[Advaita-l] Dvaita's wrong knowledge

[S Venkatraman]

Namaste Moderators
 
I am a newcomer to this list. If one really wants to learn advaita, the great teachers have always advised that one should seek a personal Guru. But for many, as for me, this is not practical. It's here that a list such as this with many scholars as members can be of great assistance by supplementing ones self-effort in learning advaita.
 
Dvaitins are also scholars and the debate they have with advaitins can also be a great source of  education for novices (despite long association) to advaita like me. But then there has to be a balance and the motives must be clean (I mean tending towards learning). Every list, especially the ones that are either unmoderated or very mildly moderated,  goes through a period when the balance may for whatever reason get disturbed. A mere look at the archives of this list will convince anybody that the last few weeks belonged to such a period of imbalance. In my humble opinion, the problem was with the motives of the Dvaitin scholars which must be clear from a recent statement made by one of them, "To expose the limitations, inconsistencies in the advaitic model can hardly be called maligning and throwing dirt on advaita".
 
Sirs, I have not come to this list to be told about the inconsistencies of advaita. I have come here after a lot of 'Parikshya Lokaan, karma chitaan, nirvedamaayat' etc. and I know how unsatisfactory dvaita is. I can also intuit to a great extent the truth of advaita. The fact that sages like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maharishi, Swami Chandrasekharendra Saraswati attest to the truth of advaita is more convincing to me than any intellectual argument can ever hope to be. I am here to understand better what I KNOW to be true.
 
Shri Nagarjuna Sidhharta who joined this list very recently and gave evidence of his great erudition from the few messages he could post so far, again was merely seeking to understand Advaita better. But the DVAITIN NOISE has now driven him out of it. And the loss is ours, the advaitins. (Dvaitins on the list have nothing to lose - they are here to expose and not to learn).
 
I have reproduced below the private email exchange that I recently had with Nagarjunaji because I think it is very much relevant to the purposes of this list.
 
Moderartor Sirs, you are all doing yeomen service to advaita by maintaining a list like advaitin - L. I very much appreciate that the problem that I have - like being busy on work etc. - all of you too have. But out of great comapssion and out of love for advaita, you are engaged in this great service to advaita. May I request you to ensure that conditions on the list do not become such that they even threaten to change the very character of the list and members like Nagarjunaji give way to impulse and leave the list.
 
And to the Dvaitin scholars - Sirs, probably you are all right. But I am here for Advaita. May I implore you to leave us in peace to pursue Advaita.
 
Many thanks and regards,
 
Venkat


Nagarjuna Siddhartha <nagarjunasiddhartha at yahoo.com> wrote:
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 09:34:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Nagarjuna Siddhartha 
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Dvaita's wrong knowledge
To: S Venkatraman 

Namaste Sri Venkatraman gaaru,
 
Thank you sir, for your words. But I had already unsubscribed from the list. I might subscribe again, but I am not keen on doing it right now. Please dont misunderstand me, but when I came to the list, I came with the intention of learning advaita. You see, I am still an amateur in advaita-vedanta. I never expected to encounter hoards of dvaita scholars, cheaply trying to take over the list. All in all, it became more as a dvaita list rather than an advaita list. 
 
I would come back, but not before the advaita list turns into a real "advaita list". Please forgive me for the delay. And once again, please dont misunderstand me.
 
Many thanks and regards
Siddharth
 

S Venkatraman <svenkat52 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Namaste Nagarjunaji,
 
I sincerely hope that you have not already unsubscribed and that you are still on the list. I personally found your arguments extremely refreshing. Based purely on common sense perceptions of the world, I sometimes used to have doubts about the validity of 'Advaita'. This is where a list such as this has a great role to play in clearing these doubts.
 
But unfortunately some people who do not believe in advaita. who are convinced that it is not right and who in the garb helping us to understand vedanta better, tried their best to disprove and discredit advaita, and theirby wasted our and their time. Please do not get me wrong, I would very much like the views I hold to be challenged; but constructively and not the way it has been happening on the list in the past few weeks. I think we are all on this list to progress spiritually which, among other things, in my opinion, requires subduing of the 'ahamkara'. Unforunately in the debates we had, the means for subduing 'ahamkara' became one of parading it. This is where, in my opinion, the debate became counter-productive and degenerated.
 
Sir, this is where you were refreshingly different. Atleast for me you destroyed the arguments of the so called non-advaitins and thereby did the objectives of this list a great service. And using Nagarjuna's dialetic for doing so certainly does not make you a 'Budhhist' .
 
Please do us all a favour. Please continue on the list'. I have a lot to learn from you. Mant thanks and regards,
 
Venkat





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