New member introduction: shrI Guy Werlings

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1998 19:29:30 +0200
From: Guy Werlings <guy.werlings at wanadoo.fr>
To: "Ravisankar S. Mayavaram" <msr at isc.tamu.edu>
Subject: Introduction

namaste !

Thank you very much for your welcome msg. Here is my brief
introduction(perhaps not brief enough) with two preliminary remarks.
 First of all, I'd like to apologize for possible typing errors ; in
November 1994, I had a stroke of hemiplegia and I lost all my typing
capabilities which were previously very high and professional. I am not
sure either about my transliteration, and you can feel free to alter it
if it does not comply exactly with the rules  in ADVAITA-L.I may have
mixed different systems, but I feel rather lost with BLOCK letters in
the words and small letters in the tittles or names and am of course
more familiar  with the official transliteration with acute, down dots
and upmacr fonts, unfortunately impossible to use with the Internet.


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                     Introducing Guy Werlings (gI werlings')

My interest in advaitam goes back to my teen ages, when in 1960 (I was
then only 15 years old), I happened to read the French translation of
jnAna yoga of SvAmi VivekAnanda. I started to frequent the French
rAmakRshNa vedAnta center and came there into a tight relationsip with a
disciple of the late swAmi siddheSvarAnanda, who had passed away in
1957. My main subject of study with my teacher was avasthAtraya vicAra,
as taught to the above mentioned revered svAmi by Sri V. subrahmania
iyer, himself a disciple of His Holiness SRI SACCIDANANDA SIVABHINAVA
NARASIMHA BHARATI MAHASVAMI Jagadguru of Sringeri(1878-1912).


Apart from a repeated study of the mANDUkyakarika,I read again and again
and  studied "vedAnta, or the Science of Reality" of K.A. KRISNASVAMI
IYER, a book of wich I have the good fortune of getting from my teacher
a copy of the first edition of 1930.

Having also studied all four volumes of THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF INDIA,
published by the RAMAKRISHNA INSTITUTE OF CULTURE, I translated into
French the two articles from volume III :

MAN'S INTEREST IN PHILOSOPHY by V. SUBRAHMANIA IYER
and
PHILOSOPHY OF ADVAITA by K.A. KRISHNASVAMI IYER
but these translations remain unpublished in my drawers, and I have no
right neither for translation nor publication.

Both of these are dealing specially with avasthAtraya vicAra.

>From 1974 to 1981, then living in Paris, I delivered 104 lectures,
mostly but not exclusively on Indian philosophy and other aspects of the
sanAtana dharma. I was extremely sorry not to be blessed to reach 108,
but I shall try to make it in my next life !

Now a handicapped person and being on invalidity pension at the early
age of 52, unable to travel, living in a secluded village surrounded by
forests, like the vAnaprasthas of yore I have a lot of time for further
investigation, meditation and making use of the material accumulated
when preparing for my above mentioned lectures to write possibly
articles or essays with the help of my younger son, a student in
philosophy at the ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE, a  very famous French
college(of University level) preparing for the higher posts in teaching.

I was extremely delighted in discovering recently the magnificent
website of Sri Sringeri Sarada Peetham, containing information I had
been expecting for the past 37 years, but then there was neither PC:s
nor WEB sites.

Finally, I'd like to tell that I feel myself so ignorant that if you
accept me in ADVAITA-L, I shall probably have more questions to raise
than articles or contributions to make.

Yours in the Lord nARAYAna.

Guy Werlings (My family coming from Alsace, my name is of germanic
origin and should be pronounced like in German, not like in English
thus more or less gI werlings')

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