[Advaita-l] The safe way

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms
Hare Krishna

It is advisable to go only to a Guru who belongs to a line of great preceptors, is conversant with scriptures, teaches in accordance with the scriptures, does not propagate a self-discovered path, is a master of his mind and senses, is dispassionate, whose conduct is spotless, who is clearly interested in the welfare of the disciple and who does not expect anything in return from the disciple.

>  At the risk of sounding pessimistic, it is a fact that we have to admit that the slogans like guru should belong to the line of great preceptors, shAstravida, saMpradAyavida, shrOtriya, brahmanishTa, his teaching should be strictly in line with shAstra & saMpradAya and he should always be pious in his character etc. are quite relative, unfortunately other schools of thought too, like dvaita, vishishtAdvaita, ISKCONites etc.  revered their guru parampara teachers like this, using the same vyAsa, same shuka in their guru parampara list, using the same  scriptures gives entirely different meaning to it and those who opposes it they would advise the same thing as above :-)  Why to go outside?? With one's own tradition, there are lot of abhiprAya bheda-s (difference of opinions) there is vicious fight within the tradition giving room to sub-traditions, different interpretations again reconciliation of those different interpretations etc.  bhAmati says it is not like this, it is like that, vivaraNa says No, it is not like that our paramAchArya said like this, noble souls like Sri appayya dekshitAr comes then to reconcile these differences and tried to bring everything under single umbrella citing the reason of prakriya bheda etc.  Unfortunately it is still not satisfactorily working within the tradition as a result of this, some other person will come-up with the other solution and says don’t go to other vyAkhyAna-s, you better stick to mUla Acharya-s bhAshya.  And again, there is a voice within the tradition that openly announces that we don’t have to just parrot whatever our mUlAchArya said, we have our own way of expressing the things so in the light of prakriya bheda, vyAkhyAna-s are also equally valid though two different vkyAkhyAna-s giving different interpretations to the same shAstra vAkya and mUla bhAshya !!! And again, finally with regard to 'spotless' conduct, indriya nigraha, vairAgya, viveka etc. though there are some questionable 'dark spots', we are ready to push those dark side under the carpet of avidyA lesha, prArabdha karma etc. just because of the simple fact that we have already accepted them as our guru-s / preceptors.   I am not taking any side here, just seeing the existing scenario from the outside.  So, IMHO, no idamitthaM answer / stance with regard to above expectations.  

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar