[Advaita-l] Re: A REQUEST FOR GUIDANCE.

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

On 17/07/06, Abhishek RK <rkabhi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Namaste,
>
> On 7/17/06, kuntimaddi sadananda <kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > The only advise I can give you is study the shaastras under a guidance.
> >  There are Ramakrishna missions, Chinmaya Missioss everywhere and join a
> > study group or join classes where vedanta is taught systamatically.
> >
>
> I disagree. I don't know how one can learn shAstras from those who
> don't even follow the shAstras. Based on personal experience, these
> organisations enjoin a Christian lifestyle while "studying" the
> shAstras. Ramakrishna mission is practically a Christian mission
> today. Personally, I've found a few good book in some of their centres
> but the swAmijis there don't encourage karmas for sure!
>
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You are just shooting off your mouth to show how orthodox you are.

What is a christian lifestyle anyway? If you are talking about social
work, then many sannyAsI-s do it. The Kanchi Math also does it. I
think the Sringeri Math also supports some hospitals, schools,
libraries, etc.

If you are expecting all advaitin sannyAsI-s to behave in exactly the
same way, thats unreasonable. The tradition is not a bunch of parrots.
Different organizations have their own ways of doing things. The core
tradition is the same; peripherals vary.

In any case, why should a sannyAsI bother about karma-s? Does
SankarAcArya teach karma-s in his writings? All he says is that if you
are not a sannyAsI, you should practise karma-s. But to learn those
karma-s you have to go elsewhere, not to a sannyAsI.

Translations/commentaries produced by the Ramakrishna Math say the same thing.

Sadananda-ji was talking about learning vedAnta, not karma-s. I am not
saying that karma-s are unimportant, but there are other sources from
where one can learn them.

Another thing to be kept in mind is that the audience of the
Ramakrishna Math is different from that of Sringeri or other older
maTha-s. Only a small fraction of our population has a family
tradition of doing nitya karma-s, etc. What about the rest?

Ramesh