[Advaita-l] Budha & Advaita

[Sanjay Srivastava]

On 1/5/06, murali mohan <murali_mohan at yahoo.com> wrote:

>   If Ramana Maharshi said Buddha was enlightened it has to be so...
> The general hatred for Buddha seems to be among the brahmin-class who wishes to preserve the social superiority status of their caste as they think they alone have the right to perform yajnas and such like and reach salvation.

bhagvAn ramana held buddha in very high esteem and I am sure so does
everyone else on this list. However I do not think that having respect
for buddha gives me a license to twist his teachings to suit my taste.
I would rather consider it blasphemous to presume myself more capable
than buddha to provide innovative interpretations to his teachings
that buddha himself explicitly avoided.

I spent some time in buddhism before re-discovering vedAnta. Let me
assure you that buddhists are not duffers who are in any danger of
getting lost without guidance of our "correct" interpretations. Do not
be surprised to discover that buddhists are also intelligent people
capable of thinking for themselves. They would not be at any serious
disadvantage without us carrying "the white man's burden" for
salvaging buddha's name through giving advaitic interpretations to his
teachings.

Ambedkarite buddhists have found yet another interpretation of
buddha's teachings. "buddha-vANI" a mouthpiece for an Ambedkarite
political party carries buddha's icon on the front page alongwith a
message purportedly said by buddha:

"Buddha said- Fight against all injustice till your goal is reached".

Do you think it is showing any respect to buddha if we make him and
his teachings a pawn to suit our taste and agenda?

praNAm