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Re: ARTICLE : Puraanas
In article <ghenE18zIu.DHH@netcom.com>, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
<rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote:
> But the problem I have with systems other than advaita, whether
> shaivite or vaishnavite, is that none of them give a unified
> analysis of the three states like gauDapaada does. This method is
> explicitly supported in upanishads like the brihadaranyaka,
> mandukya, kaivalya, Narasimha tapaniya etc. However only advaita
> takes any notice of this fact.
If you'll forgive my saying so, your stance appears to me to be only a
variation on the standard dogmatic justification given by the faithful
everywhere. Many Maadhva-s say, no other school gives a unified
meaning to all Shruti; many Sri-Vaishnava-s say, no other school gives
enough importance to bhakti/prapatti; many Gaudiya-s say, no other
school gives enough importance to service to the Lord, etc. In fact,
even outside the realm of the traditional schools one can find such
justifications among the Semites and others, all of which are
uniformly unsatisfactory in spite of the fact that their enthusiasts
can all bring up scriptural or other justifications for why their
favored tenet is really _the_ all-important one.
To my mind, the most important aspect one needs to look at to judge
the worth of a doctrine is its style of reasoning, apart from its
conclusions. That is, one has to ask every teacher, show and justify
your style of analysis to me, and also show and justify your premises
to me, and then give me your conclusions, which I will then
independently judge the correctness or otherwise of. This is a sort
of fair "peer review" process by which one can be absolutely certain
that one is not being taken for a ride at any point. And in fact,
until I came to a point where I could get straight responses to such
demands, I was largely agnostic, and would have so remained under most
traditional styles of spiritual coaching. It is quite amazing how
much of a dearth of reasoned inquiry there is -- in most cases,
adherents will not be able to clearly state and justify their style of
reasoning in a way that does not require pre-acceptance of their
claims (i.e., which is strictly neutral with respect to their favored
tenets). In fact, in most cases there doesn't even seem to be a
notion of a style of analysis that can be reviewed independently, and
such requests as I have indicated will only beget hand-waving, if not
outright hostility.
Regards,
Shrisha Rao
--
http://www.rit.edu/~mrreee/dvaita.html
