Re: ARTICLE : What's going on? Help

Posted By Daly de Gagne (ambika@MBnet.MB.CA)
Fri, 21 Feb 1997 19:31:52 -0600

Namaste, Vivek.

Vivek Sadananda Pai wrote:
>
> In article <ghenE57CEJ.4uu@netcom.com>,
> Daly de Gagne <ambika@mbnet.mb.ca> wrote:
> >It's interesting that the young Vivekanandaji,
> >though he was an arrogant and proud young man, had his priorities
> >straight when he went through Calcutta looking for a teacher, a guruji
> >to take him to realization.
>
>
> >Vivekanandaji asked each guru/swami/teacher he met, "Have you seen
> >God?" When they all said "no," he was out of there in a hurry. Then he
>
> My first thought on this above statement is that I've never seen any
> guru/swami/teacher give an answer of just "no". If you don't believe
> me, try it for yourself - ask the same question that Vivekananda is
> purported to have asked, and see what sort of answers you get.

I'm not sure what the point of doing it for myself would be, because in
the first place, it's not my question, it was Vivekanandaji's -- it was
his criterion for selecting a guru and, obviously, it worked rather well
for him. Interestingly, he found that everyone other than Ramakrishna
Paramahamsaji could not answer his question in the affirmative and, in
essence, said no.

> The second thought that came to mind was: is this question a proper
> test for what he was searching for?

Like I said, it worked for him. He seems to have had more success in
finding the guruji right for him than most people do, in fact. His
question may not have been a proper test for what _you_ or someone else
might be searching for.

> Put another way, does this
> question have any bearing on the matter, and how should the answers be
> interpreted?

I think you've taken Vivekanandaji's unique approach to finding a guru
and reduced it to something which can be analyzed by logic, in essence
trivializing it -- unfortunately, we're dealing in an area where so much
conventional logic falls short of being helpful.

> Consider a somewhat parallel task - you are trying to
> find the most spiritually enlightened person on the planet. If you
> decide that the proper question to ask is "are you the most
> spiritually enlightened person on the planet?", consider what the
> answer will show you. If someone really is the most spiritually
> enlightened person on the planet, I will imagine that he/she will
> reply no. On the other hand, someone who is just a simple faker will
> undoubtedly reply "yes".

I am lost to know what point you wish to make, because the question you
pose in your answer is intrinsically different from the swamiji's. He
didn't ask Ramakrishnaji to judge himself as superlative in anything.
He simply asked a question to which a yes or no answer could be given.
Given the logic of your example, I agree that probably a simple faker
would say "yes," whereas, of course, a simple fakir would say "no" or
wonder why the question was being asked in the first place.

> If I had to find said person, I would probably reject anyone who just
> said "yes", and I would further question anyone who didn't.

I wonder how you would have dealt with Ramakrishnaji? He did say yes,
and I believe Vivekananda did have further discussion with him. But how
would you have related to such a simple man who was very unpretentious
and who probably would have had little interest in arid discussion?
Could you step out from behind your logic and recognize that this man
_knew_?

Vivekanandaji was an arrogant young man, intellectually bright, and well
aware of his abilities. What he lacked in humility was more than made
up for by his desire for spiritual learning of a kind the university
didn't provide, and his willingness to put his own preconceived notions
on hold when the man who could reply yes to his question didn't quite
fit the expected mold.

Daly

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