Jnaanis, their behavior etc

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Ken wrote:

> So, to take the statement above to an extreme, what if Saddam Hussein
> announced he was an Advaita Vedanta Guru?

It's upto you to decide.

> Furthermore, what if he then said that the Upanishads were wrong, and
> that Shankara and Ramana Maharshi were both fools and charlatans?

The same again.

> Is one's response to this "one cannot say whether someone else is a
> true guru or a false guru" ?

shruti explicitly states that jiivamuktas may seem like mad men and behave in
non-standard ways. This is clearly stated in the jaabaala upanishhad and the
examples given are R^ibhu, nidagha, duurvaasa, dattaatreya etc. There are many
stories in the puraaNas about the "non-standard" behavior of these people. In
the yoga vaasishhTha the same idea is conveyed.

I can point out the verse number or transliterate the verses when I have time,
from the jaabaala U, if anyone wants to see it.

Even shruti does not purport to give a fool-proof method of identifying
jnaanis. There is none.

Like Giri, this will be my last posting on this topic.

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

>From  Wed Oct 30 21:25:01 1996
Message-Id: <WED.30.OCT.1996.212501.GMT.>
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 21:25:01 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: Re: Disciples of Ramana Maharshi
Comments: To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
Comments: cc: rbalasub at ECN.PURDUE.EDU
In-Reply-To: <199610301651.LAA26029 at zebra.ecn.purdue.edu>
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Hello,

Do the digests put the messages in order from earliest to latest?

If not, this can account for the problems in keeping track of who said
what, since there is still some confusion....

On Wed, 30 Oct 1996 11:51:49 -0500, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian
<rbalasub at ECN.PURDUE.EDU> wrote:

>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".


But,  none of the four people mentioned have anything whatsoever to do
with my inquiry, since I have never met them nor read anything about
them.


>> 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?

I don't see how you are relating the two things.  They are:

(1) I asked if anyone could see any connection between, let's call it
the "style" of Ramana Maharshi's excellent teachings and the, in my
opinion, higher than usual number of his disciples who claim to be
enlightened teachers but aren't.   Then, various people responded with
various statements equivalent to "it doesn't matter because all is
illusion".  I replied that if Ramana were asked where the bathroom is,
he would point it out, rather than replying "it doesn't matter because
all is illusion", and in fact that was a big difference between true
gurus and false teachers.

(2) Above I said that all charlatans say they are enlightened, so
therefore statements by people that they are enlightened are no proof.

Where is the contradiction?

>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.

Again, I was not the one who said "all these people suddenly became
enlightened ..." and in fact, have never commented about Ganapati Muni
at all.  I've never commented negatively about any teacher by name in
a message to this mailing list.


Namaskar,

Ken

kstuart at mail.telis.org