New member introduction: Sri Chaitanya Bhagavat

Chaitanya Bhagavat chaitanya_bhagavat at HOTMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 7 07:01:10 CDT 2000


Thanks to Shri Vyas and Shri Murthy for welcoming me to this list.

Gummuluru Murthy wrote:

>
>Now this struggle is with who and with what? Is this not an internal
>struggle with the six great enemies of kAma, krodha, lobha, moha, mada
>and mAtsarya? This is the struggle that has to be won.
>


Shri Vyas has already answered some of the issues you raised. I also found a
recent (Aug 30) post by Shri Hudli on how modern "truth seekers" trivialize
Advaita into a mental and a verbal game.

Internal or external, as long as one is in Vyavaharika state, the struggle
is very much real. My point is that many hypermodern Advaitins simply preach
the final truth from the Paramarthika platform which hinders an aspirant's
spiritual development. Au contriare, for example, in the Vivekachudamani,
the Guru initially accepts the disciples position (of being bound in
Samsara), lays down some standards for the sincere disciple to follow (e.g.
he severely admonishes sense enjoyment) and then patiently guides him to the
final truth about the unreality of bondage. I find this systematic process
lacking in (some) modern expositions of Advaita.

>
>This "being sick and tired of" something is to be won over. That is,
>the struggle is internal. The problem is right there. And that problem
>is to be solved. Why put labels "classic advaita", "new-age gurus",
>"hypermodern advaita" and so on, instead of purifying oneself?
>

We come back to the same point. As long as we are living in the world of
Name and Form, it's but natural to categorize things by labeling them.
Indeed, it's essential that the student is able to distinguish between say
vice/virtue, Guru/disciple, right/wrong, sat/asat, etc. Otherwise if we just
proclaim "everything is One" just to fool ourselves into thinking that we
are liberated then it's a dangerous thing. The whole system of Sadhana
collapses and we end up going nowhere.


Best regards,

Chaitanya
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.

--
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.



More information about the Advaita-l mailing list