[Advaita-l] Advaita and Islam

[rajaramvenk at gmail.com]

I tend to agree with Sri Jaldhar Vyas. Islam (and Christianity) teach adharma. They give codes to live by for the followers, some good mental imagery and a congregation to help each other.  To that extent they are valuable to their societies but their predatory presence is dangerous to non-believers and partially harmful to even believers as the codes are absolute - not set within a framework of dharma. A good muslim boy from a nice family going to a  madarasa risks getting brainwashed in to terrorism, a concept unthinkable in a gurukula. The boy who bombed glasgow airport was a Ph. D. and son of doctor family in B'Lore.

Adi Shankara defeated paths of adharma. I am trying to understand why we don't have such efforts these days. On top of it, instead of at least remaining silent, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda etc. seem to give these paths a stamp of approval. I'm trying to understand the position of traditional mutts such as Sringeri on Islam (and Christianity). 
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-----Original Message-----
From: "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at braincells.com>
Sender: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:54:45 
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Reply-To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
	<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Advaita and Islam

On Sat, 24 Nov 2012, Rajaram Venkataramani wrote:

> If we read Shankara DigVijaya, we learn that Shankara was very strong in
> attacking what he considered as adharmic paths. He is said to have
> destroyed 72 durmathas through intense campaign. But when we read the
> anecdotes in the lives of later mathathipathis, we see that they recognized
> Islam as a bonafide religion. If one reads the life of Muhammad and
> foundations of Islam (
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Truth-about-Muhammad-Intolerant-Religion/dp/1596985283/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353757088&sr=1-10#reader_B000RH0C5E),
> we see if such a favourable position to an adharmic path is right. I
> understand the risks he followers of tradition if they spoke strongly
> against Islam especially under Islamic rule. But I dont see the need for
> approving a path that does not espouse dharma. Can someone clarify?

It is not a matter of approving of it but the conceptual differences are 
so great.  The various nastika mats may have had different views on karma, 
mukti etc. but atleast they had views.  Now you can certainly criticize 
the effects of Islam (On a case by case basis.) but what debate can you 
have about its concepts? They are indeed adharmic.  Saying anything more 
than that is shouting not debate.

On Sun, 25 Nov 2012, Sivakumar,Kollam wrote:

> All true seekers realize the same by sincerely treading the path of any 
> religion. Sriramakrishna, bhagavan Ramana,swami Ramathirtha and many 
> others has endorsed this view. But when it comes to the matter of 
> established religion the interpretation of the revelations of the Master 
> who propounded the religion by priests who become the later leaders of 
> the religion gains priority over original sayings. In course of time the 
> established religions gets degraded  mainly because  they are merely led 
> by the aim of getting the religion established and partly due to the 
> selfishness of the leaders.

Advaitins are supposed to be out to conquer ignorance and I'm sorry to say 
that this idea that mainstream Christians and Muslims are 
"misunderstanding" their religion at the behest of later, selfish, priests 
has no factual basis whatsover.  Treading the path of those religions 
will not result in jnana because their God insists against jnana and 
demands an exlusive, dualistic relationship.  If there are individual 
Muslims or Christians who wish to transcend that then all well and good 
but they (and especially we) need to understand that they are deviating 
from the mainstream of their faiths.


-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
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