Thank You

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Parisi & Watson <niche at AMERITECH.NET> wrote:

> forum would I be likely to encounter either such a high degree of
intellect,
> or such forbearance for skepticism. I have been thrashing around
with the
> ideas of Vedanta for years, and gradually moving away from them. I
brought
> my tentative conclusions here in order to present them for error
checking,
> in an effort to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. In the
process, I
> have realized some things about Vedanta that I never knew, and that
cause it
> to have even less appeal for me. But we can never shrink back from
the
> relentless pursuit of truth, even (especially) when it leads to
> disappointing or unpalatable conclusions. I'm sure that all members
will
> agree with this statement, even if our notions of what that truth is
are
> dramatically different.

Well said!

If I may offer some suggestions: I'd like to point out that you may
want to explore the system commonly known as Kashmir Shaivism. The
great abhinavagupta has written many texts based on the Saivite
Agama-s. The sunypress has published many volumes including two by a
direct descendant in that tradition: Swami Laksmanjoo. While the
Kashmir Saivite system also espouses a form of advaita, it holds the
world to be real, unlike advaita vedAnta. I gather from your mails
that you are bent to towards what is called "realism". So the system
of abhinavagupta may hold more appeal to you. There was a member of
this list, Ken Stuart who felt the same way as you. This system also
emphasizes yogic practices like nirvikalpa samAdhi and kuNDalini yoga.
It may also seem less "dogmatic" than advaita vedAnta. Try
http://www.kashmirshaivism.org for starters.

> With the kind permission of the members, I would like to continue to
hound
> down a couple of points in the current discussion, and then I will
withdraw
> from the list with thanks and fond memories, and pursue other
avenues.

I hope you didn't get the idea that any of your mails were offensive.
None of the questions you asked were offensive at all. As I mentioned,
your questions are all raised by the great writer on mImA.nsA (vedic
exegesis), kumArila bhaTTa as pUrvapaxa (prima facie arguments). I
have got offended by some other people on this list before (not you)
who pretended that they appreciated sha.nkara and fully agreed with
him. However they were posting mails which were clearly insulting
sha.nkara if you cared to read between the lines. It's only hypocricy
of this sort which is sickening. Critical and polite questions in the
spirit of learning which you posed, even if against the tenets of
advaita are quite welcome and in fact refreshing.

Rama