[Advaita-l] Doubt the liberator

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Sarma prabhuji
Hare Krishna

>  saMshayAtma 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.

Before you can do vichara you must doubt the import  what is being said. If you do not doubt there is no necessity of vichara.


Ø     Yes, you are right prabhuji.  What I was trying to say is, in the traditional teaching if anything seems dubious, we should not come out of tradition without doing the vichAra and getting the clarification from the traditional teachers.  Tadviddhi praNipAtena, pariprashnena sevaya…what seems incoherent or superstition for the tyros in tradition might be a proven and well established facts for the traditional practitioners and they will be in a position to clarify it without any ambiguity if these neophytes approach them with Shraddha and bhakti.  So, it is better to avoid  arbitrating  the efficacy of tradition’s role on our own by baselessly doubting it.


>  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.

When a darsana is originally propounded it does not have a traditional background. The original author uses words with the shades of meaning prevalent in his times. At that time since people knew the meanings of words no traditional expounding is necessary. In later times usage changes , Words acquire new meanings and/or new shades of meanings and it becomes difficult for people to understand what the original author meant. Tradition is supposed to fecilitate such an understanding.


Ø   You have defined well the role of tradition here.


But the record of this approach is very poor to say the least. See how many commentaries are there for BS with diametrically opposite positions.


Ø     I agree with this observation too…But it does not mean we can easily walk out of traditional boundaries doubting the viability of it  and try on our own at home!!:-) Hence there always is a demand for a shrOtreeya brahmanishTa guru who know the saMpradAya way of teaching ☺ tadvijnAnArtham sa gurumevAbhigacchet samitpANiH shrOtriyaM brahmanishTam…suggests shruti.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar