[Advaita-l] The safe way

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

The Mumukshu must not give importance to all this negatives but he should
see positives only. That is why they say you should not look at Rishi Moola
and Nadi Moola. Agastya Rishi was born when gods Mitra and Varuna
ejaculated into a pot seeing Apsara Urvashi. But we have a lot of respect
for Agastya. Many Rishis like Vishwamitra had mistakes like falling for
Apsaras and so on. But Vishwamitra also gave the greatest Gayatri Mantra to
us. When doing Gayatri Japa will you think how Vishwamitra's relation with
Menaka and getting a daughter through her and so on? No. Similarly don't
look at negatives of Gurus in Paramapara and proceed with the teachings.

On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 10:09 AM, Bhaskar YR via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> praNAms
> Hare Krishna
>
> It is advisable to go only to a Guru who belongs to a line of great
> preceptors, is conversant with scriptures, teaches in accordance with the
> scriptures, does not propagate a self-discovered path, is a master of his
> mind and senses, is dispassionate, whose conduct is spotless, who is
> clearly interested in the welfare of the disciple and who does not expect
> anything in return from the disciple.
>
> >  At the risk of sounding pessimistic, it is a fact that we have to admit
> that the slogans like guru should belong to the line of great preceptors,
> shAstravida, saMpradAyavida, shrOtriya, brahmanishTa, his teaching should
> be strictly in line with shAstra & saMpradAya and he should always be pious
> in his character etc. are quite relative, unfortunately other schools of
> thought too, like dvaita, vishishtAdvaita, ISKCONites etc.  revered their
> guru parampara teachers like this, using the same vyAsa, same shuka in
> their guru parampara list, using the same  scriptures gives entirely
> different meaning to it and those who opposes it they would advise the same
> thing as above :-)  Why to go outside?? With one's own tradition, there are
> lot of abhiprAya bheda-s (difference of opinions) there is vicious fight
> within the tradition giving room to sub-traditions, different
> interpretations again reconciliation of those different interpretations
> etc.  bhAmati says it is not like this, it is like that, vivaraNa says No,
> it is not like that our paramAchArya said like this, noble souls like Sri
> appayya dekshitAr comes then to reconcile these differences and tried to
> bring everything under single umbrella citing the reason of prakriya bheda
> etc.  Unfortunately it is still not satisfactorily working within the
> tradition as a result of this, some other person will come-up with the
> other solution and says don’t go to other vyAkhyAna-s, you better stick to
> mUla Acharya-s bhAshya.  And again, there is a voice within the tradition
> that openly announces that we don’t have to just parrot whatever our
> mUlAchArya said, we have our own way of expressing the things so in the
> light of prakriya bheda, vyAkhyAna-s are also equally valid though two
> different vkyAkhyAna-s giving different interpretations to the same shAstra
> vAkya and mUla bhAshya !!! And again, finally with regard to 'spotless'
> conduct, indriya nigraha, vairAgya, viveka etc. though there are some
> questionable 'dark spots', we are ready to push those dark side under the
> carpet of avidyA lesha, prArabdha karma etc. just because of the simple
> fact that we have already accepted them as our guru-s / preceptors.   I am
> not taking any side here, just seeing the existing scenario from the
> outside.  So, IMHO, no idamitthaM answer / stance with regard to above
> expectations.
>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
>
>
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-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh