[Advaita-l] RE: Books by Ramesh S Balsekar

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- Srikrishna Ghadiyaram <srikrishna_ghadiyaram at yahoo.com> wrote:

[..]

> > The reason being advaita vedAnta and the goal mokSha
> > are
> > indistinguishable (at least if you belong to this
> > school). GYaanaadeva
> > tu kaivalyam. 
> 
> How do you know that you do not get jnAna by listening
> to teachers like Ramesh ?

How do you know that you do?

I am not disputing whether or not Ramesh Balsekar is self-realized, but
only that we have no way of knowing one way or another.

> Atleast six people have
> claimed to have got final understanding after
> following Ramesh's teaching.

Not to be offensive, but there are plenty of people who've claimed the
same after listening to David Koresh, but that doesn't make him
self-realized. 

When one is unable to ascertain the nature of one person's realization
based on whatever that person says, how can we ascertain it based on
what 6 other people say?

> If I were to trust some
> sage who is dead and gone, reason makes me believe
> these declarations also.
> 

If so, you may follow the said person, but is there a need to ensure
that the person is part of such-and-such tradition?

[..]

> So, Ramana established a new tradition.
> 

Ramana Maharshi specifically mentioned that he was not part of the
Shankaran tradition, and that he was speaking from his own experience.
But some Shankaracharyas have said that he was a GYAnI.

I have been meaning to write about the "differences" between Ramana
Maharshi and the Shankaran tradition for sometime now, but here are
some:

1. Ramana Maharshi had no problem accepting the Bible as authentic
scripture teaching advaita.
2. RM accepted Buddha as self-realized.
3. RM permits sannyAsa to women. (I know that the advaita tradition has
also begun this, but I believe RM's declaration was in 1948 or so,
prior to the tradition.)
4. RM did not attach much importance to the mahAvAkyas as directly
leading to self-realization.

-Kartik


		
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