Thinking process

[Greg Goode]

At 10:48 AM 10/9/97 +0200, Charles Wikner wrote:

>I have not read Ramana at all, and did not know that he had written in
>Sanskrit.  Does the Upadesha Saara continue on this level?  Is there an
>international supplier?  My primary source, DK Agencies, doesn't list it.

Not sure I understand -- would you like to read Ramana in Sanskrit
or English?  There are some good sources I know for English.

--Greg

>From  Thu Oct  9 11:24:38 1997
Message-Id: <THU.9.OCT.1997.112438.0400.>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 11:24:38 -0400
Reply-To: chandran at tidalwave.net
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ram Chandran <chandran at TIDALWAVE.NET>
Organization: Personal
Subject: "I" - the mind or the Self???
Comments: To: Advaita List <advaita-l at tamu.edu>
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Subject: "I" - the mind or the Self???

Jonathan Bricklin, Govind Rengarajan, Nandakumar and Gummuluru Murthy
had some thoughtful observations on the above subject matter. Let me
share my thoughts. It is my opinion that the first step for
clarification is to formulate and study Advaita using a flowchart.

The Advaitic Model of Self-Realization


 |====================|     |=====================|
 |Total Consciousness |     | Destiny (Karma?)    |
 |====================|     |=====================|
          |                            |
          |                            |
          V                            V
 |===================|       |=====================|
 | Pure Human Soul   |<===== |Sensory Disturbances |
 |===================|       |=====================|
          |
          |
          V                  (Influence of Freewill?)
 |===================|       |======================|
 |  Corrupted Soul   |<===== | Spiritual Sadhana    |
 |===================|       |======================|
           |
           |
           V
 |===================|       |======================|
 | Realized Soul     |=====> |      Bliss!          |
 |===================|       |======================|


        I hope that the flowchart above will guide the readers to get a quick
vision of the connection between the model parameters.  The Pure Human
Soul gets the direction from the Universal Consciousness.  With no
desires and sensory perception, the Pure Human Soul(Atman) experiences
Total Bliss all the time. Such a human soul is divine with Pure Mind and
there will be no recognition Ego - "I."
        When the human soul gets the influence of perceptions from sense organs
(both body - eyes, ears, tongue, skin and subtle body - mind) the cycle
of human misery starts with human desires. An explanation for this cycle
of miserable human life originates from Purva Karma (past action). This
is the theory of destiny or Karma.
        The Human soul has divine qualities and gets eternal divine guidance.
There is no logical explanation for this statement but Strong FAITH and
TRUST are required.  People with strong faith can develop Positive
Mental Attitude. Strong influence from Family, Religion and spiritual
guidance are necessary for developing a positive mental attitude. With
positive attitude, People will have self-esteem to reorganize their
priorities. They evolve discipline, purpose, dedication and
determination to terminate desires and miseries.  Strong self-esteem is
necessary for the purification process and the influence of some Role
Models also play an important role.  Self-esteem will help a person to
achieve the full potential where as Ego overestimates the potentials!
        Self-Realization (the final destination)is a mystic experience and
there can be no more intellectual explanations. Spiritual maturity is a
self evolving process and the scriptures recognize the problems and
pitfalls:
Scriptures do not supply any road map to the final destination. Second,
scriptures do not define qualifications for self-Realization. Third,
scriptures contain subtle messages which indicate that the most
important ingredient for SELF-REALIZATION is DIVINE GRACE. This is both
a NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT condition for SELF-REALIZATION. Scriptures
also state that every human soul will experience SELF-REALIZATION.
Finally, scriptures do not specify a time limit or expiry date for the
guaranteed SELF-REALIZATION.
        The model contains at least one weak spot that is subject to serious
intellectual criticism. What is the logic for the origination of
impurity? According to Vedas, Life has  no beginning or end. This
implicitly means that CREATION is beyond the human grasp. Once we agree
with this ETERNAL TRUTH, then there are no contradictions. We can safely
conclude that Creation and Destiny are beyond human intelligence. Then
we can accept Advaita for our spiritual progress and Self-realization.