[Advaita-l] Ramana Maharshi - Advaitin or Neo Advaitin?

[Kripa Shankar]

Namaste 

‎In continuation of my previous email, I would like to justify my stand that Christopher Nolan was indeed a SampradAya vit. Now we know that the Puranas talk about time dilation ‎and life on other planet. The exact things were expounded by the great 'Brahmarshi' Christopher Nolan. So obviously he is a great sampradaya vit, although no one really knows which sampradaya. Because certain rules do not apply if we proclaim something repeatedly. 

Here please note there is a thin line between 'arriving at a conclusion' based on a fact and 'assuming something' to justify a mere rumour. By this grand logic, a Moorkha becomes a jnAni and Vedas become fairy tales. 

Regards 
Kripa 
‎
Vyasaya Vishnu roopaya Vyasa roopaya Vishnave 
Namo vai Brahma nidhaye Vasishtaya namo namaha 
  Original Message  
From: Kripa Shankar
Sent: Saturday 8 October 2016 9:42 AM
To: V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l; Praveen R. Bhat
Cc: Advaita discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Ramana Maharshi - Advaitin or Neo Advaitin?

‎Namaste Subramanian 

Sorry for the late reply (was out) .

I would like to draw your attention to a more fundamental aspect. I will take just two words from the phrase and I will choose the translation of your choice. First is Shastravit - learned in all Shastras. Now a fundamental question is how does one learn the shastras? 
A) On palm leaves 
B) On Kindle or 
C) Orally from teacher's mouth 

To be very specific, Vedanta should be learnt from a teacher who would have learnt from a teacher who would have learnt from a.......

Now it's a whole different matter that Ramana didn't care to study at all. So by definition, he was a.....

However, let's assume that he was indeed a SampradAya vit - acquainted with traditional interpretation, although he was not even a shAstra vit at the first place. How does one ever be acquainted with traditional interpretation without ever studying is beyond my child like understanding. ‎‎

Let's take an example : 
A proclaims - As per the traditional interpretation the sky is indeed blue (A has studied shAstra on his own) 
B proclaims - As per the traditional interpretation the sky is indeed black (B has studied shAstra as per the injunction, from a teacher from a certain parampara) 

We will then have to conclude that B is right and should dismiss the view of A by attributing the fault in his understanding to his fault of studying on his own. 

Now we have C who is neither conversant with Shastras nor the traditional interpretation (impossible to know the interpretation of a subject, being ignorant of the subject itself) . C talks something unrelated, based on some personal experience. C never mentions anything about shruti because he is obviously illiterate of it. So his personal experience is the only pramANa. Now if we accept C to be a sampradAyavit, then so is Christopher Nolan. Because Nolan made no such claims either. However by your logic we will have to arrive at that conclusion. 

Now for ShrutahAni - ignoring what is directly taught. This obviously means taught directly from guru to shishya * as per the rules *. 

Now to even argue about Vamadeva and Ramana is downright ridiculous. Even if we say Vamadeva was ignorant of previous births but only proclaimed sarvatmabhava, he did that * in his mother's womb *. Proclaiming anything in mother's womb is unusual and so we have to conclude that Vamadeva had a different level of perception. So your justification is meek. 

Regards 
Kripa ‎
‎
Vyasaya Vishnu roopaya Vyasa roopaya Vishnave 
Namo vai Brahma nidhaye Vasishtaya namo namaha 
  Original Message  
From: Kripa Shankar
Sent: Monday 3 October 2016 3:56 PM
To: V Subrahmanian via Advaita-l; Praveen R. Bhat
Cc: Advaita discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Ramana Maharshi - Advaitin or Neo Advaitin?

Namaste Subramanian - I hope you can read my comments (with >>) 
‎
I will address just the above point that Praveen ji did not choose to:

Shankara is making the ShastrArthasampradAyarahitatvam, that is the absence
of ShastrArthasampradAya, as the hetu, cause for someone doing ShrutahAni
and ashrutakalpanAm, the two defects that make a person an
asampradāyavit. By saying this, Shankara is implying that one who does not
do ShrutahAni and ashrutakalpanAm is ShastrArthasampradAya-sahitaḥ. Thus
ShastrArthasampradAya does not have anything to do with lineage but *only*
to the teaching-content.

>> I respectfully disagree. Here Shankara says ShastrArthasampradAyarahitatvam is the * only cause * for ShrutahAni(how can it be shruti if there is no successive order? And hence ShrutahAni by definition , ) , which * by default or by definition * becomes Ashrutakalpana. This is ascertained as Shankara goes on to say * Sarva shastravid * which means fully versed in Vedanta etc, who imitates Vedanta to the word, *api* even if that be the case, *Moorkhavat eva*, still only a fool (should be regarded as such) . ‎

So, since Ramana did not engage in the two defects stated by Shankara, he
cannot be put in the category of someone who lacks ShastrArthasampradAya.
For Shankara this is enough reason to hold someone a Guru as he
demonstrated in the Manishāpanchakam: even a chāndāla, since he is not
distorting the shāstrārtha, is admissible to him as a Guru, on the same
pedestal of a dvija. Shankara did not go to find out who is the one from‎
whom the chāndāla learnt or when he did sādhana and became a jnani. That,
again, is the sole consideration for the Chandogyopanishad to have Raikva
teach the Atma tattva to Janashruti, the King. Again, Bālāki the Brahmana
did not go into the Guru-lineage of King Ajātashatru, a Kshatriya-Jnani,
when the former surrendered to to get brahmavidyā. Same case with the
vaidika sampradāya Acharyas to acknowledge Ramana as a Jnani; and the
earlier Sringeri Acharya pointing to the Jnani identified as 'Para
Brahma'.

An account on Para Brahma here:

*http://tinyurl.com/hl6wt4e <http://tinyurl.com/hl6wt4e>*

Read p.92 to 95

>> I wish to point out that you are quoting almost every example that features in the classic texts and thereby you are quoting it completely * out of context *. In Soundarya lahiri, Shankara says Shivakare manche. So should we conclude that Shiva is in fact a helper in the house and not Ishana mentioned in the Upanishads. Or should we conclude that one diety is inferior or superior to another? No! It is used in a poetic sense to highlight the greatness of the subject (Devi). Here too in Manishapanchakam, Shankara is trying to highlight the greatness of Atmavidya (anyone can have Atmavidya is the inference ). Else, he would be contradicting his own statement made earlier about Moorkha. 

‎‎