[Advaita-l] jnAna-vijnAna, gradations in Atma jnAna,

[Praveen]

praNAm all,

On 3/9/07, Ravishankar Venkatraman <sunlike at hotmail.com> wrote:

> What is sampradayA? Can we define it? In simple terms, it is following the
> injunctions of the sanyAsa AshramA coming down for generations. There are
> not rules about whether one should follow bhAmati or vivaranA. Even if there
> were, they were created after these schools originated. These schools have
> nothing to do with the direct experience of Brahman or the realization of
> the Self. People like Sri. Ramana Maharishi did not have to follow any of
> this tradition to attain realization.
>
praveen: IMHO, those are not so simple terms there. It really
surprises me, if not with immense hurting, to see sampradAya being
brought down, even if unintentionally, to the level of "nothing to do
with the direct experience of Brahman or the realization of the Self".
sampradAya keeps the sannyAsa paramparA alive which traditionally (as
I understand) is the first step of learning vedAnta, towards moksha.

Since karma theory is something that Vedanta as well as Ramana
subscribes/d to, this may not be so odd a thing to mention: Bhagavan
Ramana may not have followed any tradition in His life that we know,
but He too had mentioned (sorry, I do not have a link, but assuming
its well-known) of being a sadhu in His earlier life.

> In my humble opinion, individuals
> like us who shun away from having even ShikA, cannot pass judgements on
> someone who is a sanyAsi.
praveen: Although I should say I do agree with you, I'm tempted to say
that it contradicts what you tried to voice earlier: if sampradAya
itself is something that has nothing to do with moksha, why care much
of ShikA? Sorry for sounding harsh!

> In this kali yuga, nAstikAs will certainly condemn sanyAsis. In the name of
> tradition, AstikAs also do that.
praveen: Some may have good reasons for that and I don't think that
should make them bad AstikAs.

gurorarpaNamstu,
--praveen