[Advaita-l] Shankara and Kriya Yoga

[V Subrahmanian]

On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 12:06 PM, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:

> praNAms Sri Rajaram prabhuji
> Hare Krishna
>
> One can come to any conclusion on his own and have the conviction that it
> is right.
>
> >  Yes, there is no limit as such to one's assumptions :-)) Everyone has
> his own right to assume anything that would pleases him :-))  We have
> shraddha in HH words and believe that paramashiva taught Asana-s to HH
> without any conditions..whereas if paramahaMsa yOgAnanda says bAbAji
> taught kriya yOga to shankara we dont believe it and it is only his cock &
> bull story :-)) why??  because we do not have shraddha & faith in this
> yOgi's words as we have in H H words...it is as simple as that.  I dont
> think there is something wrong in either of these two episodes.
>
> However, how does one know for certain that the conclusion is right? We
> need apaurusheya sabda pramana to validate and that can only come from a
> teacher.
>
> >  but for the above episodes, we cannot find any shAstra pramANa :-)) it
> is only the shraddha / belief that we have in our guru's words.  Here
> pramANa is Apta/AchArya vAkya not shAstra vAkya.
>
> Even for Sringeri Periyava, Lord Shiva taught yoga in his dreams. If
> Ramana's conclusions are inconsistent with shruti, he is plain wrong. If
> he says that the teacher is the Self, it is fine.
>
> >  one may argue, how can it be true when self is nishkriya, so that self
> should appear in a personified form and should have taught him...so in
> this case also we cannot rule out physical presence of guru.
>

Shankara has said in the BSB: syAt parameshwarasyApi mAyAmayarUpagrahaNam
sAdhakAnugrahArtham.  [it is possible that the Lord takes a form that is a
mAyic one for the sake of blessing an aspirant.  We have the famous episode
in the Chandogya upanishad where the brahmachAri assigned to take care of
the cows of his guru returning an enlightened one being taught by the
various devatA-s.  His Acharya, surprised, asks him who taught him and he
explains.  In this story, though, he gets instructed by his Acharya once
again, to conform to the norm.

>
> If he says he didn't need a teacher in some form to instruct him, he is
> plain wrong.
>
> >  According to Sri subbu prabhuji, physical presence of guru or personal
> interaction with the physical form of the guru is not necessary for the
> 'highly accomplished' aspirant, he can 'master' anything (i.e. including
> brahma jnAna) by reading & understanding a printed book, ..is it not Sri
> Subbu prabhuji??
>

We must remember that such accomplishment is a result of anushThAna.  Then
he  can take the special benefit.  In the toTakAchARya episode, just out of
sincere devotion to Shankara, he was blessed with the supreme knowledge.

vs

>
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
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