Disciples of Ramana Maharshi

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

I wrote in my previous post:

>Ken wrote:
>
>>Though Ramana Maharshi may have denied any disciples, there are hosts of
>>people : Sadhu Arunachala, Balaram Reddy, Kunju Swami, Ganapati Muni etc
>>who claim Ramana to be their Guru and that includes Poonjaji.
>>-----------------------------

Sorry for my oversight. Ken did not write the above part. It was written by
Giri, after which someone theorized that all these personalities were crooks,
since all of them supposedly claimed that they had been enlightened after their
guru's death. (In Ganapati Muni's case, since he died before RM, I suppose we
can take it that Ganapati Muni declared his advaita siddhi through a ouija board
or some such device). Ken did not write that either. Hope this makes things
clear.

I am in 3 different lists and have the digest versions of them since that makes
things easier for me. So it was an oversight when I cut and pasted this stuff
in my reply. My apologies once again.

>>While I agree with your main point, ( which was concisely stated by a
>>popular false guru as "dead gurus can't kick your a** " ), I have to
>
>Very nice to have cosy agreements here, but I must point out that none of the
>people mentioned above (I do not know anything about Poonaji) ever claimed to
>be enlightened or acted as a "guru" at anytime. It was claimed that all these
_______________________________________________________________________________

This is in response to another post:

Ken wrote:

> >> Though Ramana Maharshi may have denied any disciples, there are hosts of
> >> people : Sadhu Arunachala, Balaram Reddy, Kunju Swami, Ganapati Muni etc
> >>
> >> Interesting enough, all have appeared as *enlightened* disciples *after*
> >                    ^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> the death (mahasamadhi) of the Maharishi -- unlike the cases of
> >
> >        Oh, really ? Did they come to you and say they were enlightened or
> >did you just assume it ? Please produce quotes from the four above saying
> >'I am enlightened.'
>
> But what would such quotes prove?

It would prove that the allegation by the original poster that these people
claimed to be "enlightened" is indeed a fact not a fiction, since you very
conveniently used the same "fact" to bolster your insinuations about "the kind
of people who are attracted to RM's teachings".

> Every charlatan says "I am enlightened".
>
> Generally, the only fairly reliable indicators are:
>
> - Pronouncement by that person's teacher that the person has finished
> their sadhana.   This, of course, depends on the reliability of the
> teacher, in turn.
>
> - Acclaim and recognition by other respected spiritual leaders.
>
> - Most importantly, the effect of the person in question on you - "by
> their fruits ye shall know them".

Now, I seem to be suffering from some memory loss here. Can anyone jog my
memory a bit? Who was it that was talking about pointing the way to the
bathroom, unnecessary philosophizing and false gurus?

Let me add that I consider statements like "all these people suddenly became
enlightened ..." and such irresponsible explanations of them quite slanderous
and unwarranted, especially given the fact that Ganapati Muni was an acclaimed
scholar and tapasvi and by all reports was humble to an extraordinary degree.
RM himself commented "Where shall we find another one like him?" on hearing
about his death. It would do well to present some solid facts rather than
waving the hands wildly and dispensing with the evidence when confronted.

Ramakrishnan.
--
Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant (May faulty logic
undermine your entire philosophy)           -- strong Vulcan curse
                  http://yake.ecn.purdue.edu/~rbalasub/