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

[श्रीमल्ललितालालितः]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2016 at 17:12 Raghav Kumar <raghavkumar00 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>
I understand that cases like vAmdeva are possible.
My doubt is about similarity of  ramaNa's case with those.
In vAmadeva's case, we have shruti whose  tAtparya can be decided by
ShaD-li~Nga, and shruti has capacity to give birth to pramA of brahma,
owing to it's svataH-prAmANyam and apauruSheyatva.
In case of ramaNa, we have samAdhi or some type of shock or discrimination,
about which I'm sure that they are not pramANa. The possibility of hearing
mahAvAkya and accepting the same as pramANa, in previous birth can arise
only after deciding that the person had shrauta-GYAna. Moreover, having a
firm conviction about pramANatva of shruti in previous birth is not useful
for pramA in this birth. In vAmadeva's case these doubts don't arise, since
that's AkhyAyikA and the tAtparya is already decided in aikya.
The possibility of ramaNa using any other sentence(sandhyAmantra or
anything else) as a means of brahmaGYAna, is not tenable; because any
sentence is not pramANa, and definitely not when you don't know about the
tattva, or tAtparya of vAkya in tattva. In case of a sentence, heard out of
context, and whose validity is not established, it is evident that the
vR^itti generated can't be pramA. I will like to term that as belief, since
it is not tested and doesn't fulfil criteria of being pramANa.
Most participants here (may) fall in such category.
svataH-pramANa is useful till there is not doubt. After the birth of doubt,
it is yukti and other pramANa-s which are needed to save the original
validity.
Moreover, these exercises are only superimposing your wish on a person who
didn't claim anything as such.

> The result of shravaNAdi is obstructed by some peculiar prArabdha. And one
> more janma is required for the jnana phala to manifest itself.
>
You can imagine anything. But, that imagination will acquire the state of
arthApatti or not, depends on other factors. When I'm not accepting that
there was the result, how could you imagine that there was some cause. Your
duty is to establish fruit first, then you can try to imagine the cause.

> My understanding is that shruti does not rule out such a possibility in
> rare cases.
>
shruti is not pramANa for such cases, because that needs it to be anuvAdaka
of things which happened and hence it will degrade to pauruSheyatva and
it'll be impossible to support it's pramANatva for dharma and brahma.

> 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.
>
I leave it to you, because it is not clear what you are trying to tell.
And, it is evident that you are not accepting the fact that there is
something more needed to support even such procedure.

> 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.
>
That point was already replied.

>
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