A Question???

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Chelluri Nageswar Rao wrote:

>I believe Sri Adi Shankara established Kamakoti Peetam.
>
>Somereason God only knows why it became a spiritual politics issue.

I have been wondering whether I should add my $0.02 on this. Anyway here
goes.
I feel that this not just a "politics" issue, it has also become a
historical issue. There has been a huge amount of literature emanating
from the Kanchi Mutt circles about shrI sha.nkara's dates. These also
gain some academic repute since the Madras University-Kanchi Mutt
connection is a well known one. TMP Mahadevan in fact, does not fail to
take potshots at the Sringeri Mutt whenever possible in Madras
University publications.

As I mentioned before on this list, I have been researching the issue of
the authorship of the daxiNAmUrti stotra and the mAnasollAsa. Jan Gonda
in his "History of Medieval Sanskrit Literature" mentions that lots of
stotra-s have been attributed to Adi sha.nkara since many of his
successors have been called sha.nkara (abhinava sh.nkara et al). The
source for his info is Krishnamachariar's "History of Sanskrit
Literature". When I obtained the latter book, I found that the source
for this info is the sadgurusantAnaparimala, of the Kanchi Mutt! Now
there is absolutely no evidence for any of the "other" sha.nkara's who
were all conveniently heads of the Kanchi mutt. However,
Krishnamachariar for no reason whatsoever seems to think that this
parimala is a good source of information. Now you can see the kind of
confusion due to the literature coming from the Kanchi Mutt. There are
many other such examples also.

I have mentioned that my family follows the Sringeri Mutt and I am not
talking so because of this. I have good regard for HH
chandrashekharendra sarasvatI and have read many books of his and have
benefited from them. Whether the Kanchi Mutt is 300 years old or 2500
years old should not make any difference as far as the teachings of HH
goes.

Ramakrishnan.
--
                   http://yake.ecn.purdue.edu/~rbalasub/
>From ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU Mon Apr 14 20:17:42 1997
Message-Id: <MON.14.APR.1997.201742.GMT.ADVAITAL at TAMU.EDU>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 20:17:42 GMT
Reply-To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: egodust <egodust at DIGITAL.NET>
Subject: Freedom: the Lone Reality
Comments: To: advaita--group <Advaita-L at tamu.edu>

hariH OM!

The following is a recently composed Introduction to a
manuscript I'm trying publish, entitled AUTOMATIC FREEDOM.

It happens to pertain to some of the threads recently posted.

Namaste.


************************************************************

                    AUTOMATIC FREEDOM

One of the most surprising things revealed in the advent of
Self-realization is the unchallengeable certainty that one has
all along been nothing less than utterly free.  In fact, it's
simply the case that regardless of what we think, say or do,
the perfection of freedom was, is and always will be who and
what we really are.  Yet, obviously, prior to this so-called
Self-realization, we seem to be constantly and vigorously
tricked by our own mind into believing otherwise.

This is the crux of our entire human dilemma.  And if it were
apprehended rightly, we would see that it thrives on the
flimsiest notion--because it is predicated on nothing more than
an arbitrary and ever changing bundle of thoughts.  As we will
see, an unbiased investigation into this matter should
substantiate it quite convincingly.  Although this sounds like
an oversimplification, we should consider that it's also within
the nature of the mind to make [this dilemma] appear far more
complex and sophisticated than it really is.  Clearly are we
thus victims of an obsessive-compulsive judgment machine (viz.
the Mind) continuously disrupting our otherwise natural state.

It must be emphasized that this observation is not the result
of an abstract reasoning or philosophy.  It is based instead on
first-hand experience.  And among the factors that led me to it,
spending seven years solitary in the wilderness was undoubtedly
the most important--having provided the unique opportunity to
observe and analyze the workings of my mind, thus enabling me
to eventually discover its diversionary tactics and relentless
ploy to deceive and distort.  Hence I quickly realized that
despite the remarkably intricate and clever ideologies that the
mind could and would conceive, they were all empty and
contrived.  Which is why the insight that follows [in the wake
of Self-realization] delivers unmistakably the fact that the
parameters of reality have actually to do with an unqualified,
pre-existing essence inherent in the nature of Being itself.

This should establish clearly that what is being presented here
is not a philosophy.  It should also be noted how such derived
insight is based not on abstract reasoning, but on vital living
experience; in fact, an experience that everyone is *already*
having, every moment in time, yet are unaware of it due to the
mental continuum of relative value judgments: consisting of
thoughts wrapped in and through desires which, in turn, have
been invented and energized by other value-judgment thoughts,
thriving in a vicious closed-loop circle.

In light of this, our mission should therefore be to diffuse the
distortive/destructive/divertive power of Mind.  This treatise
is a practical manual to that end.


_______________________

"There are no answers
       because
there are no questions."
_______________________

http://digital.net/~egodust