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Sender: news@cadence.com
In article #1356, vidya@cco.caltech.edu (Vidyasankar Sundaresan) writes:
|> In article <37k0tr$p9t@ucunix.san.uc.edu> manish@cadence.com (Manish
|> Tandon) writes:
<deleted>
|> You seem to know a lot about Sankaracharya that even his closest disciples
|> Suresvara and Padmapada didn't. : -).
No I don't know a lot but I know some of the *good* stuff that he said.
Lord Krishna tells in the B.G. to use one's intelligence to discriminate
between what is good and what is not good. I just try to follow it *without*
(mis)interpretation.
|> Sankaracharya's interpretations of the Brahmasutras and the Upanishads are
|> extremely orthodox. He does not interpret scriptures any which way he
|> wants.
Now you definitely seems to be knowing about Sankaracharya more than he
knew about himself.
FYI, I asked Tejomayananda swami, during his lecture at MIT in July,
Why when Lord Krishna says 'I' (aham) or "Me" (mam) do you try to
use your tiny intelligence to interpret what that "I" means instead
of literally accepting it?
His response was that that's what Shankacharya's interpretation was and
then he tried to site the justifications put forth by him.
I have also seen his similar misinterpretations of some brahma-sutras where
he tries to cast his own belief over to _twist_ the meaning of words.
|> Rather it is the dvaita and the achintya bheda-abheda schools that
|> wilfully misinterpret the scriptures.
O great advaitan scholar, greater than the great Shankacharya, please site
some references. I have dealt with several great scholars like you in the
past and unfortunately there are many more still around.
What people like you do is that say eihter,
1. the refs. I sited are simply bogus and give no reason,
2. I am misinterpreting the ref. that I have sited, again no
justification nor the correct _interpretation_
3. I am siting selective ref. (and you have done it in the
following sentence and my answer follows)
I have yet to receive ONE single scriptural ref. from ANY of you great
advaitan scholars to counter what you call lame ref. sited by me.
|> ...And for the sake of polemics against
|> Sankara's school, you intentionally misinterpret Sankara too. You quote
|> Sankara whenever it suits you (read, whenever you want to demonstrate the
|> orthodoxy of your views :-) :-)) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I very _clearly_ said in my post that I believe Shankaracharya said lot
of *wrong* things based upon the advaita philosophy HOWEVER he also
said *good* things which are outside of the advaita philosophy, and to
substanciate this statement, I sited some such *good* things.
Your charge _does not_ hold.
Btw, what are the smilies for?
laughing on the shallowness of your own words to boost you morale?
|> and revile him at other times. I have already followed up to your articles
|> on s.r.e. on the Chinmaya mission, but you haven't cared to respond to
|> them. Maybe you have some answers here?
The only people who responded to my messages on s.r.e. were Sri Gopalakrishna
<svg4j@kelvin.seas.virginia.edu> and srinivas@Glue.umd.edu (Nagulapalli
Srinivas). I responded to both, srinivas@Glue.umd.edu (Nagulapalli Srinivas)
responded back once but he hasn't replied to my response to his response yet
(however he did responded to this thread and I'll also responding to his
equally *bogus* response here).
I will be more than happy to respond to any and all.
FYI, I have made a habbit to even post responses to my personal emails
so that _cowards_ like you don't get a chance to do what you tried to
do here.
|> How blind can one get? Mr. Know it all, please show me how the
|> Brahmasutras are so crytal clear that they need no interpretation? Do you
|> mean to say that Sankara, Ramanuja, Bhaskara, and even Madhva who
|> interpreted these were all fools? Of course you will say that Sankara
|> created all the misunderstanding, and the others after him only tried to
|> clear up the mess he created. In that case, why do all of them also
|> disagree among themselves?
_All_ here includes Shankara.
Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhava all disagree with each other.
Your argument has no value to your own claims.
|> Your pride really carries you away. Try giving a literal translation of the
|> Brahmasutras and see if you can understand them without any accompanying
|> explanation. Remember, you are not to use any of the bhashyas available,
|> so that you can be free of any "mis"interpretations.
Since you are slinging baseless charges of pride on me, which shows the level
of your consciousness, let me give you this simple puzzle of mine which _NONE_
of the great advaitan scholars has solved yet.
Shankararya accepted that Vedas, Vedanta-sutras, and Mahabharat were
written by Veda Vyasa, so I hope you will also accept it.
In the Bhagavad Gita 15.15, Lord Krishna says,
vedais ca sarvair aham eve vedyo vedanta-krd veda-vid eve caham
"By the Vedas I am to be known, indeed I am the compiler of
Vedanta and I am the knower of the Vedas."
So that that leaves us with three options,
1. Bhagavad Gita is wrong, since it contridicts with the advaitan
philosophy. That Veda Vyasa was a fool since he wrote both Vedanta
and Mahabharata and they are contridictory, as per the advaitan
philosophy applied to this case. This automatically renders the
whole sruti and smriti as simply work of fiction. Which in turn
renders Shankaracharya, who was based on Vedanta-sutra, meaningless.
2. Accept the _interpretation_ of the word "aham" put forward by
Shankaracharya, this automatically says that accept Shankara
as a higher authority than the original writer, Veda Vyasa.
OR
3. Accept the literal meaning of "aham" AND that Lord Krishna is
right, AND that Veda Vyasa is perfectly sane AND Shankaracharya
is WRONG.
Dont be a HYPOCRITE. Take a stance, prove your worth.
|> A few months ago, we had a major discussion on alt.hindu regarding advaita
|> and visishtadvaita. I am sure you can get copies of all articles from the
|> moderator. Convince yourself that you can explain away all the upanishadic
|> passages quoted therein without recourse to advaita.
I read several of those and also noted the strong advaita bias among the
people who carried that thread.
I can also site several of upanisadic refs. to show the Supremacy of the
Personality of Godhead over everything including the impersonal Brahman.
Srila Prabhupada has quoted enough of those in his purports.
|> Note that none of those passages talk of a personal God, let alone
|> Krishna. Both the Personal and the Impersonal are parts of our traditions,
|> and neither of them is a "superstition".
Are you a part of those hypocrites who say that both dvaita and advaita
are correct?
or do you have a clear position?
|> It is surprising how people can still be like ostriches with their heads
|> buried in sand. It is sad that you people would jump on some innocuous
|> question about superstitions, to conduct your petty diatribe against advaita.
Not quite as unfortunate as people like you who keeps beating on their drums,
you are wrong, you are wrong.
Substantiate what you say with either scriptures or logic, not with phrase
like "ostriches with their..." or "How blind can..."
Shows your intellectual and moral level, I would however not generalise
this as the intellectual and moral level of advaitans.
|> S. Vidyasankar
