retirement from the forum

[f. maiello]

hariH OM!

Please forgive the delayed response.

If I may, I would urge Gummuluru to re-join, for the benefit
of the List.

An eclectic approach is the best of all, because it ultimately
provides the most sincere and honest attempt at the discovery
of truth.  It has the capacity to embrace orthodoxy in areas
where, when and if necessary, whereas orthodoxy is incapable
of doing so.  There's a loose parallel between the political
philosophies of the Rebublican Right vs Democratic Left.
In fact, it's educational to see the tendency toward fanaticism
and closed-mindedness on the Right, and tolerance and liberal-
mindedness on the Left, where the Left recognizes portions of
the Right's fundamentalist views to be valid, but not the other
way around.  The consequences of this are profound and far
reaching, contributing to much of the social intolerance we're
witnessing, especially in American society these days.

A major insight that can emerge from this is the philosophical
disadvantage associated with the historically common tendency
for human beings to apply generalizations to areas of life
[especially with respect to social and religious philosophies],
that otherwise require flexibility.  Not many would argue that
a big factor in one's philosophy, and indeed its high water mark,
is its functionality of a wide berth...its capacity to embrace
or at least point to our universal natural state of infinite
consciousness (chitakasa), which is itself the definition of
flexibility, among *infinite* other things.

Granted, the way there requires the essence of discipline itself.
I don't think anyone would deny this.  The debate enters in
terms of how it's applied....for example, physical or mental
renunciation.  It's wrong to generalize and say physical
renunciation is the only way for all, or mental renunciation
is the only way.  It all depends where on path the person is.
It stands to reason that bhakthi [being synonymous with dvaita]
represents the earlier stage, and jnana [synonymous with advaita]
the latter.  (Although it's conceivable that a bhaktha can transit
right through to moksha, bypassing the jnana marga stage, since the
goal is the absorption of the ego into its Substratum, accomplished
by either its surrender or realization that it itself is unreal.)
Granted again that in the earlier stages one must do the sadhana
that fits one's [developing] philosophy.  Thus the orthodox approach
is a valid and indispensible method (which is, IMO, *inevitably*
adopted in perhaps even series of lifetimes over the course of
a soul's career).  However it usually leads to unorthodoxy, even if
ever so briefly, prior to moksha.  Let me illustrate.  Remember that
the the vishnu is the sustainer and the siva aspect is the destroyer
of duality.  Thus the orthodox approach, if taken correctly,
eventually provides for the destruction of its own philosophy--
as *all* philosphy is destroyed in the process of the absorption
itself, birthing the sadhaka thereby into moksha.

namaste