[Advaita-l] The Evolution of Advaita from Sankara till Date

[sivaramakrishnan muthuswamy]

Dear brother Carlos,

First and foremost I so happy for you for earnestly trying for wisdom.  My sincere best wishes to my fellow brother in the quest of enlightenment. 
I dont know why my words which are very general ticked you off so much.  However I still believe my words are true.  First, I never name called anybody here.  But I see a general trend now-a-days that every guru who comes to US are armed with a course.  Moreover I never said they were useless.  But when you sell it for 2500 dollars, then I have to take a back seat.  Every yoga technique has some pragmatic values and that's why they are there in the first place.  But at the end if they were not leading to the enlightenment then they are pretty much useless.  

While neither Bagwan Buddha nor Adi Shankaracharya ever had courses while majority of the modern gurus has it.  Holy Scriptures allover the world says the importance of guru but finding a proper guru is a challenge - again acknowledged by holy scriptures.  Currently there are lots of spurious people in the garb of hinduism claims that they are gurus.  My concern relies essentially in that.  This I am saying after closely observing atleast three such groups.  Genuine teachers have no ulterior selfish motives.  They dont crave praise, honor or fame.  They are beyond lust and greed and totally unselfish.  They dont crave money. Infact they are so humble they get embarrassed if we call them guru.  If you consider your guru some what like my description, and if you feel that he can give you enlightenment then I welcome him the most.  But it is you who can decide truly.

A folklore story in India goes like this.... There are three kinds of gurus
1. Guru like Sandalwood::  This is the lowest form of guru.  A sandalwood tree can never make a snake to smell like it even if the snake coils around the tree through out its life
2. Guru like Deep (candle light)::  The gurus who come in this category can illumine other people but they are in dark.  Just like the candle light.  The light may illumine the room but unfortunately the base of the lamp will be dark
3.  Bhirang Guru (I may have spelled it wrong- forgive me):  Bhring is an insect in the Indian forests.  What it does is it grabs other insects to its nest and after few days the other insect will behave as if it was bhring.  And this is the ultimate guru.  If you think that your guru can do that to you then ... Awesome.

I am very clear about my journey because I challenge myself every day with every views.  The best of the view wins in the impartial argument I conduct to myself.  I am a science major. "Science is nothing but commonsense at its best, critical in observation and merciless to fallacy in logic".  If I am wrong I will be the first to correct myself.  I think my hands and my heart are clean as I am typing this mail. :)



Hari Om Tat Sat,

Siva









----- Original Message ----
From: Solracartist <solracartist at roadrunner.com>
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 12:37:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] The Evolution of Advaita from Sankara till Date

On 5/15/08 7:59 AM, "sivaramakrishnan muthuswamy" <muthushiv at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> ... He never sat in a
> corner to do tapas nor he collected some money and designed "Courses" for
> western people.  .
> 
And further on:

> All the modern day swamiji's are designing "Courses", a book and pep talk on
> Bagavad Gita, and some "rituals" because it looks soo cool.
> 

Dear Sir:
I am very surprised about these statements that criticize some very honest
swamis who offered their lives to spread the Scriptural Teachings putting
them in the same bag with charlatans and profit-making pseudo-spiritual
teachers.
Of course, I don't know who you are refering to, and I can only speak from
my own experience.
For your info I was born westerner, and after entering Vedanta by the
Western Advaita Teaching door (that some people nowadays call Neo-Advaita),
I felt something was missing, so I start looking other Vedantic venues, and
the Ego had the misfortune of falling into those "Courses" and pep talks on
Bagavad Gita that you are refering to (but again I must clarify, maybe we
are not talking about the same people). It wasn't only a revelation, it
opened (and still is doing it) the way of understanding the Sastras from
many angles, but essentially pointing at that Sublime Identity that we all
are, but fail to recognize due to Ignorance. I am (and still am) very
gratefull to have had the oportunity given in the form of "courses", "books"
and "pep talks". And I am also eternally grateful to those swamis that
initiated that kind of teaching form.
My path didn't lead me to Swami Vivekananda (yet), so I can't really
appreciate His Teaching, that I'm sure is another of the most beautiful
flowers in this Vedantic Garden we all share.

I was compelled to show you your own criticism, because in fact, you fell in
the same trap that you were pointing out as unacceptable.
In your own words:

> If you dont have the capacity to show gratitude, that
> is alright but don't throw mud at others because
> first it contaminates your hand.

Pleas receive my most respectful pranams,
Carlos Grasso









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