retirement from the forum

[Vaidya N. Sundaram]

On Mon, 3 Aug 1998, f. maiello wrote:
>
> I don't know what I may have posted that isn't relevant
> to advaita.  Despite that my words are based on my own
> experience, I happened to have later recognized that my
> experience primarily coincided with the esoteric teachings
> of Buddha, Christ, Sankara, Ramakrishna, and Ramana, among
> others. I maintain that the highest truth of these teachings
> are essentially advaitic or non-dual; that is, there are no
> real individuals in existence, *apart* from their universal
> source or Substratum.  To affect this end, various methods


 Please note that Ravi (and recently Rama) have explicitly stated (and
restated) the purpose of this forum to be " List for advaita vedanta as
taught by Shri Shankara". It is not the purpose to discuss any and every
teaching. To be honest, and brutally frank, I find a lot of these other
teachings cacophonous and quite irrelevant in the context of immediate
understanding of Shankara.
 Unfortunately for me, I have not even begun to fully grasp of the import
of His teachings, leave alone make "spiritual" progress. And as such,
although it may be easy for you to make such a sweeping statement, please
realise that it is not warranted to discuss everything under the sun in
this list. Why then even a forum like this? Why not just
soc.religion.whatever ? How is progress even possible without a discipline
being enforced?

 There is a famous proverb in tamil that says: Not all who wear the
Vibhuti are Siva Bhaktas.
 It is easy for me to say I am One, does not make my word any more worthy
or any more relevant. And if Buddha was infact teaching the Truth, why did
Sri BhagavatpAda go to such an extent to prove them wrong? Under such
circumstances, it becomes even more relevant that we stick to Shankara.


Cheers,
Vaidya.

>From  Mon Aug  3 19:06:33 1998
Message-Id: <MON.3.AUG.1998.190633.0400.>
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 19:06:33 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: retirement from the forum
Comments: To: Advaita-L <advaita-l at tamu.edu>
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I would like to apologize for making strong statements like I did. I am
unable to express anything I feel strongly without sounding extremely
harsh, due to lack of communication skills. I have realized that it does
not do anything to change the other person (nor myself), and does not
give other readers any useful points either. Henceforth I am going to
stay out of any discussions like this till I develop enough
communication skills to put strong views across.

For members of the list, especially Non-Indians:

While certain views held by the traditional advaitins like myself may
seem dogmatic, it does not mean we have disrespect or any such for other
religions, be it Christianity, Islam or anything else, as has been
implied. The "orthodox" leaders of the advaita tradition are quite
"conservative" in some sense, but also extremely "broad-minded" in some
selse. The same people in sha.nkara's tradition:

1. Inspite of the fact that many of our temples were demolished by the
Roman catholic church, the sha.nkarAchAryas of Sringeri and Kanchi
strictly instructed their disciples not demonstrate against the Pope
when some Hindu fundamentalists wanted to do so (One famous example is
the KapAlIshvara temple which was made to be dismantled. Right where it
stood is now the Mylapore Church, the arch bishop of Mylapore is
appointed directly by the Vatican).

2. When a disciple of shrI chandrashekhara bhAratI, criticized Tipu
Sultan, a Muslim ruler who forcefully converted many to Islam, H.H said
that while forced conversion is not good, Tipu must _not_ be criticized
since he did so only because of his great faith in God!

3. H.H bhAratI kR^ishhNa tIrtha, who I mentioned in a previous post, was
tried along with Muslim leaders by the British since he supported their
religious cause. It was a great embarrassment for the British to try a
top Hindu leader along with Muslims.

How on earth can following such august people lead to disharmony. Why on
earth would the "current problems of American society" be attributed to
following such "orthodox" people?

Yesterday I was reading the talks with RM, and a disciple who got
agitated because someone insulted RM and walked away without replying to
the person asked what expiation he should do since he did not reply? The
reply of the Maharshi was "Develop more patience"!! I think it's a good
lesson for me to follow.

In an ideal world, as I am given to believe, we should all develop
"unorthodox" elements, upon which everything will be OK. After which, as
I am given to believe, Jaldhar will include a bhajan to Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa in his daily anushhTAna. That would certainly be a good
candidate for Ripley's Believe it or not :-). Anyway, I don't think that
(embracing "unorthodox" elements) is ever going to happen.

Rama.