[Advaita-l] Doubt the liberator

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Sarma prabhuji
Hare Krishna

>  questioning or doubting the credibility of tradition is in itself considered as blasphemy in the tradition :-) 

Doubt is called the liberator. It liberates us from the drilled-in traditions, superstitions, fanaticism and plain nonsense. 

>  saMshatAtma vinashyati says Lord :-) I dont know how doubting something would fetch us the knowledge :-) manana / vichAra would be the more appropriate word in place of doubt here I reckon.  


What we call tradition is a body of not so coherent ideas put together by different people, in different places, at different times, inborder to serve their pet beliefs, biases, self interests etc. 

>  you have just given the definition of asaMpradAya here :-) OTOH, traditionalists insist that jnana should be obtained through  aviccchinna guru-shishya parampara to reconcile the seeming different teachings / understandings of shAstra.   


Incoherence of our tradition can be seen in avery pronounced in the Puranas.  Any attempt to bring our tradition together to make it a coherent whole is futile and next to impossible exercise. If there is any thing useful in tradition it is very small in volume compared to the body of traditional knowledge. Carrying the burden of tradition is like carrying a whole hay stake for few grains that it may contain.

>  Advaita Acharya says if a person teaching shAstra without any traditional backdrop it has to be ignored since it is from the desk of an idiot :-) 

>  But I agree with you, there are somany hands holding the flag of saMpradAya and claiming the firm grip on traditional teaching and belittling the others!! But the desperate neutral traditional lovers justifying that the differences are at the surface level but there is an unanimity in core traditional teaching  :-) 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar