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> In article <ghenE81ys0.BH3@netcom.com>,
> Ray Fagan <r.fagan@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> >bubastis@mindspring.com (Kelly Warner) wrote:
> >
> >>I have corresponded with Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami from the
> >>Kauai's Hindu Monastery (whom I found on the Web).
> >>Does anyone know if this is a reputable source of information on
> >>Hinduism? Is he legitimate? There were several requests for monetary
> >>donations in the information package, which made me wary.
> [...]
I didn't reply to the original mail by Kelly Warner. You are quite right in
being wary of any group which charges money. IMHO, you need not join any of
these sects including the Hare Krishna's to learn about Hinduism. Atleast this
group is honest enough to charge money openly. However the Hare Krishna's are
known for their outrageous lies like claiming that founders of other
philosophical schools (like Madhvacharya who founded the dvaita school) to be
one of their own, just to claim an unbroken lineage! Note that the
philosophies of the dvaita school and the Hare Krishna's are quite different.
The Hare Krishna's are also known to produce verses out of their hat and
claiming it to be from various scriptures to "prove" that they are the premier
school of thought. Please read various articles in the newsgroup srv and srh
where the claims of these people have been exposed ad-nauseam.
The problem is that the Hare Krishna's usually target Westerners and if they
do not already know a little about Hinduism, they are likely to get fooled by
all these absurd claims. The general level of scholarship of the Hare
Krishna's is also quite poor. Their stuff can be called theological dogma, a
general hodge-podge, rather than vedantic philosophy. IMHO you should contact
some proper vedantic teacher who is a follower of the advaita, visishtadvaita
or the dvaita school of thought, possibly all three of them, and see which of
them makes sense to you. Another premier school of Hinduism is Kashmir
Shaivism. Though teachers of these schools are harder to come by than the
ubiquitous Hare Krishna's, I think it's well worth the effort to search for a
proper teacher.
For starters look at the following websites:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9145/ - spirituality and yoga page
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~vidya/advaita/ - advaita (non-dualism) home page
http://www.best.com/~mani/sv.html - visishtadvaita (qualified non-dulaism)
home page
http://www.rit.edu/~mrreee/dvaita.html - dvaita (dualism) home page
Please feel free to write to me if you need any more info.
[ ... ]
> As far as "conversions" go, I like the Hare Krishnas - I've met quite
> a few who know more about Vedic literature, etc., than most
> "non-converts" ever do. If you're interested, try
> http://www-ece.rice.edu/~vijaypai/hkindex.html
Indeed! The choice here seems to be the devil or the deep-sea :-).
Ramakrishnan.
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