Buddhism and Self

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Greg Goode wrote:

> Is there any presence of this lineage in the U.S.?  There are lots of
> "Vedanta Centers" from the Ramakrishna Math in Europe and the U.S.  But
> these are an example of Vedanta of the non-Advaita kind.  I had gone to one
> for a while.  Lots of emphasis on the Gita and Ramakrishna's writings, and
> they stress karma- and bhakti-yoga, offering Ramakrishna as the object of
> devotion.  Most of the American attendees yearn for jnana yoga however.
> The swamis say they are not ready, not enough purification and
> discrimination (in the sense of "The Crest Jewel of Discrimination") have
> been performed.
>

I have mixed feelings about the RK mission.  I  believe it was an
understandable response to it's times but has long since outlived its
usefulness.  Some of the Swamis down the years have been scholarly but
most have not.  Indeed if you read the story of his life Ramakrishna ended
up as a priest of Kali after being kicked out of his brothers Sanskrit
school.  How it went on to become the religion of Indias intellectual
classes I don't quite know.

A lot of their books especially the ones by South Indians are pretty good
and the translations are fairly decent.  If you ignore the extraneous
commentary, they can be good introductions to Advaita thought.

> I would really like to get in touch with a representative of the living
> lineage of Shankaracharya in the U.S.

I'm sure there are some but I really don't know of any.  In fact the
answer is a little tricky.  For instance my family are traditionally
devotees of the Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Dwarka (or disciples of the
Jagadguru) but traditionally Vedanta was considered solely of interest to
sannyasis.  So as most of my ancestors, were farmers, minor government
officials or preachers, in practice that affiliation doesn't really mean
anything.  They may have known the basics of Advaita doctrine but they
wouldn't have considered themselves teachers.  Even for me, study of
Vedanta is a lot lower priority than other branches of Sanskrit learning.
Those teachers I do have who could help would simply not be interested in
foreigners.

But like I said there are probably some.  Maybe others on the list can
make suggestions.

> In bookstores and catalogues I don't
> see any books written by anyone that I can tell to be from this lineage.
> Where are the contemporaries?  Other than the excellent multi-volume
> collection edited in London by (I think the first name is Allan) Alston,
> and some SUNY publications, I see no books in English on Shankaracharya or
> his works.
>

Again, I can't really help with English translations but a search of the
New York Public Library catalog shows virtually all his works and his
successors have been translated.  I think you're much better off learning
Sanskrit and reading the originals though.

--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
I got engaged! See the pictures ==> http://www.braincells.com/jaldhar/sagpan