[Advaita-l] Ramana Maharshi - Advaitin or Neo Advaitin?

[Kripa Shankar]

Namaste Bhaskar,

But Krishna is considered as an avatar of Vishnu and Adi Shankaracharya is considered as an avatar of Shiva. Then why did they dedicate their time for studies? Btw, the Wikipedia page says Ramana is considered as an avatar of Dakshinamurty :D ‎ Mother’s womb is still considered as present janma as jiva starts as an embryo. Btw, you might be surprised to know Ramana's stand on reincarnation. Please refer to below passage from Wikipedia : 

According to David Godman, Ramana Maharshi taught that the idea of reincarnation is based on wrong ideas about the individual self as being real. Ramana Maharshi would sometimes say that rebirth does exist, to step forward to those who were not able to fully grasp the non-reality of the individual self. But when this illusoriness is realised, there is no room any more for ideas about reincarnation. When the identification with the body stops, any notions about death and rebirth become inapplicable, since there is no birth or death within Self.[3] Ramana Maharshi:

Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.[3]
 
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I don't know much about Dattatreya and Valmiki and so I will reserve my comment for now. But what is your comment on the Wikipedia passage that I quoted in my previous mail where Ramana himself admits that his teaching is different from Advaita.




  Original Message  
From: Bhaskar YR
Sent: Monday 19 September 2016 5:11 PM
To: Kripa Shankar; A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: RE: [Advaita-l] Ramana Maharshi - Advaitin or Neo Advaitin?

praNAms
Hare Krishna

Please forgive me for my ignorance. I had this long standing doubt about Ramana. I believed that Ramana taught Advaita all along thanks to the popular opinion. However I later realized that he was unacquainted with the scriptures.

> traditionalists who are familiar with Sri ramaNa's teaching would say he has completed these formalities ( like shAstrAdhyayana, shravaNAdi sAdhana etc.) in his previous janma/s so no need for him to start it again. Rishi vAmadeva realized the truth in his mother's womb and it is because of his previous janma's saMskAra...justification for not reading the scriptures in this janma would go like this. 

Further, he apparently learnt from the hill which he considered as Shiva. Isn't this dogma‎tic and a deviation from the tradition?

> for that matter guru dattatreya had 24 guru-s and all of them were not shrOtriya and brahmanishTa vedAntins as you know, mara (tree) sometimes lead to rAma as in the case of vAlmeeki :-) 

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar