A moment please !!!

[egodust]

Padmasheela Rayala wrote:
>
>         Basically, I got an impression with the earlier postings that it
> doesn't
> matter what a person does for a living etc. but if a person has a thirst for
> knowledge and want to know about self, they can go about all these
> ways..(advaita, yoga etc...).  I can understand about the questions if a
> householder can do it successfully with all the responsibilities...but what I
> am
> unable to understand is about the mention and discussion of caste system.
> These
> people...who are supposed to have gained atleast a little bit of knowledge
> from
> all these vedas and advaita and what not...they still didn't come out of one
> basic principle that any person can have a thirst for knowledge and thus can
> attain or acheive brahmanatvam.  Do you guys really mean to tell me that any
> person who is not a brahman(brahmin..)by birth is not eligible to attain
> moksha?
>  Is this what our Vedas really tell us?  How can any person get a right to
> become a Brahman just because he is born to brahman parents?  Doesn't Brahman
> mean that the person has attained knowledge about self and thus these caste or
> the human-made boundaries do not exist at that point?  Is this whole
> discussion
> group based on the assumption that who ever is participating or reading these
> articles have to be a brahman by birth?
>

Please take heart.  Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Yogananda, Ananda Mayee Ma,
the sage of Arunachala, among many others, made it quite clear that meeting
stringent standards regarding provisional, cultural, sectarian, racial, as
well as gender- and caste-oriented factors as prerequisites to the sadhana
for Brahmajnana, is a critical misrepresentation.  All that's required is
a sincere desire or, as you say, thirst for knowledge (mumukshutva) to search
for the sathya [that lies within].

Here's a case where shruti is noncommittal and smriti is critically vital.

Namaste.

_____________

Frank Maiello
"Who am I apart from Thee?"
http://digital.net/~egodust