[Advaita-l] Advaita Vedanta, religion, and science

[ramani veeraraghavan]

Shri Michaelji,
 
Persons like Shri Adi Shankara cannot be influenced by the contemprories or situations. If so they need to be discarded. Idea is to reach brahman (or realise it) and we need the help of those who can lead to it.
 
Regards
V Ramani

--- On Sun, 1/11/09, Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:

From: Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: [Advaita-l] Advaita Vedanta, religion, and science
To: "advaita vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Sunday, January 11, 2009, 4:13 PM

Jaldharji

I find your comments very useful. Indeed, it could be said to be damaging to
one's own faith -- and that of fellow believers -- to uphold it by
denigrating other faiths or sects -- or nations !

It is said that Adi Shankara's statements often seem severe, reductive,
inapplicable, even 'untrue': because he was living at a time when faith
itself -- any faith -- was in such a mess that 'laying down the law' in
the
most stringent terms was necessary.

The same applies to the Manusmriti, I understand -- the highest demands on
human behaviour laid down in times of chaos.

 I guess we have to make allowance for this, as for Adi Shankara, without
denying the essential truth ?

Incidentally, there are now many Westerners becoming increasingly interested
in 'non-dualism' in practice, with an eye on Advaita for a lead. They
have
discerned Western writers and sages in the past whose minds are essentially
'advaitist'. That should be a great encouragement to every world faith
and
to sanatana dharma -- without 'watering down' any faith or individual
belief.

Michael



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