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

[Raghav Kumar]

Pranams Swamiji
You wrote-

'Moreover, AchArya always said that upaniShad-s have AkhyAyikA-s, they are
not history. Why? I hope you know that, because I 've talked about that
while supporting apauruSheyatva of shruti years ago. You were a part of
that.'

Yes i certainly do remember that. You had indicated that none of the
characters like vAmadeva or yAGYavalkya were to be *established* as
historical based on shruti pramANa because that leads to pauruSheyatvaM.
shruti is not itihAsa. It may or may not correlate with history.

Your inputs were quite memorable and happy. My incorrect understanding of
apauruSheya-nityatvaM was very well clarified by you.

Here its not to argue for vAmadeva's historicity. the example of vAmadeva
was to show that shruti is not against such a possibility of GYanam.

The result of shravaNAdi is obstructed by some peculiar prArabdha. And one
more janma is required for the jnana phala to manifest itself.

My understanding is that shruti does not rule out such a possibility in
rare cases.

Regarding the question of the apparent 'one-sidedness' (only tvampadArtha
shodhanam) of the who am i approach, i am not unaware of it.

It needs to be employed in the light of shravaNAdi giving rise to the
akhanDAkAra vRtti. After that a sadhana such as  *Atma*samstham manah
pratice is sufficient for brahmAtmasamsthaM manah. So even staying with the
meaning of I leads to its lakshyArtha flashing in the mind on the strength
of prior shravaNam and is therefore nidhidhyAsanam rather than merely a
practice of dRk-dRShya-viveka or a sAMkhya practice.

Om

Raghav

I think Praveen ji has expressed an idea  here below which is pertinent.

> Praveen, I know that there are occurrence where he mentions brahma and
> negates bheda, but was that based on shruti(which must be known as
pramANa)
> or was just added later because someone told him that he is talking
similar
> to upaniShad-s. We have to decide that he understood that part. Mere
> repetition to confirm to shruti is not enough.
>

I don't have such a doubt since this can be raised about anyone in the
sampradAya itself and I do not know how this would ever be proven.

Om
Raghav





I can only share my understanding and leave it at that.

In the gita 6th chapter we have *AtmasaMstham manaH* kRtvA na kincidapi
cintayet (centre the mind upon atma and dont think of anything else). And
similarly tatastato niyamya etat *Atmanyeva* vasham nayet. This chapter
deals with nidhidhyAsana a process which presupposes shravanam prior to it.
There are other words like ekAkI etc indicating solitude etc. rathee than
again doing extensive shravaNam etc.
And bhAShyakAra also says that it leads to upaiti shAntarajasaM
brahmabhUtam akalmaSham by saying he gains  ब्रह्मैकत्वदर्शनं  which can be
understood as niShThA in this context.
We have to understand that such a student already has done sufficient
shravaNam and mananam. He has already got a clear pramANa prApta vRtti
whereby Atma's paricchinnatvaM is negated and the lakshyArtha of mahAvAkya
has already been arrived. And all that was negated as anAtmA was
'accounted' for as adhyasta upon AtmA and as mithyA.

On 25-Sep-2016 3:03 pm, "Praveen R. Bhat via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste Swamiji,
>
> On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 1:15 PM, श्रीमल्ललितालालितः <
> lalitaalaalitah at lalitaalaalitah.com> wrote:
>
> > Even for most of participants here, the pramANatva of shruti is either
> > unclear or useless. In that case, it is easy to say that they are
> believers
> > of advaita, not seekers.
> >
>
> Agreed. Shruti has to be the only pramANa for aikya, since it cannot be
> known through any other means.
>
> "After hearing the Self to be the Brahman the person finds the true import
> of the Self and reverts to it whenever he is diverted from it.  Here is the
> *WHOLE PROCESS* of Realization."
>
>
> > This doesn't convince me about his understanding. It just gives credit to
> > shrautaikyaGYAna for making understand importance of AtmA(whatever that
> > means) to remember self whenever one is distracted. This is not the use
> of
> > aikyaGYAna or shruti. Moreover, what is this turning to self? Why is it
> > needed? - We must think about that.
> >
>
> The sentence does not say "importance of AtmA", but *import*, which means
> what it really is, which is brahman. Then "reverts to it" would mean revert
> to the lakShyArtha of self being brahman as learnt from Shruti. That would
> be gaining niShThA..
>
>
> > I don't think Ramana Maharshi said that that was his sAdhana. He said
> that
> > it was spontaneous as a child and he just analyzed this experience. So it
> > is more closer to unknown first, even before vichAra.
> >
>
> I've read that the death-like experience caused him to understand self
> apart from body. And that is what he clearly said and supported.
> This type of experience is evident in even new sAdhaka-s who experience in
> meditation that the japa and other vR^itti-s are coming and going and he is
> watching. This is tvampadArthashodhanam. Same is case of ramaNa.
> Rest parts, as aikyam and mithyAtva of prapa~ncha, can't be known by such
> means.
>
>
>
> > Praveen, I know that there are occurrence where he mentions brahma and
> > negates bheda, but was that based on shruti(which must be known as
> pramANa)
> > or was just added later because someone told him that he is talking
> similar
> > to upaniShad-s. We have to decide that he understood that part. Mere
> > repetition to confirm to shruti is not enough.
> >
>
> I don't have such a doubt since this can be raised about anyone in the
> sampradAya itself and I do not know how this would ever be proven.
>
>
> > I'm not against good qualities. The problem is that there are things
> which
> > can't be known on their own, they need shruti. For that portion, I've to
> > decide whether he knew that shruti is pramANa. Once it is clear, there
> will
> > be no problem to increase the probability of him being brahmaGYAnI.
> >
>
> I understand your point of view. Thanks.
>
>
> Kind rgds,
> --Praveen R. Bhat
> /* Through what should one know That owing to which all this is known!
> [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */
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