[Advaita-l] Realized sages

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

There is saying that "it takes a jnAni to know another" -- the question is
how would we know so and so is self realized or not? For most common people
like me this is taken as a matter of [blind] faith.  And you go to any
ashrama, devotees there will say that their master is self-realized, jivana
mukta and so on.  This includes even shankara maTha-s.

The question is why should you/we take this matter by faith? Why should we
even consider this at all? I think it is not necessary.  The key is to see
what they teach and evaluate its use in your sAdhana. If being in their
presence makes you progress and feel at peace, probably you can utilize it.

Another trap in this is you will hear the name of famous people. There are
so many mahatma-s working silently for welfare of the world, probably we
have no clue about them. Who knows, the guy standing next you in a crowded
bus is a jnAni.  May be if we know, we would not shove him around. Or the
guy in the car before you needlessly slowing down the traffic is a mahAtma
and if we know probably we would not get frustrated, but wait patiently :-).
The thing is we give this exaggerated often hypocritical respect to well
known famous people, when that is something we should provide to all. This
is something I ask myself all the time -- what if the car before me has
ammachi and why should I be any different to Cindy or Harry?


There is a valuable lesson Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa teaches, he mentions
that he sees a potential teacher in everyone he meets and finds something
valuable to learn from them. With that attitude, for a devotee every
circumstance offers a potential to improve, evaluate, understand and learn.


My 2c. Needless to say I may be wrong.

Ravi




> -----Original Message-----
> From: tatha gat [mailto:tathagat79 at yahoo.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 3:01 PM
> To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> Subject: [Advaita-l] Realized sages
>
>
> Namaste.
>
> In recent times, Ramana Maharshi was universally acknowledged as
> a person who has realized the ultimate truth. (I am sure there
> were others also, but please excuse my ignorance) In similar
> vein, I would like to know about a living person  who is widely
> believed to be self realized.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
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