[Advaita-l] Discussion on the Guru

[Amuthan]

namo nArAyaNAya!

On 8/8/07, asad mustafa <asad.mustafa_at_yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>   Wasn't this gentleman teacher of Vivekananda, who introduced advaita to the outside world?

__gentleman__??? I suppose you can give more respect to a paramahamsa
than can call Him a 'gentleman'. SrI rAmakRshNa paramahamsa was of
course extremely 'gentle' and non-violent - just like a child in fact
-  and He was truly a 'man' who had completely mastered Himself and
was a knower of the Self. if you actually meant this by calling Him a
'gentleman', you can be more expressive about it since the word
'gentleman' doesn't imply anything close to that. if however, you
didn't intend that when you called Him a 'gentleman', you might as
well not talk about Him at all.

since SrI rAmakRshNa paramahamsa had extremely liberal views, unlike
any other religious figure of his time or before, a fraction of those
holding on to the traditional views of sanAtana dharma tend to be
critical about those who freely (mis)interpret paramahamsa to say
anything and everything they like about hinduism and advaita. nothing
more, nothing less. but no sensible advaitin whom I know disagrees
with the fact that SrI rAmakRshNa paramahamsa was a jIvanmukta in the
proper advaitik sense of the term - completely free.

vAsudevaH sarvaM,
aparyAptAmRtaH.