"Jagat satya!"

[Ashish Chandra]

On Wed, 7 Aug 2002 01:41:00 -0400, Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at BRAINCELLS.COM>
wrote:

>What I don't understand and what I am struggling (it seems in vain))
>against is attitudes like:
>
>> Sri Ramakrishna was not a "modern saint". What he gave Swami Vivekananda
>> was not "modernism". Perhaps I am missing the point but Swami Vivekananda
>> did not try to prove that Hinduism is modern.
>
>...
>
>> And I am not saying you are blaming Swami Vivekananda. You hold that
Swami
>> Vivekananda tried to reform Hinduism. I hold that he tried to reform the
>> people, the way they looked at themselves and their religion/culture, so
>> they could turn back to Hinduism. This he did with people who called
>> themselves orthodox as well as those who had forgotten the ABC of Hindu
>> thought. He did not try to reform Hinduism. That is our difference.
>
>You've not been paying attention to the rest of this thread, here is one
>more example:
>
>Jagannath Chatterjee wrote:
>
>> In fact he gave the sacred thread to a number of his disciples who were
>> not socially eligible.
>
>Hopefully I do not need to spell this out for you but just in case, a
>sannyasi has no business giving yajnopavit to anyone and even if they did
>it would have to be within the parameters of the dharmashastras.  Such
>behavior has nothing to do with changing the way people look at themselves
>and everything to do with the intellectual tendencies of the 19th century.
>Why is this such a difficult concept to grasp?
>

Forget about being a sannyasi or not. Then our Adi Shankaracharya had no
business doing his mother's antyeshti. The question is : Has any Guru any
right to give yajnopavit to a person. I don't just mean Guru as in teacher:
I mean a fully realized person. If such a person gives yajnopavit to a
person (or performs His mother's antyeshti), are you going to challenge
that. I can give you at least one example I personally know of where a non-
Brahmin was made a pujari of a temple after his Guru performed his
yajnopavit. Are you going to say that is wrong? Is this reforming Hinduism
when a Guru does this? You have a copy of Shankardigvijaya, you can look up
the opposition Adi Shankara faced then as well. How would you explain that?

>Ashish Chandra wrote:
>
>> Rather, he only affirmed how
>> relevant it still was when people were marching through the streets of
>> Calcutta abusing Hinduism and tearing up Bhagavad Gitas. This was the
kind
>> of tendency that Swami Vivekananda defeated by his work.
>>
>
>And now who's tearing up the Bhagavadgita?  Sure there are people who
>scoff at our religion but based on 21st century ideas. So they must be
>countered with 21st century ideas.  Are you up to the challenge?  Because
>it is _your_ job too.  Not just mine, or some Acharyas.
>

Read: Swami Vivekananda did not go and stop these activities (of tearing up
the Gita). Rather, his call prevented people from turning to them. I am not
so well read about Buddhism but it could have been countered with 8th, or
9th, or 10th century ideas. But it was countered by what was always in our
religion - Vedanta espoused by Gaudapada.

>> And still indulging in lies and deception and mental violence, one keeps
>> getting lost unless there is the support of Dharma (Vedas) and Guru to
hold
>> one in place.
>>
>
>To be able to take advantage of Vedas and Guru requires _understanding_
>them and following them not just worshipping them on a pedestal.

Trust me - it is not so easy to have blind faith as you are ascribing to
me.

>This is
>something my babysitter understands.  She is going to be unavailable all
>this week as her Guruji is visiting from India and she wants to be with
>him.  As my wife also has a big project at work, that means I have to work
>from home and look after the baby so I'll be too busy for the list.  In my
>absence I'm appointing you and Jagannath to answer any questions I would
>have responded to (such as the anupalabdhi one.) With your faith in the
>Vedas I am confident you will have no problems.  Have fun!
>

There is no need for these remarks. One has to be realistic with oneself.
The real change is not whether I can answer what is anupalabdhi. The real
change is whether I always speak the truth and am always kind and
benevolent towards everyone. Not that knowing what is anupalabdhi is not
progress - but it is not *my* progress. At least not yet. Unfortunately, I
have not yet mastered the "Yam" part. That is perhaps one reason why I have
Advaita Siddhi and Brahma Sutra Bhashya still sitting on my shelf. For me,
progress is surrendering to the Guru and answering every doubt with "He is
Grace Itself". His actions are a mystery to me. You see, I don't
_understand_ him at all. I have to just surrender to him and that is all
the understanding I need, and am still cultivating. Maybe I will never know
what anupalabdhi is (knowing Hindi, I at least know what it means) in the
Nyaya doctrine. But I have supreme confidence that if my faith in Guru is
strong enough, I will be exactly in the same place as where
knowing "anupalabdhi" is supposed to take you. Would it matter who knew
what or how one got there?

ashish