Agony of the soul (?) etc

[Gummuluru Murthy]

On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, Swami Vishvarupananda wrote:

> Then there are those humble Jnanis, some of whom have not read a word of
> Sanskrit or the scriptures, and may not even have learned to read and
> write, but whose words are a reflection of their inner state and of a
> direct experience of what the scriptures say, and whose lives are a
> natural, unaffected demonstration of the state of "Aham Brahmasmi", of the
> absence of ego, of equality in all states, whatever the challenges of
> practical daily life. A realized soul is, in his daily life, himself proof
> of his state, as well as of the words he speaks.
> Why I am talking of this at such length is, that many people just like you,
> who believed in the sufficiency of the intellect and thought they had found
> someone who had achieved the ultimate in scriptural learning and logic,
> were so disappointed in seeing the lack of a practical achievement of that
> state, that their faith collapsed. Therefore I stress the necessity of
> basing one's faith on more than the intellect. Truth reveals itself from
> _within_ for the simple reason, that our real nature _is_ Truth.
>

Very well expressed.  It is, in my view, statements like these, which
makes this Group very worthwhile.

This has also relevane to a comment I made earlier in this thread (in a
separate context) and I repeat the comments below.

"....

I do not deny the usefulness and importance of Ishwara and karma-phala,
just like Newtonian physics. But, we cannot stop there. Somehow, we
always seem to stop at this stage without going that extra step (a leap
forward).

My feeling is: vyavahara stage of advaita is like an armchair
quarterback. We simply analyse and analyse without having the
courage to experience it.

..."


>From your experience and knowledge, what is the extra step required to
make that leap forward ? Is it in our hands at all to take that extra
step ?

> Greetings and Om,
> Swami Vishvarupananda
>

Regards
Gummuluru Murthy
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Adau ante ca yan nAsti vartamAnepi tat tathA !
                                GaudapAda in Mandukya kArika
What did not exist at the beginning and what is not going to exist at the
 end is as good as non-existent even in the present.
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