[Advaita-l] Dayanand Saraswathi interview - Very interesting stand taken by Swami

[Kripa Shankar]

‎I do apologise for repeatedly attacking RM on a personal level. My original intention was to try and understand the tradition / neo Vedanta schools. I should have stuck to that. 

‎This hasn't changed my perspective on RM, but I will withhold all my comments on RM. I should again thank everyone for being tolerant. ‎

As I said earlier, I'll be back with more findings on this matter. The issue got sidetracked due to emotions / biases. 

Regards 
Kripa ‎
‎
yo vedAdau svaraH prokto vedAnte cha pratiShThitaH |
tasya prakRRiti-lInasya yaH parassa maheshvaraH || 
  Original Message  
From: Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l
Sent: Tuesday 24 January 2017 10:13 AM
To: Advaita discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Reply To: Bhaskar YR
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Dayanand Saraswathi interview - Very interesting stand taken by Swami

praNAms Sri Kripa Shankara prabhuji
Hare Krishna

> I would like to address your observation as an advocate of ramaNa maharshi though I am not one :-) And this defense in favor of Sri RM is because, I too consider him as an 'athyAshrami jnAni' and you are, if I am right, targeting him unnecessarily in the name of tradition. Ofcourse again it is my subjective reverence to that mahatma and I don’t compel anyone (including your goodself) to follow him, if at all you don’t consider him as a jnAni but IMO belittling the noble souls in the name of tradition is not acceptable that too when tradition itself accommodate the jnAni-s like Sri RM. 
‎
Even Adi Shankaracharya had a strong inclination for renouncing the world. He didn't just walk out of his home. He waited for his Mother's permission, approached a guru even though he was a chaturveda parangata. The main thing to note here is that, he abided by the Varna Ashrama dharma by entering the sannyasa Ashrama. Kindly note here that most of the great personages mentioned so far either didn't have the adhikara for such sannyasashrama or other such methods. ‎ But RM, had the adhikara and no obstacle / reason / need to avoid taking up the sannyAsI role.

> The obstacles for RM to take the saNyAsa Ashrama formally or in the traditional style was 'the burning vairAgya' and getting immersed himself in that svarUpa jnana. A jnAni like this caliber cares little about the traditional formalities, a person who lost his 'ego' (ahaM) in the light of the ATma jnana cares little about his 'former' relationships and further traditional formalities. First of all Sri RM did not want the recognition of himself as a sanyasi under any traditional banner. Prince Siddhartha did the same thing (without waiting for the permission of his wife and kids) before becoming 'gautama buddha'..is it not?? BTW, Ashrama saNyAsa is not a must and mandatory to become Atmaikatva jnAni, svarUpa jnana is NOT any Ashrama adheena to insist saNyAsa is a must to get jnana. 


In fact, there is no vidhis for a sannyAsI except a few. 

> those few external vidhi-s ramaNa followed (getting rid of yajnOpaveeta, tonsuring the head etc.) according to his own admission. Hope that would satisfy your demands :-)


Even after becoming jnanis, people have adopted this Ashram to spend the rest of the life time. 

> Yes, but it is not compulsory. And for Sri RM adopting the Ashrama is another type of bandhana only hence spent his most of the life time in isolation. 

Moreover, jnanis set an example for others to follow the right path as Krishna says in Gita. 

> yad yadaacharati shreshTaH...For that matter Sri RM never ever claimed himself being the shreshTa and never asked anyone to follow his footsteps and asked them to spend their life in seclusion after renouncing everything. It is his followers revered him as bhagavAn and followed his teachings. 


So RM flouted this time honoured dharma. And there can be no justification for this. ‎

> As I said above Sri RM did not make any conscious effort to 'become' the formal sanyasi...the vairagya / detachment is the default phala of his Atmaikatva jnana which needs no vidhi nor nishedha. 

The very reason why the shastras put vidhis is to ensure that people will be free from kartritva (I am doing good, bad etc). 

> And the absence of katrutva bhOktrutva in RM was the result of his jnana and not the sAdhana phala that one would obtain in Ashrama saNyAsa.

By not following any such vidhis, RM cannot be considered as belonging to SD. 

> nobody saying he is representing any orthodox paraMpara that does not mean that he is not a realized one. 

So what RM did can be considered svechachara. Because he did what he felt like.  

> even though you consider RM's act as svechachaara, his acts did not do any 'apachAra' to saNyAsa dharma. For that matter vividishA saNyAsa demands pAnditya, bAlya and mouna ramaNa after becoming 'pandita' followed the mouna kept the attitude of bAlaka. So, with and without knowledge he followed the saNyAsa dharma / vidhi.

Next is, he never studied shAstra at all, even without a guru. ‎This is reflected in his simplistic, vague one liners similar to oneness, universal consciousness etc. 

> don’t you think one liners like oneness (ekatva) universal consciousness (samashti jnana) are vedAntic terms ?? Do you think all of a sudden a person who has violated all dharma-s, svecchaachaari started talking about profound truth of Upanishads without any 'saMskAra' ?? strange are your observations. 

He calls a hill to be a guru. Everyone acknowledges Dakshinamurty to be a guru, but it is common sense to approach a shrotriya guru. ‎ 

> common sense is for common people, who are yet to tread the path of jnana mArga. These vidhi nishedha etc. are not applicable to exalted souls like Sri RM.

Adi Shankaracharya said asampradāyavit murkha but here we have an actual one who is ignorant of shastras itself. 

> an asampradaayi in his current janma can become brahmanishTa from his pUrvajanma saMskAra / sAdhana...an atyAshrami / parama haMsa does not have the obligation to live within the traditional boundaries. 

So there are enough reasons to consider him as bluff. 

> I am really regret to say your comments are the result of mere misguided zeal to advocate the importance of tradition. And very certainly you are targeting a wrong person. 


But interestingly, he is considered jivanmukta. By whom, may I ask? What was the yardstick with which it was measured? 

> do you have any yardstick to measure the jnana of any particular jnAni when the bhAshyakAra himself says jnana is 'svayaM vedya' and its own hrudaya spandana ?? who is sthita prajna, do you or me have the capacity or yardstick to adjudge whether one is sthita prajna or not?? 

some people opine that we cannot say if a person is jnAni or not. But we can certainly infer, can't we? 

> and that inference is subjective, in your own inference Sri RM is an ajnAni, svechaachaari, adharmi and same RM in my inference a paramArtha jnAni, jeevanmukta, bhagavaan. 

Now if I may politely ask, there are so many neo Vedantins like Nisargadatta Maharaj, paramahamsa yogananda, sai baba etc. What makes RM different from them? Why is RM considered a saint and others not. 

> If you go and ask the followers of Nisargadatta, paramahamsa yOgaananda, sai baaba, ramakrishna parama haMsa etc. they would say they are jnAni-s of highest order and you have to take all the trouble that you are taking here to prove otherwise :-) 

Having said all these, my sincere request to you is, if Sri RM is not living upto your expectation, please leave him and don’t belittle him in the name of tradition. 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar




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