Aurobino's religious thoughts

[Guest guest]

Dear Harsha-ji,

 

I enjoyed reading this post, it gave me a good laugh. Yes, I see

your point about not knowing if there is something even higher. I

suppose my young mind is fascinated by words, such as samadhi,

Brahman, Absolute, etc. Though mere concepts, they do hold a value

for communication.

 

Most of what I've read of Advaita to date has been what is called

neo-advaita. Perhaps I'll read the Upanishads to get a better

understanding of classical Advaita.

 

Nathan

 

p.s. Sorry if I was a bit rude in my last post. That is why I

deleted it. I don't desire to quarrel with anyone, especially fellow

seekers.

 

 

 

 

Dear Nathanji,

 

There is Brahman and then there is Parabrahman. But how do you know

there is not a Super Parabrahman who is even more super ultimate?

And if you reflect on this carefully, you may come to see that there

may even be a Super Duper Parabrahman who is Super Duper Ultimate.

The mind is fascinated by hierarchies and complexities. The

scriptures say that the highest reality (call it Brahman or

Parabrahman or Self or Ultimate or Super Duper Double Ultimate or

whatever)is closer to us then our own breath.

 

There is one wonderful thing I have learned from the wise people on

this list over the last 5-6 years that I did not appreciate before.

That is that Advaitic knowledge that comes to us from Upanishads is

the accumulated wisdom of the ages and the great sages.

 

Harsha

[Guest guest]

Namaste Nathanji and Hershji.

 

Nathanji, you are awake in your part of the world while we are

asleep. That is why this delay in replying.

 

I will single out these three sentences of your post for

consideration as the rest has been brilliantly answered by Harshaji:

 

QUOTE

 

After all, until realization, we're all just

> groping in the dark. We have no idea what enlightenment will be

> like; at least I don't. So I think a little trepidation is

warranted.

 

UNQUOTE

 

An Advaitin operates with a logical, firm, unshakable conviction of

the veracity of the scriptures - the pramANa - as represented mainly

in the prastAnatrayi. In English, we call it 'faith' rather very

inadequately. If that faith is there, where is the question of

trepidation and groping in the dark? You don't shake when you are

unshakable! An "idea what Enlightenment will be like" belongs to the

realm of the objectified. An Advaitin knows that that 'idea' is

there just because HE IS, like the world is there because HE IS.

The 'idea' therefore is least important. HE IS or I AM is very

important. If this is correctly understoood, there is no problem

fixing any label like Ultimate Brahman, Para Brahman, Super Duper

Brahman etc. to that HE or I.

 

Dear Hershji, the thought I have endeavoured my best to elucidate

above represents the ultimate parameter of Advaita prescribed in our

scriptures to test the veracity of what Shri Aurobindo or Sw.

Vivekananda or Shri Nisargatta Maharaj have taught. If their words

meet the parameter, then they are acceptable to an Advaitin, be he a

midget or genius. The above vision enables him to sift fancy away

from facts. He calls a spade a spade when he is sure it is a spade.

He is not awed by the personality or image of the spade's owner.

 

Dear Shankarramanji - this post answers you too as you advocate that

only an Enlightened Master can judge personages like Auro.

 

Hope I am clear.

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sanjay Srivastava ji

>Let us not forget that Swami Vivekanada's credentials have also been

>questioned on the very such issues as raised above.

>It is only because of his towering personality and enormous

>contribution to the cause of vedanta, that these issues pale into

>insignificance. Swami Vivekananda established his credentials more as

>a social revolutionary and architect of institutions that helped

>vedic dharma rather than a teacher.

 

 

Patanjali Yoga app.#7 Direct perception, inference, and competent

evidence are proofs.

 

Competent Evidence is evidence of an Apta. Swami V. is such an Apta.

When the Swami says something I stand up and listen. Based on this

discussion Vivaknanda was expecting Tesla to come up with a proof

relating Energy and Force. His intution told him that there was a

relationship between force and matter. The Swami says "He (Tesla)

thinks he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are

reducible to potential energy. I am to go and see him next week, to

get this new mathematical demonstration".

 

Tesla was the most prominent scientist at that time and he used to

stand to listen to the Swami speak. Here is his some of his work:

 

Tesla's Inventions: a telephone repeater, rotating magnetic field

principle, polyphase alternating-current system, induction motor,

alternating-current power transmission, Tesla coil transformer,

wireless communication, radio, fluorescent lights, and more than 700

other patents.

 

Again Tesla was no fool. And it is this exact discussion on "luner,

soler,electric spheres etc" that captivated him. As the article at

http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/ejics/issue1/time-joy.htm shows -

the "Electric sphere" is where the promise lay. If Tesla accepted him

as an competent evidence I have absolutly no problem in doing so.

 

Here is what John Dobsen says in his "Equations of Maya":

http://quanta-gaia.org/dobson/EquationsOfMaya.html

 

"In the winter of 1895-96, Swami Vivekananda met Nikola Tesla and

asked him if he could show that what we call matter is just potential

energy. The swami said, "I am to go and see him next week to get this

new mathematical demonstration," (10) which apparently never came. It

is probably unfortunate that Tesla didn't get it shown, because if

relativity theory had arisen out of a suggestion by Swami

Vivekananda, the history of modern physics might have looked very

different. The notion that what we see as matter is just potential

energy was published as an appendix to Einstein's relativity paper

ten years later, in 1905.

 

In 1905, Einstein changed our geometry from 3-D to 4-D. He put time

into our geometry where it belongs. Time and space come into the

geometry as a pair of opposites, so that if the space separation and

the time separation between two events, say here-now and there-then,

are equal, the total separation between those two events is zero.

 

Euclid assumed that space separations are objective, but Euclid's

geometry is a theoretical geometry about a theoretical space that

does not, in fact, exist. Space separations, and separations in time,

are not objective. Observers moving with respect to each other

measure different distances between there and here, and different

times between then and now. What is objective is the total

separation, the space-time separation, between there-then and here-

now.

 

The equation looks very much like Pythagoras' equation for the

hypotenuse of a right triangle. In Pythagoras' equation you square

the two sides of the triangle, add the squares, and take the square

root of that sum. But in Einstein's equation, to get the space-time

separation between two events, you square the time separation and

subtract it from the square of the space separation, and take the

square root of that difference. (11) So that if the space and time

separations between those two events are equal, the total separation

between them is zero. And that puts the separation between the

perceiver and the perceived at zero, because always we see events

away from us in space by the trick of seeing them back in time in

just such a way that the total separation is zero. That separation

equation, as I see it, is one of the equations of maya. If this

Universe is apparitional, like a dream, then the separation between

the dreamer and the dream must be zero.

 

It was this change in the geometry that allowed Einstein to realize

that what we see as mass (matter) is just potential energy. E = m.

That is the equation that Swami Vivekananda hoped to get from Tesla.

So now we see that matter (mass), as well as energy, is just the

underlying existence showing through in the apparition. So that

equation, too, is an equation of maya. (12)

 

With regards

Hersh

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "hersh_b" <hershbhasin@g...> wrote:

>

> Namaste Sanjay Srivastava ji>

>

> Patanjali Yoga app.#7 Direct perception, inference, and competent

> evidence are proofs.

 

 

Namaste,

 

Today, December 5, 2005, is the 50th anniversary of

Aurobindo's Mahasamadhi, and we shall express our grateful homage

for his inspiring contributions.

 

Let us also end this thread on this list. His commentary on

the Isha Upanishad has this statement:

 

(p. 466. The Upanishads - Birth Centenary Library, 1971 -

 

"....We must therefore refuse to follow even Shankara, when his

interpretation involves so many violences to the language of Shruti

and so wide a departure from the recognised meaning of words......."

 

Can anyone quote any instance where Vivekananda has expressed such

an opinion?

 

So, on this List one need not seek his clarification on

the Bhashyas of Shankara.

 

For his followers, the following statements also appear

palatable:

 

http://www.motherservice.org/Life%20&%20Teachings/Part%20II%20Ch%

206-10.htm

 

"....6. THE MOTHER AND THE ASHRAM

The Mother joined Sri Aurobindo in the hope she could work for

divinisation of life on earth. Sri Aurobindo Ashram

was founded by her in 1926 for this purpose. The occasion for

founding the Ashram was the retirement of Sri Aurobindo on

November 24, 1926, when his yoga moved into the final stages of

realisation. The aim of Integral Yoga

is not moksha, release of the soul from the body, but the

conversion of human life into a Life Divine. When

She founded the Ashram, devotees and disciples began to gather

around Her. Though She threw the door

of the Ashram open to everyone, irrespective of position, creed,

religion, sex, or nationality, She made a very

careful selection in matters of admission. Decades later She

disclosed that everyone in the Ashram had been

with her and Sri Aurobindo in their previous births, working for

the same ideal. She indicated that Sri Aurobindo

had been Napoleon and Leonardo da Vinci in previous births and

was Krishna, too. Among the disciples She once said there were

people who were rishis and emperors in their previous births. She

described Sri Aurobindo Ashram as the cradle of the new

civilisation composed of the new race of supermen. It was an

experiment to evolve the Superman from humanity, and for this

purpose man had to conquer his human nature. The civilised man

conquers his behaviour while his inner feelings remain the same.

The cultured man changes his inner feelings and character, too.

But even in him his consciousness remains the same as the animals

from which he evolved. Especially his subconscious

is the untamed brute. To convert human life into a divine life, it

is not enough to change the behaviour or character.

It is also essential to change this basic animal consciousness into

a higher consciousness. This, She calls transformation.

It is not given to man to bring about this change. Only the Divine

can do this miracle. All that is asked of man is a total

surrender of all that he is......"

 

His ideas need not be dismissed, but they have no

relevance to this list. They can be pursued on some other list.

 

 

Regards,

 

Sunder

[Guest guest]

Madathil Rajendran Nair <madathilnair wrote: Namaste

Nathanji and Hershji.

 

Nathanji, you are awake in your part of the world while we are

asleep. That is why this delay in replying.

 

I will single out these three sentences of your post for

consideration as the rest has been brilliantly answered by Harshaji:

 

 

An "idea what Enlightenment will be like" belongs to the

realm of the objectified. An Advaitin knows that that 'idea' is

there just because HE IS, like the world is there because HE IS.

The 'idea' therefore is least important. HE IS or I AM is very

important. If this is correctly understood, there is no problem

fixing any label like Ultimate Brahman, Para Brahman, Super Duper

Dear Sir,

you are contradicting yourself by saying "An idea

what Enlightenment will be like" belongs to the

realm of the objectified, simultaneously holding the view that the realization

of Nisargdatta should conform to the

parameters of Advaita. An Advaitin knows,"that that idea is

there just because HE IS, like the world is there because HE IS.

The 'idea' therefore is least important. HE IS or I AM is very

important. If this is correctly understood, there is no problem

fixing any label like Ultimate Brahman, Para Brahman, Super Duper... ". Here

ends the matter. Nobody, no pramana, no scripture, the prasthanathraya

included, is competent to test the realization of an individual.

 

Yours ever in Bhaghavan

Sankarraman

 

 

 

 

Personals

Skip the bars and set-ups and start using Personals for free

 

 

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sankarramanji.

 

I didn't stand in judgement of anybody including Shri Nisargadatta

Maharaj. I haven't read him totally. I just outlined the criteria

that I would apply if I am to judge his words. Your quote of him did

not meet the criteria.

 

If you have no ouse of the prastAnatrayi, then I would say you are in

the wrong place.

 

I wouldn't like to add any more words on this issue from my side.

 

PraNAms.

 

Madathil Nair

________________

 

advaitin, Ganesan Sankarraman <shnkaran>

wrote:

> you are contradicting yourself by

saying "An idea what Enlightenment will be like" belongs to the

> realm of the objectified, simultaneously holding the view that

the realization of Nisargdatta should conform to the

> parameters of Advaita. ..... Here ends the matter. Nobody, no

pramana, no scripture, the prasthanathraya included, is competent to

test the realization of an individual.

[Guest guest]

Namaste Sri Hersh:

 

We can all learn from great persons like Mahatma Gandhi, Swami

Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo to look ‘inside’ instead of

judging ‘outside’ while searching for the Truth. Gandhiji once

made this insightful statement: “At times, I used to think that

there are inconsistencies in Bhagavad Gita, later, after

contemplation, I was able to recognize that Gita is always

right! The apparent inconsistencies were only due to my

ignorance and misunderstanding of what Gita actually states!!”

 

One of the fundamental problems that we face while judging

others on the basis of written works of sages and saints which

include Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo is due to the fact

that ‘language is a poor medium for the expression of spiritual

truth.’ The scriptures understood this fundamental problem and

that is the reason ‘Sruti – direct revelations’ were preferred

over ‘written perceptions.’ The reason that I bring this to

your attention is to indicate that none of us are good enough to

judge the credentials of saints and sages. Unfortunately the

discussions focused more on the personalities instead of

focusing on the subject - the ultimate reality. I do believe

that all moderators of this list know the greatness of these

two spiritual masters and their great service to Hindu religion

and philosophy. Both these great spiritual masters went for

‘mass appeal’ and one of their primary goal was to keep the

audience to be attentive and get interested in the virtues of

Hinduism.

 

If you read carefully, you will be able to recognize that the

purpose of this list is to focus on Sankara’s advaita philosophy

and most of us have not fully understood the intrinsic details

of Sankara’s works. Let us be careful while comparing the

insights presented by Sankara, Vivekananda and Aurobindo. We all

know that both Vivekananda and Aurobindo greatly respected

Sankara and his philosophy. This doesn’t necessarily mean that

everything written by these two spiritual masters fully agree

with the exposition of Sankara. Honestly, we should keep in our

mind the frameworks with which such thoughts have been expressed

and we should recognize insights will be likely different. In

both mathematics (also economics) the truth of a model depends

on the underlined assumptions and the parameters. The insights

from different models (frameworks) likely vary if the

assumptions and the parameters are different. This may partly

explain why the debate is ‘irrelevant,’ and there is nothing to

prove and there is no need for all models to behave exactly the

same way. Actually, it is illogical for us to expect all the

works of Vivekananda and Aurobindo to agree with Sankara. The

goals of both Vivekananda and Aurobindo were different from

Sankara whose only goal was to establish and propagate the

advaita Vedanta philosophy.

 

As I have said before, that language is a poor medium, also I

know that I didn’t do a good job due to my own limitation, and

consequently, you may not be fully convinced with what I am

trying to explain.

 

However, I do believe that you have lot more to contribute to

this list and you should feel obligated to do the same because

that is one of the most important ‘human dharma.’ Whatever

knowledge and wisdom that we gain from the Lord belongs to

everyone and it is our duty to share with all. This list

provides you this virtuous opportunity and I hope that join back

and share your thoughts. Our perceptions do change in every

moment of time and I am confident that you recognize this and

change your judgment about this list and the moderators of this

list.

 

Warmest regards,

 

Harih Om!

Ram Chandran

 

 

--- Hersh Bhasin <hershbhasin wrote:

Namaste

Since you requested my comments, here they are:

 

It is indeed a sad occasion when an Indian has to put up a

defence of Swami Vivakananda and Sri Aurobindo in an Indian user

group and justify their credentials to the groups Indian

moderators. Sunderji I had presented Vivakananda's views on the

Solar, Luner spheres which I had supported with actual

references. This was to show that Aurobindo's various 'mental'

spheres had resonance in Vivakanandas teaching. However you

stopped all debate by saying "His ideas need not be dismissed,

but they have no relevance to this list." Nairji you outright

dismissed Auro and I doubt if you ever read him seriously at

all. Anyway to my small and limited mind these two persons are

the reason why we call ourselves Indians (and not coolies).

Vivakananda says that one becomes a better man by playing

football than reading scriptures and I as a proud Indian would

rather be completely and utterly deluded and grovel in the

deepest ignorance by following their teaching than mockingly and

condescendingly dismiss them as idiots and their writing as

'sub-Tennysonian'.

Regards

Hersh

[Guest guest]

advaitin, Ram Chandran <ramvchandran>

wrote:

>

> Namaste Sri Hersh:

>

> We can all learn from great persons like Mahatma Gandhi, Swami

> Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo to look `inside' instead of

> judging `outside' while searching for the Truth. Gandhiji once

> made this insightful statement: "At times, I used to think that

> there are inconsistencies in Bhagavad Gita, later, after

> contemplation, I was able to recognize that Gita is always

> right! The apparent inconsistencies were only due to my

> ignorance and misunderstanding of what Gita actually states!!"

>

>

 

Namste Ram Chandran-Ji:

 

Thank you for your heart felt post.

 

Above quotation from Gandhi-Ji suddenly answered question we had

discussed on this list some time ago. Why did kR^iShNa

say, "vedaanaaM saama vedosmi" ? The answer is in the name itself.

We call this compilation as bhaag-vad-giitaa.

 

For a human mind it is difficult to recite a prose text but

relatively easier to memorize the poetry due to it's built in rhythm

generated through the reparation of similar sounding vowels at the

composition. Any knowledge is only useful if it could be preserved

for the potential utility for future generations. This portion of

continuum is achieved through our giitaa.

 

That is why veda vyasa while classifying veda separated and collated

them according to their utility. The poetic praise became the

R^igveda, prose mantras that had application in yaj~nakarma got

classified in yajusa mantra. If we do the comparative study of same

sukta's in various vedas one finds that the real essence if clearly

expressed in saamavedica.

 

gitta being the essence of all vedic and upaniShadika knowledge losr

kR6iShNa expressed himself as being the saamaveda. This goes back

to where we started with a a statement that Gandhi-ji found his

answers giitaa itself and was directly attributed to his own

ignorance.

 

As advaitin "KNOWS" well that all this is only because of his own

avidyaa. One he "REALIZES" this then all arguments dissolve.

 

Comments, criticism and suggestion on above thoughts are most

welcome so that I can improve my own understanding.

 

harihi OM tat sat.

 

Dr. Yadu