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

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Raghav Kumar prabhuji and Sri DVN Sarma prabhuji
Hare Krishna

Sri Raghav prabhuji has given beautiful explanation / justification that since ramaNa was a brAhmin by birth, his realization was through shAstra only and those shAstra vAkya-s are there in his daily sadhyAvaNdanaM.  Really a well thought out explanation.  But question is whether ramaNa himself acknowledged this in his teachings??  Whether ramaNa himself agreed that his 'first' experience of self at his uncle's house is the result of his daily saNdhyA??  I don’t think so.  Nevertheless, it is a good explanation by other shrOtreeya brAhmin/s who want to see ramaNa's realization in the light of veda and vedAnta adhyayana since he was a brAhmin by birth and for the dvija-s vedA-s are the only pramANa, vedAnta vAkya shravaNa is the only means.  But what about others other than dvija-s, I think ramaNa himself declared that his mother and cow Lakshmi attained mukti after death.  I don’t think it is possible for us to bring them too in the ambit of vedic tradition to say that they have realized through veda-s or vedAnta vAkya janita jnAna.  And what about Nisargadatta maharaj, Shrdi Saibaaba, parama haMsa etc.  who are nothing less than brahmavidvarishTa-s according to their respective followers.  Can we drag them also to traditional boundaries to uphold the shAstras' antya praMANatva when it comes to realization??  Again, I don’t think it is sensible.  And as Sri sarma prabhuji rightly observed, we have somany Atmaikatva jnAnis who are out of the boundaries of orthodox  veda/vedAnta tradition.  Just to bring them within the fold of vedic dharma we have to invariably guess that they have studied shAstra in their previous janma/s since there is no other way other than veda mArga one can realize the Atman.  Which obviously sounds dogmatic and conservative view of traditionalists for the outsiders.   

Just thinking all these as an outsider without holding  any traditional flag :-) 


Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar