Antiquity of Advaita Vedanta (was Re: An Open Letter to All)

[Rajiv Malhotra]

Comment on Sri Ganesan's remark:

It could also be that each spiritual leader on either side based his claims
on ORIGINAL direct experience. Hence, the original experience itself was not
appropriated by anyone.

The experience itself is beyond description, and the description of one's
direct experience is CONSTRUCTED after the experience itself. So what got
appropriated (by whosoever) was the framework in which to describe.

Ramana Maharshi does not use any classical textual framework to describe his
direct experience; he has his own framework to describe. That does not make
it a different experience.

Nisargadatta Maharaj has extremely simple ways to describe, devoid of any
classical text references whatsoever.

So the fight could be over the framework for description: vedic verses
non-vedic. This has socio-political consequences of control, and does not
reflect differences of the experiences.

Rajiv

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

Archives : http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l.html
Help     : Email to listmaster at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Options  : To leave the list send a mail to
           listserv at lists.advaita-vedanta.org with
           SIGNOFF ADVAITA-L in the body.