Forwarded Message to Swami Atmananda from Guy Werlings

[Guest guest]

Hari om !

 

Reference to the mail of Sh. Guy Werling forwarded to me by

Sh. Ram Chandran

>Now, I've a question on the subject, and I apologize if you have

>already answered to it by elsewhere, and if I overlooked your

>answer : Looking in my set of Complete Works of SrI SankarAcarya,

>I could not find any TATTVABODHA. In the volume nr 2 on

>prakaraNa-s, I found one TATTVOPADESA, which does not match

>at all your general literary description, as the latter is all in Sloka-s,

>while you say TATTVABODHA is in prose except for one opening

>and one concluding Sloka.

 

 

No, I have not dealt with this query in the text under discussion.

>I know there has always been wide discrepancies between scholars

>and even between shankarite traditions as to which works should be

>attributed to Adi SrI Sankara, but how can we known that TATTVA-

>BODHA is one of these "genuine" works ?

 

You are right, there are still many debates going on amongst scholars

as to which is the real work of Bhagwan Sri Adi Sankara. If only these

Acharyas who were verily an embodiment of knowledge, could have

been more sensitive to the inquisitiveness of authorship authentication

of various people, then we could have avoided these problems. But they

did not care and thus have created lot of work for the modern day scholars.

Was this absence of their personal signatures an inadvertance on their

part or was it deliberate ? I for one cannot even dream of the possibility

of inadvertance, so I have to search a message in this deliberate lack

of interest in declaration of authorship. Moreover, the strict habit of the

Acharya of offering a relevant quotation from Upanishads for each &

every point reveals that he doesnt attribute this knowledge to himself.

As per my understanding the Acharya is trying to communicate to us

to catch his message rather than the individual, who as per him is of

no importance. As far as catching of his message is concerned I am

sure that nobody has any doubt as to what is he trying to communicate.

An uncompromising declaration of non-duality. And Tattva Bodha

communicates just that.

 

 

It could be possible that Tattva Bodha was written by him and it also is

possible that it was not written by him, yet there are teachers who believe

that this work is his alone. My teacher was one such person. I personally

reconcile the entire debate by seeing that in this text too, the author has

very clearly, uncompromisingly and in a very simple language put

forward the message of non-duality. As all of these qualities too were

like the signatures of the great Acharya, so I am personally convinced

that it is his work alone. Even if it is not then also I am hardly worried,

because the message is of non-duality alone. If I am convinced about

uncompromising adherence to non-duality then I am not bothered about

things like authorship authentication.

 

Having said that, I do agree accept that there are texts which are using

the name of Acharya wrongly, and that there could have been interpolations

too in various commentaries, yet the criterias as per my understanding to

seperate chaff from rice should be to see the message of non-duality.

 

It is indeed a pleasure to know yet one more sincere student of Advaita

Vedanta.

 

Love & om,

 

Swami Atmananda