maniishha paJNchakam.h

[Giri]

On Sat, 19 Oct 1996, Sankar Jayanarayanan wrote:

> Could someone please post an English translation of Shankara's maniishha
> paJNchakam.h? Or email me a copy of the same?

        If someone has already transliterated it, please let me know. A
friend of mine is transliterating it now as part of the sanskrit site,
        ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu/private/sanskrit/sanskrit.html
and it should be ready early next week and the translation will be done later
next week.
        If you are an aol user or browsers that does not allow you to
access the above site, please use the mirror of the front end,
        http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/1415/sanskrit.html

Namaste.

>From  Sun Oct 20 18:18:34 1996
Message-Id: <SUN.20.OCT.1996.181834.GMT.>
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 18:18:34 GMT
Reply-To: kstuart at mail.telis.org
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ken Stuart <kstuart at MAIL.TELIS.ORG>
Subject: Disciples of Ramana Maharshi
Comments: To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961018210142.1666C-100000 at pinto.engr.ucdavis.edu>
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Hello,

In my life and especially in my spiritual development, one of the two
or three most influential figures has been Ramana Maharshi.

His unwavering attention to the most basic question of life and
existence, in both his writings and his dialogues, namely "Who Am I?",
has been of inestimable value to me.

However, it is perplexing to me, that, in my personal opinion and
estimation, one finds more false teachers who claim to be followers or
disciples of Ramana than one finds in any other lineage.

I should clarify, that what I mean here by a false teacher is not the
same as a fake.   A fake is someone who has no real intention of doing
good, doesn't believe the teachings, and is just interested in conning
people out of their time and money.   In my parlance, a false teacher
is someone who is partially or even wholly well intentioned, but
believes himself to be realized when he has not achieved that state.
Often such a situation comes about from the attainment of some
intermediate state where ego is still present, which sometimes can
lead to the ego deciding that it (the ego) has become divine.

Now there is no reason that a devotee who is not realized cannot also
be a teacher, but it is essential that they have a realistic
assessment of their attainments.   A good example of such a teacher is
Ram Dass, who has always been clear that he only teaches at the behest
of his own guru.

However, in my searchings, I have come across a number of "followers
of Ramana Maharshi" who have set themselves up as gurus, while at the
same time, circumstantial evidence strongly points to the conclusion
that they are less than realized.   In the USA, I find westerners who
seem desperate to "play guru" taking on a whole host of trappings that
are unnecessary in the west, and that are largely dispensed with by
some of the more authentic teachers I have come across.   I've also
come across a disciple of Ramana, who in turn has a "successor", who
have been at war with each other for years.   Some of the documented
statements from both sides leads one quickly to the decision that
neither one has reached any great spiritual level.

So, while I have my own theories, I wanted to ask those in this
mailing list for their opinions as to why Ramana Maharshi's great
teachngs seem to also create so many false, ie deluded teachers?


Namaskar,

Ken

kstuart at mail.telis.org