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Re: Advaita (was Re: Siva as yogi?)
kstuart@snowcrest.net (Ken Stuart) wrote:
>On Wed, 21 Feb 1996 23:23:10 -0500 (EST), you wrote:
>
>>kstuart@snowcrest.net (Ken Stuart) wrote:
>>
>>>On 2 Feb 1996 03:53:52 GMT, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
>>><rbalasub@ecn.purdue.edu> wrote in soc.religion.hindu:
>>>
>But that is the same as most other descriptions of the Guru in the
>scriptures. The Guru you see with your eyes is identical with one's
>Inner Self, an essential aspect of the Guru. The physical form of the
>Guru is necessary in order to elucidate the teachings - otherwise, the
>ego will claim that its interpretation is the truth.
Most certainly not. The physical form is absolutely un-necessary. What do you
mean by "the ego will claim.."? I can very well say that the ego of the guru is
claiming his interpretation to be the truth. In fact that is why we have so
many gurus contradicting each other. I hope you won't give silly quotes from
some puraaNas about which paaramparaa is accepted :-). Consider the following
: Leave aside the exact meaning of the verses in the Upanishads or whatever.
Everyone is unanimous on surrender, whether of the mind to the self or an
external form. Every one agrees that living a truthful life etc is good. Let's
do all this. If surrender to the mental guru, at least partial surrender, is
done, one should have enough faith to realize that the Lord will take care of
him. I consider Dakshinamurti as the guru. I don't need an external form. I am
thoroughly convinced that he'll guide me by whatever means he pleases. It may
be a physical form or otherwise. As long as I am engaged in truthful and good
living there is no question of the "ego will claim" etc.
Finally you will accept only a guru who has most of your prejudices or says
something you like. So his interpretation is merely something you think. For
ex. you are not going to follow the Sringeri Mutt (Advaita), but rather some
Vishishtaadvaitin Guru. The Sringeri mutt has as much validity as any other
paaramparaa, with unbroken successions and so on, with the line leading back to
Suka. So you are merely calling your own thinking as the guru's thinking.
Instead, I prefer to place my absolute faith in Dakshinamurti and try to
interpret things by myself. I may be wrong, after all I am human. But, I am
dead sure that He'll correct my thinking, if it's wrong, whenever he pleases.
He may assume a physical form or not, it's of no concern to me.
Thus in my case "the ego will claim the interpretation to be the truth" is
first hand, whereas it is second hand in your case, but it's still the "ego's
interpretation". But, I do recognize the fact that I might be wrong.
To summarize,
1. There are many paaramparaas
2. Many of them contradict each other.
3. There is no valid criterion for choosing any paaramparaa based on scripture
alone. Each paaramparaa gives it's own list of literature supporting it.
4. Thus your selection of a guru is based mainly on your own thinking or based
on whether you like what he says.
5. Thus it's your own ego at work, through that of the guru.
>As for the different emphases found in different talks of the Maharshi
>(and most other Gurus), this is simply done to elucidate several
>different aspects of the same truth - all of which are equally valid.
>
>However, I find that in the case of the Advaita teachers, such as the
>Maharshi and his disciples, those who compile their teachings have a
>prejudice towards the intellectual almost-Buddhist aspect of their
>teachings. The more Western they are, the more they have this
>prejudice, probably because they are in full flight from Catholic
>school upbringings where they were rapped on the knuckles by nuns if
>they forgot one word of the Creeds. :-) Thus they tend to sweep
>under the carpet anything that smells of religious worship.
Most certainly not. I can very well see that you have not read all the works of
Raman Maharishi's disciples. Devaraja Mudaliar, G. V. Subbaramayya, Suri
Nagamma, etc etc, all talk about surrender to the guru, how gracious Ramana was,
how kind he was, about surrender to him with only some of his teachings on Self-
enquiry. If you see the Talks or Day by day with Bhagavan, Ramana himself says
all paths are equally good for the purification of the mind, but ALWAYS stresses
enquiry. I don't know about Western devotees, but for the Indian advaitin,
worship forms a MAJOR role in sadhana. So your arguments do not hold for me or
most Indian Advaitins.
Shankara himself has composed so many hymns on Shiva, devi et.al. Obviously he
was setting an example here, since he was self-realized. The same holds for
Ramana who has composed beautiful Tamil poems on Arunchaleshvara.
>>I am not sure whether what you mean by self-enquiry and what I mean by self
>>enquiry are the same.
>
>What I mean by self-equiry is taken from Maharshi's talk entitled
>"Self-Enquiry". :-)
:-) However you did not comment on my explanation of Self-enquiry, or rather the
explanation which is from the Talks, a detailed explanation to a devotee's
question. Most people are under the mistaken notion that self enquiry is going
on asking "Who am I?" and repeating the arguments of Maharishi. This mistaken
notion usually comes after reading "Self-enquiry (Vichara sangraham)". This is
merely another mode of thinking. Self-enquiry is rather watching the source of
the "I" thought, which is possible only when the mind is quite still. Also ado-
pting self-enquiry is not a one-shot process to realization for everyone. As I
said previously, it may take years.
Ramakrishnan.
--
Sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
http://yake.ecn.purdue.edu/~rbalasub/
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