[Advaita-l] Shankara and Kriya Yoga

[rajaramvenk at gmail.com]

One can come to any conclusion on his own and have the conviction that it is right. However, how does one know for certain that the conclusion is right? We need apaurusheya sabda pramana to validate and that can only come from a teacher. Even for Sringeri Periyava, Lord Shiva taught yoga in his dreams. If Ramana's conclusions are inconsistent with shruti, he is plain wrong. If he says that the teacher is the Self, it is fine. If he says he didn't need a teacher in some form to instruct him, he is plain wrong. I'm happy to be corrected. 
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-----Original Message-----
From: V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
Sender: "Advaita-l" <advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 10:45:37 
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Reply-To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
 <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Shankara and Kriya Yoga

On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:

> praNAms Sri Sunil prabhuji
> hare Krishna
>
> ...But fact remains that according to
> mAdhaveeya,  shankara had learnt these kriya-s and mastered the 'siddhi-s
> like parakAya pravesha etc. But from whom he learnt all these things?? is
> still a question..
>

While the norm is that a person learns skills from another 'person', there
are exceptions too.  For instance,  in the case of the previous Jagadguru
of Sringeri, it is recorded in the book 'Yoga, Enlightenment and
Perfection' that over a period of ten days Lord Paramashiva Himself taught
several Asanas in dreams.  The outside world would not have known that any
teaching and learning went on.  In the case of Ramana Maharshi, no one
knows who taught him Vedanta, albeit one can say that it might have
happened in a previous life.  When asked who was his guru, Ramana is
reported to have replied: 'The Self is my guru'.  He has even expressed
this idea in his Tamil compositions on Arunachala.

Thus, like mastering siddhis, even the learning of those siddhis can be a
'siddhi' by itself.   And for a very highly accomplished person books are
enough to learn and master the skills.  Since everyone is not so
accomplished, the general advice is to approach a qualified teacher and
learn.

The 'Teacher' can appear in any form.  One's own intuitive capacity can
very well be a teacher.

regards
subrahmanian.v
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