Guru-disciple-enlightenment topic

[M Suresh]

On Wed, 30 Oct 1996, Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Oct 1996, Ken Stuart wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> > Is one's response to this "one cannot say whether someone else is a
> > true guru or a false guru" ?
> >
>
> Maybe not, but then, none of the false gurus you were talking about are
> Saddam Husseins, are they? I must admit I still am clueless whom you are
> talking about as false gurus. If there are specific people out there who
> say they are Ramana's disciples, and you don't like them or the way they
> teach, you are perfectly welcome to go find another teacher, are you not?
> If you have philosophical objections to advaita per se, we could discuss
> them here, or maybe advaita is not for you, at least not yet. Or if you
> have encountered problems with a specific person, I, for one, would like
> to know who this person is, and why you think he/she is a false guru.
> Naming names would be quite preferable, compared to causing
> misunderstandings due to generalized statements about disciples of Ramana
> Maharishi.

  While I would not  like to speculate in detail as  to Ken's intentions in
  bringing up the  topic of false guru's  ( I suppose it was  just to point
  out  that Exessive  paramarthika  stuff is  not  required in  vyavaharika
  discussions ), I agree with you that he should have been more specific as
  to who are those disciples of RM who are false guru's.  The little I know
  about his disciples are from what  I read in the Maharishi Newsletters in
  the RM  web page.  As Ramakrishnan pointed out there seems  to be nothing
  false about them.

  Also it is  hard to beleive that  one who has given up  all and sincerely
  surrendered to RM and has been as  a disciple in his presence for several
  years would  turn out  to be  a "false  guru".  Though they may  still be
  having  some  ego,  I  suppose  they should  be  worthy  of  respect  and
  definitely not called "false".

  Even those who have not been in his presence but have spent several years
  in sincere saadhana based on his teachings cannot be called false, though
  I do not know if  it is okay for such people to play guru.  I do not know
  of such people or such guru's.

  Does he  mean persons  who have just  learnt his  teaching intellectually
  just as a means to being a guru  and are using his name and fame to amass
  students for themselves? I do not know of guru's in this category either.

  So if Ken does not give names  or atleast hints it causes speculations to
  who those persons were ( Ganapathi Muni, Sadhu Arunachala, Balarama Reddy
  etc? ) and thus protests.

  Also  in  this  thread  someone  else  said that  RM  had  not  left  any
  self-realised disciples though  other guru's had because RM  did not have
  to work for his realization or some such thing.

  RM had  said that spiritual  progress of a person  was hard to gauge.  We
  must realise that  RM used to draw his disciples  into nirvikalpa samadhi
  for extended  periods.  So many of his  disciples must be  quite advanced
  spiritually and must be atleast fit for liberation on death.

  I  beleive the  lack  of  external manifestation  of  realisation in  his
  disciples was because  he prescribed direct awakening of the  self in the
  hridayam  ( A side  question,  any scriptural references  to hridayam  on
  right  side of  chest? ),  bypassing activating  any of  the 7  spiritual
  centers ( chakras ) in the body.

  We must know that  even a person of the stature  of Swami Vivekananda was
  not  fully   realised  and  attained   liberation  only  on   his  death.
  Ramakrishna Paramahamsa himself said that he  was to stop his jivan mukti
  for the sake of the world.

> Regards,
>
> S. Vidyasankar

regards,
Suresh.