Exchange of information with Advaita-L

[Guest guest]

This seems a problem without an easy solution.

 

I was a member of the Advaita-L list for a number of years. It was the first

such list I encountered and I was very grateful to be able to listen to and

take part in discussions with such honoured members. However, it seemed as

time went on, the topics became increasingly academic and reference to

modern sages was either frowned upon or not even tolerated. Despite the

truth of Self and illuory nature of the ego, some of the participants seemed

to write in an opinionated, and occasionally patronising (or worse) manner.

Many of the most interesting writers left. Topics relating to esoteric

aspects of karmakanda or to dry translations of Sanskrit sutras did not seem

to have any relevance to a Western 'seeker'. Although I have archived all of

the digests, very little of the material has been of interest.

 

The Nonduality Salon seems to be almost the complete opposite. Many of the

posts have the character (and content) of emails between friends. Language

is poetic, familiar and 'jokey' rather than dry and academic. Unfortunately,

again, most of the material does not seem relevant or interesting. Postings

are prolific and this is made even worse by many people failing to delete

the message to which they are responding.

 

I was very relieved to find this list and the knowledge and openness of its

members. Most of the best contibutors from Advaita-L seem to have ended up

here! The vast majority of its topics are useful. All commentaries appear

serious yet unpedantic and all views are tolerated. Digests appear about

once per day which is just about manageable! Although, if material from

another group were incorporated, one could always choose to ignore it if not

interested, the digests would certainly be bigger and more frequent. It

would be inevitable that more time would be spent scanning through to find

messages of interest.

 

Clearly, if someone wants to read both groups, they can to both.

This does then mean that they may have to post to both and then start

responding separately to replies on each list. This would obviously be

undesirable since the thread would probably be of interest to both groups.

 

However, it seems to me that the over-riding factor here is the

nature-atmosphere of the groups in question. (After all, if you are arguing

that we 'mix' these two groups, why not mix with NDS too?) Some people

obviously like the style of communication of Advaita-L and some like NDS.

And some prefer the style of Advaitin. I am one of these latter. If, as

seems desirable, you put this to the vote, I think I would probably have to

vote against a combining.

 

Perhaps what you (organisers) ought to do is agree to reform three groups

constitutionally differing in terms of seriousness - the 'Very serious,

strict academic' group, the 'Serious but practical and helpful' group and

the 'light hearted and friendly' group. My only problem with this is that I

would presumably have to join the former group again in order to be able to

follow Sadananda's excellent Brahmasutra tutorials.

 

Dennis