Raman Maharshi (was Re: RES: [Advaita-l] New member introduction:AsadMustafa Rizvi)

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

And what is advaita if not a jnana marga to Self-realisation. There is
no need to see "shades" of advaita in Ramana - what he taught was
Advaita and nothing else.

Answering the question "who am I" i.e. Atma-vichara, is a fundamental
teaching of advaita-vedAnta. Saying that Ramana taught advaita is no
way tantamount to reducing the form to the shadow. Needless to say, I
agree emphatically with Rama on this count.

On 29/01/07, sriram <srirudra at vsnl.com> wrote:
> ramana is a true master. he analysed the works and the world from the
> formless to the formed from the stand point of Ego.
> he wanted the mind to be annulled by the simple question"who Am I?"
> that his words and work have been seen by scholars as an embodiment of
> advaita is purely coincidental...
> The maharishi's disciples used to take works of other saints for
> interpretation and like a true master ever selfless Ramana used to expound
> clearing their doubts on certain aspects. before we conclude that he was a
> mere translator or a pure crystal who has shed no instrinsic color i would
> caution you to merely read his upedesa saram and at best we can say that his
> was a form of Jnana Marga to self realisation. One can see shades of advaita
> in Ramana but to say that Ramana espoused advaita is to reduce the form to a
> shadow!


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com>
> To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
> <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 5:51 PM
> Subject: Raman Maharshi (was Re: RES: [Advaita-l] New member
> introduction:AsadMustafa Rizvi)
>
>
> > I must say I disagree with calling RM a sphatika mani. It seems like
> > saying that RM had no philosophical ideas of his own. The
> > relation/common points that advaita (forget about RM) has with systems
> > such as mystical Christian traditions, sufism, etc, had already been
> > pointed out by Aldous Huxley, Schrodinger, etc., who had no idea of
> > RM. At least Schrodinger did not.
> >
> > The best way to get an idea of what RM said is to read his works. He
> > was not a Sanskrit scholar, but knew enough Sanskrit to compose some
> > poetry. The bulk of his philosophical works are in Tamil verse and
> > poetry. Probably about half of them are translations of Shankaras
> > works such as VivekachUDAmaNI, etc. But the rest will show he was
> > nothing other than a classical advaitin. Examing shankara from his
> > works alone (we have no access to conversations), and comparing that
> > with some recorded dialogs of RM, is not an apples to apples
> > comparison.
> >
> > Rama
> >