Shankaracharya on Ramana Maharshi

[Jagannathan]

On Fri, 5 Apr 2002 14:43:59 -0600, Sankaran Kartik Jayanarayanan
<kartik at ECE.UTEXAS.EDU> wrote:

>I was reading http://www.wie.org/j14/daya.asp
>where Andrew Cohen says:
>
>"Even one of the living Shankaracharyas -- the head of one of the four
>monastic institutions allegedly established by Advaita's founder,
>Shankara -- also denies the validity of Ramana's attainment, apparently
>for the simple reason that someone who wasn't formally trained in Vedanta
>couldn't possibly be fully enlightened!"
>
>Does anyone know which Shankaracharya denies this about RM?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Kartik

I strongly object to the reporting adopted by the person interviewing
Swami Dayananda. When one goes through the details of the interview, Swami
Dayananda just replies on what was the means adopted by Ramana Maharishi in
turning a person to himself.

Interpretation (by Craig Hamilton) of Andrew Cohen's interview with Swami
Dayananda says:

"he even went so far as to express doubt about the realization of the
widely revered but unschooled modern sage Ramana Maharshi—adding that there
may be millions of Indian householders with a similar level of attainment!"

The actual answers by Swami Dayananda only reiterated the importance of
teaching tradition of Vedanta as a means to self-realization and not
express any kind of doubt on Ramana's realization. The following quote from
the interview (as detailed on the website) proves it.

"AC: In Ramana's case, everybody said that he communicated through silence.

SD: Again, this is an interpretation, because there are a lot of people I
know who went to him and then came back saying that he didn't know
anything."

SD- Swami Dayananda
AC- Andrew Cohen

Note that this is only an excerpt. The answer by Swami Dayananda clearly
states that the statements made by people about Ramana were only
interpretation and not necessarily true. The answer clearly shows that the
stand taken by Swami Dayananda does not support the stand of the "people he
knew" because he declares their (the "people he knew") stand to be only an
interpretation.
(Craig Hamilton has undergo reading lessons before he is permitted to
comment on interviews).