Neo-Vedant

[Guest guest]

> I hope this is helpful.

>

>

> Shanti,

>

> Carlo

 

Carlo and Ram thanks for the posts. Personally I have nothing against

any teaching. But one has to be careful in terms of pramaaNa. What can

teach what Vedanta teaches in a form that is conducing for ones

understanding. I have posted extensively the teachings of "peace

Pilgrim" - an American lady who walked contiously preaching what she

thought was her own way of living. But in essence she was taking

essentially advaita vedanta even she never heard of what that is.

Ultimately when it comes down to what is the truth - it cannot be

logically established nor it can be perceived. One can experince it

without studying Vedanta too but then when that teacher speaks - the

reference is only his/her experince only and no way to confirm or deny

that it is valid expericne by someone. Faith in that teacher is only

basis for acceptance. Hence we need an indepndent reference which has

been validated again and again by seeker through out the world - that is

what Vedanta stands for and that is what shruti pramaaNa means.

 

Hence any thing that agrees with Vedanta is accepted and anything does

not agree is rejected. This is true with Sankhya philosopy or philosophy

of yoga - In Brahmasuutra - vyaasa/shankara vehemently criticises these

philosphies - particularly those that do not agree vedanta - vedanta

implying just what it says - upanishad part of the vedas. At the same

time they do take the components of sankhya and yoga that agrees with

Vedanta.

 

That is the importance of the studying the scriptures - an independent

unbaised pramaaNa or valid means of knowledge.

 

A right teacher is one who directs his disciples not to himself as the

authority but to the scripures as the authority. This makes more

objective anaysis of the subjective teaching. Compromization of that is

the compromisation of the very fundamental process of teaching it self.

There is no other direct paths as all paths have been already been

covered in Vedanta. Everythingelse will only become a curvilinear

paths! I am not stating as a fanatic - I am stating it after looking at

the problem as scientifically as possible.

 

I hope this is helpful too.

 

Hari OM!

Sadananda

 

 

=====

What you have is His gift to you and what you do with what you have is your gift

to Him - Swami Chinmayananda.

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Hello Carlo and Shri Sadananda and Shri Ram,

We are at crosspurposes I'm afraid because I'm entirely in agreement with you

all. You are all working on an agreed definition of what Neo-Vedanta is. I

too have no time for the peddlers of yogic snake oil. The neo-vedant that I

was responding I took to be a philosophical analysis of Sankara's thought

using whatever insights and knowledge eg. cognitive science we have gained

since his day. As an illustration of what I mean engineers scrutinise the

papers of the Serbian genius Nikola Tesla from time to time to discover new

ideas. Thus it is with Sankara, his transcending of the idealist/realist

divide has scarcley been noticed in the west and perhaps through familiarity

not been given its full weight in India itself.

 

Thank you for your link Carlo. I will check that out.

Ciao and Blessings,Michael

 

P.S. The subject of the previous post should read 'Mythos and Logos'.

[Guest guest]

Dear Michael:

 

Thanks for the reply with your clarifications. Sri Nair raised a

question regarding the list policy and my reply was to restate the

list policies in the context of neo-vedanta. Essentially the entire

list discussions fall into neo-vedanta because during the Vedic

times, the current appearance of 'Internet' was absent.

>From the starting date (31 August 1998), the list has been very open

and has been permitting members to express their viewpoints with

minimal interference from the list moderators. Moderators only

intervene if and only if it is absolutely necessary. The list

policies and guidelines are quite helpful to achieve the twin goal

of 'freedom of expression' and 'maintenance of the scope and

objectives of the list.' Honestly, every member of the list is a

moderator and when the message gets out of focus, members inform the

moderators on lapses and help the moderators to take appropriate

action.

 

Neo-vedanta as clarified in the last few messages is not something

new. Swami Vivekananda (as rightly pointed out by Sri Sunderji in a

recent post)was a pioneer in the expression of Vedanta in plain

english. The acharyas of Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Chinmaya Mission,

Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Vedanta Mission, etc. have followed the

example of Swami Vivekananda and explained Vedanta in plain language

(English and languages other than Sanskrit).

 

Warmest regards,

 

Ram Chandran

 

advaitin, "svahauk <ombhurbhuva@h...>"

<ombhurbhuva@h...> wrote:

> Hello Carlo and Shri Sadananda and Shri Ram,

> We are at crosspurposes I'm afraid because I'm entirely in

agreement with you all. You are all working on an agreed definition

of what Neo-Vedanta is. I too have no time for the peddlers of

yogic snake oil.

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "Ram Chandran <rchandran@c...>"

<rchandran@c...> wrote:

> Dear Michael:

> Thanks for the reply with your clarifications.

 

Namaste,

 

There are two issues here:

(1) philosophies that are closely related to Vedanta which require a

careful investigation of where they lead us to.

(2) philosophies that are objectionable and have no claim to be near

or close to Vedanta. Our duty should be to discriminate between these

two and stop discussions when they fall into category (2).

 

The debate on this subject may be better understood if we can agree

on what Neo-vedanta is NOT! The criterion may have to be to see in

what respects the 'neo-' points out a clarification, not negation, of

Shankara's statements.

 

The term has been used rather very loosely to include the

following:

 

Interpretations of Upanishads, Gita, (and other scriptures) by:

 

1. Indologists and Sanskritists, academic and non-academic; e.g. Max

Mueller, Wilson, Monier-Williams, Deussen;

2. Reformers; e.g. Raja Ram Mohan Roy,DebendraNath Tagore, Keshab

Chandra Sen, Vijay Goswami, Sw. Dayanand Sarasvati (19th cent.),

Tilak

3. 'Transcendentalist'literary/social protagonists; e.g. Emerson,

Thoreau, Whitman

4. Perennial philosophy advocates; eg Aldous Huxley, Christopher

Isherwood

5. Hindu diaspora; e.g. Gandhi, Radhakrishnan

6. Sectarian movements; e.g. Theosophy, ISKCON, Shaivism,

7. New Age spokesmen; eg Rajneesh, Alpert, Krishnamurty,

8. Spiritual movements, with affinity for Vedic methods;

TM, 'Paganism'

9. Enlightened/awakened individuals, through faiths other than

Upanishadic studies;

10. Eclectic interpreters - Sw. Abhishiktananda, Bede Griffiths,

Paul Brunton

11. Spontaneous afflatus of Upanishadic lore: Ramakrishna, Ramana

 

I may have missed many others too!

 

The simplest example of the inclusiveness of Vedanta is Gandhiji's

prayer:

 

Ishvara - Allah tere nAma ! [ Thy Names (include) Ishvara and

Allah (and many others too) ]

 

Or what Shankara and Ramakrishna said, that Truth pervades and

transcends 'nAma-rUpa'.

 

Gita expresses this catholicity in these verses:

 

ye.apyanyadevataa bhaktaa yajante shraddhayaanvitaaH .

te.api maameva kaunteya yajantyavidhipuurvakam.h .. 9\-23..

 

mattaH parataraM naanyatki~nchidasti dhana~njaya .

mayi sarvamidaM protaM suutre maNigaNaa iva .. 7\-7..

 

 

Regards,

 

Sunder

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

Thank you very much for writing this, Sunderji. You are indeed very

liberal and magnanimous.

 

I had actually decided not to write on this topic again. However,

with your very enlightening post, let me once again request that let

us not crucify "neo" for what it is not. Let us grant it

opporotunity to express itself as long as it attempts to provide

fresh insights in a responsible manner within our advaitic mandate.

 

Best regards.

 

Madathil Nair

 

__________________

 

advaitin, "Sunder Hattangadi <sunderh>"

<sunderh> wrote:

> There are two issues here:

> (1) philosophies that are closely related to Vedanta which require

a

> careful investigation of where they lead us to.

> (2) philosophies that are objectionable and have no claim to be

near

> or close to Vedanta. Our duty should be to discriminate between

these

> two and stop discussions when they fall into category (2).

>

> The debate on this subject may be better understood if we can

agree

> on what Neo-vedanta is NOT! The criterion may have to be to see in

> what respects the 'neo-' points out a clarification, not negation,

of

> Shankara's statements.