The uses of th

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Jonathan Bricklin wrote:

What is th? Anyway,

>My American heritage might be shining through here, but I don't see
>evidence that any given set of shoulds leads anyone to
>enlightenment as if it was some kind of Ph.D. program.  Moreover, I agree
>with Nisargadatta's assessment that anyone who tells anyone else what >they
 should do is dangerous.

No one is telling anyone "do this, do that" etc. Advaita teachers have
always said (4000+ years) that the ego is lost only by restraining
oneself and not by doing whatever one likes and using fancy phrases.
Ramana Maharshi has said complete purity of mind and renunciation is
necessary to comprehend advaita tattva. I posted his opinion on how
purity of mind is attained. No one is holding a gun to your head asking
you to be pure.

The attitude that "no one tells me what to do" may find support among
hippies and the so-called rebels, whose ego gets boosted by violating
the "norms" of society. A child of age three may think that it can jump
from the second floor and that nothing will happen to it. It's the duty
of the more experienced parent to warn the child. The child may think
that the parent is being authoritarian, and that it is completely
correct, but some things come only from experience. I have no idea what
Nisargadatta or any one else has said and I don't care. The veda-s and
all advaita teachers right upto RM have clearly mentioned the importance
of purity. They have also said that this is not an end in itself, but
one of the conditions to get over the duality of pure and impure.
Everyone also knows that just because someone stresses purity does not
mean he is enlightened. They also give reasons for why this so (namely
non-restraint leads to strengthening of samskara-s) which is easily seen
in real life also! You can very well not follow what the veda-s and
sages like RM say, inspite of the reasons they give, because
enlightenment is "not like a Ph.D program".  But remember that this has
no support in what is commonly called advaita. So, don't call it
advaita. Call it Nisargadattism or Balsekarism or who-have-you-ism.

As for the statement by RM, Vidya has explained what he meant. This is
exactly why shastra is useful, leading the vAsana-s along the shastraic
path and finally abandoning that also. This will be my last post on this
topic. I think I have expressed myself clearly enough.

Ramakrishnan.