A Message

[Peetabasa Pati]

Dear brothers and sisters in this list,
I have been a passive member of this group for a couple of days, have been
receiving the mails regularly and is going through them. What I find in
most of the mails is that they show our ignorance about what Advaith
Philosophy is all about.

Let me try to make some points clear and pardon me if you think these are
irrelevant.

Some days back one of our brothers had written that according to Advaith
philosophy, we all are brahman and hence we need not worship any deities.
But as far as my understanding of this philosophiy goes when we realise
that "only brahman is the truth" and "we are that" there is no point in
thinking about whether we should worship or not for we worship someone who
is different from us and is superior to us which is not true in case if
Advaith philosophy is considered.

Today I have found mails on the interpretations of BhagvadGita by Srila
Prabhupada and the confusions and answers related to that.
My belief is that our yoga system has been divided into different
streams to meet the requirements of different categories of people,
people with varying mentalities, capabilities and attitudes in life.
No doubt in this age we are in utter confusion as to consider what is religion,
what we are supposed to do, why we came to this earth, is the theory of
evolution true and so many of such related things. Probably great people like
Srila Prabhupad and other Rishis knew that in the age of such mental confusion
only bhakti yoga will be able to give some peace of mind to people who are
bubbling with emotions and are neglecting their logical part of the brain and
will give a balance to the people who are bubbling with logical part of the
brain and consider emotions to be vague things. There is no doubt that both
parts of our brain should be balanced and so should be our bahaviour. Hence,
I also sincerely believe that a person, ordinary person like me, should
do japa of the great name to gain concentration, practise bhakti yoga till we
reach a state so that we are able to take rational judgement of things in life
and then switch over to the logical Advaith Vedanta. I have seen some of my
friends who have been declared to be academicc genius by the so called
education system, even fail to appreciate the concept of Advaith Philosophy.
Moreover, as far as my knowledge goes, which no doubt is limited by my reading
of various literature, when Lord SriKrishna said that" Hey Arjuna! Now you
leave  all things and take shelter under me and I'll take you across the
miseries of the world", he didn't mean to say that you take shelter under
Kishna as a person. He was in a separate state, considering himself to be
one with Atman. THis has been made clear in the second chapter
of SrimadBhagvadGita. Hence, I understand that we should surrender to the Atman
(Krishna in its form) as long as we don't realize that we are Atman. Here let
me make onething clear that knowing that I am the Atman is different from
realizing this fact.It is easier to say that I am the same Atman and is no
different from the furious cobra which could be infront of me. But when we
are in the actual situation, if we still have the same feeling then only we have
realized this fact. Let us all lay more stress on realizing this Atman, which we
actually are, rather then trying to make our selves miserable in the worldly
controversies of the Advaith Philosophy.

Here I remember the statement given by Dr. Paul Brunton, A desciple of Raman
Maharshi in his book,"A search into secret India". After prolonged search of a
truely wonderful India when he came across the Mahashi fo the first time he
realised the fact and noted it down something similar to this: " It is our
intellect which creates problems for itself and spends most of the time in
trying to solve these problems". Pardon me if I have deviated from the statement
as I have a faint mamory of it since I read the book some years back.

Please forgive me if I have hurt anyones feelings and all are most welcome to
send any comments and criticisms.

Thanking all for the cooperation and patience to go through my feelings.


"Let us learn to live in the present".

pati.

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

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