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Re: Advaita
On Sun, 25 Feb 1996 17:00:43 -0500 (EST), you wrote:
>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 :-).
No no. I find that, as a general statement, all the paaramparaas in
Hinduism (in the smaller sense of all the Vedic religions) are valid.
All that is needed is a true guru, and in fact, my personal
observations is that the guru need not be realized as long as the
paaramparaa is valid.
What I meant about the physical form of the guru is not that it is
necessary for sadhana (it's not), but that it is necessary for some
realized being in the paaramparaa to be in the physical world every so
often, in order to elucidate the teachings.
My personal observation is that, if you look at the various
organizations, the ones with a current or recent realized guru, are
the ones where the teachings have had the least deviation from
santhana dharma. In those organizations where the guru dies without
appointing a successor, things start deviating really fast ! :-)
Various self-appointed leaders each put their own personal ego-driven
twist into the teachings. In my opinion, the inclusion of the "Book
of Revelations" into the Bible is the biggest and most troublesome
example of this process.
>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.
Well, now you are talking about one of the bigger problems in sadhana.
There is no sure fire absolute authority on these matters, except our
own experience.
And, our ego is always interpreting our experience, as well as the
teachings that we read.
Someone [ guess who :-) ] may say "God is the absolute authority", but
ultimately there is only our own experience of God or scriptures or
the Self or whatever -- and then our ego interprets these experiences.
So, the only way to avoid this problem is to contact our Inner Self
which is beyond the ego. But, if we do this without any external
reference whatsoever, then we can still be under the ego's
interpretation of whether or not we have succeeded - which is why
there are so many self-proclaimed masters. :-)
Thus, we need to contact our own Inner Self in some manner without the
interpretation of our own individual ego. And, the way to do that is
through a manifestation of the Self not subject to either our ego or
another ego -- and that manifestation is a Realized Guru. Such a
guru is our own Inner Self manifesting outside of the clutches of our
individual ego.
Of course, there is no absolute way to be sure one has found a true
guru - one's ego may have simply convinced one of this [ of course,
the ego is sure that its guru is the best. :-) ]. But again, there
are good and rational indications, such as that following a true guru
brings you results that are consonant with what previous realized
beings have described, such as in scriptures.
>>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.
Probably true.
Do any of those disciples write in English?
Advaita in the U.S. consists mainly of books of various talks by
Ramana, Nisargadatta, Balsekhar, etc. compiled and edited by
Westerners, such as Robert Powell, the Osbornes, etc. Thus it tends
to be very Zen-like.
Namaskar,
Ken
kstuart@snowcrest.net
"The ego arises from the mistaken notion that the light of consciousness
reflected in the intellect and coloured by objectively perceived phenomena
is the true nature of the Self. Thus, the personal ego falsely identifies
the Self with that which is not the Self and vice versa." - Mark Dyczkowski
References:
