[Advaita-l] Swami Nithyananda

[RAMESH RAMANAN]

Pranams to all members on the board,

Sri Sankara in his Viveka Choodamani and the Sri Guru Gita clearly deal with the Lakshanas of an ideal Guru. The Sri Guru Gita very specifically has Mother Parvathi asking Lord Shiva about the fate of the misguided souls who fall victim to rascals in the garb of gurus. Lord Shiva replies that their fate is indeed miserable and they do not get realisation. Hence, genuine sadhakas should shun such bogus gurus, like the plague and the really worthy guru is to be selected after examination/observance of the Guru over a period of time. 

Pranams once again to all the members, Ramesh



--- On Tue, 23/3/10, Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Swami Nithyananda
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Tuesday, 23 March, 2010, 17:31

I think there is an ancient text giving how to choose guru and what are the klakshnanas of a good guru. I do not recall the details now.. May be some of our members may recall that.
 
Regards,  
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya

--- On Mon, 3/22/10, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:


From: Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Swami Nithyananda
To: "Advaita List" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Monday, March 22, 2010, 8:55 AM




> "A person who acquires Yoga siddhis is not necessarily a good guru."
> 
> Who is a good Guru? I would like to know how you certify a Guru as Good,
> bad and neutral - both Yogic and otherwise.
> 


Dear Sri Anbu Sivam,



Why do you ask me for more than what I said? I am not an authority
to certify who is a good Guru, nor do I intend to set myself up as one.
Others have posted more details of the traditional marks to identify
good Gurus and I can do no better than point to these traditional
identifiers. However, I can, along with most people on this earth,
easily spot a fake! I just wrote what was my own thumb-rule on
things that arouse my suspicion about people who achieve sudden
fame and who market themselves very savvily, using up-to-date
technologies and media.


If this doesn't work for you, fine, but please feel free to share your
own ideas of who can be qualified to be a Guru or otherwise.


Also, when I talked of a Guru having a time-tested paramparA behind
them, all I meant was that this is a minimum requirement for anyone
who appears in public in saffron robes. Please note that I was only
talking of saffron robes, because that is a time-honored, cultural
indication of a sannyAsin. And there are time-honored, cultural
expectations of behavior from a sannyAsin so long as the said
sannyAsin continues to interact with others in society. I was not
talking of institutions at all, no matter how ancient or modern. To
me, it is immaterial whether a given sannyAsin is a pIThAdhipati or
not. In fact, the pIThAdhipati status can often be a distraction to
most human beings who may be inclined to sannyAsa. Only some
institutions have managed to consistently get around this problem.
Of course, there is no guarantee that some individual sannyAsin will
not betray the stringent requirements of his inherited paramparA.


And of course, there is also the rare and occasional exception of
someone who does not come from a recognized paramparA being a
good Guru as traditionally described. There is no problem there too,
because such a rare and occasional exception easily stands out as
the authentic article.

Regards,

Vidyasankar

ps. When I wrote my first email that you responded to, I did not have
anybody specific in mind. I did not even intend to say anything specific
about this Swami Nityananda, because I don't care to delve into the
details of the current scandal. My comments were meant in a highly
generic sense, because like it or not, human life in society is governed
by generic codes of conduct.
                          
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