RE: [world-vedic] Direct Path to the Divine

[Guest guest]

Ronald Landry,

 

Please accept my respects.

 

Thank you for your insightful comments about Mr. Andrew Harvey and

his new book entitled "The Direct Path". I have not seen the book yet but

I have heard Mr. Harvey speak publicly and I am sorry to report that he is

again yet another victim of the impersonal conclusion.

 

I don't think I have ever met you nor do I know what your

particular understanding is of the Vedic Siddhanta, but I am a disciple of

Bhakivedanta Swami Prabhupada. His whole mission was to introduce the world

to the final conclusion of the Vedic message which is non other then The

Supreme Personality Of Godhead Lord Sri Krishna and as his disciple it is my

duty to clarify the same when appropriate. The absolute truth is understood

as Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan. (SB. 1.2.11) The first two stages of

realization are realized and taught by a many different types of Gurus,

Religious organizations, and all the prophets of the New Age. But to the

best of my knowledge, Bhaktivedanta Swami, and the other members of the

Gaudia Vaishnava Lineage, are the only ones who have presented the sublime

message about the personality and pastimes of God Himself.

 

So having listened to Mr. Harvey's lecture it is easy to understand

that he too rejects the concept that God is a person. His presentation

reflects a very proud, cynical, and rebellious consciousness that admits the

importance of having a teacher, but then immediately he derides and

denounces any need to follow the instructions of the great teachers, or for

that matter, any regulated spiritual discipline. His conclusion is

essentially "Find Your Own Way" Whoopee! Nothing new here. Krishnamurti,

Gangaji, Papaji, GuruMai, Sri Garry Olsen, Sai Baba and scores of others are

teaching thing like this and misleading thousands of innocent people who are

approaching them for spiritual guidance. (Also ironically contradicting

their own advice by "Teaching")

 

His conclusion is that we should all look at all the problems the

world currently faces and then commit ourselves to the process of solving

them. In fact he implores his audience NOT just to sit back smugly with

Sanskrit names and "Chant Mantras", but to contribute to the Siera Club, the

United Way, join Green Peace, the Peace Corps, or whichever of the numerous

do-good welfare/environmental organizations that "attract your core being"

that are building more hospitals, schools, or food co-ops. etc. According

to the greatest thinkers of the Vaishnava tradition, this type of "Band Aid"

approach to solving the difficulties we are all concerned about, is destined

to fail because it completely omits the most essential ingredient of success

that must be there. And what is that ingredient? One must first restore

their lost relationship with the Supreme Personality Of Godhead Krishna,

before they can even begin to understand their dharma, and what they should

be doing. (SB. 4.31.14) Without proper guidance the individual will not even

know how to distinguish between actions in the mode of Goodness, Passion, or

Ignorance, (Bg. 7.13) nor will they know what is to be done, or what is not

to be done! (Bg. 16.7)

 

So I do not wish to enter into a big debate about the merits of

Andrew Harvey's book, nor am I sure just how many people read entries sent

to this interest group, but as a disciple of Bhaktivedanta Swami's I think

it is important to point out what Mr. Harvey is really presenting. His

intention may be good, and after hearing his extremely passionate speech it

is clear he is very committed to his cause. But so was David Koresh,

Marshal Applegate, Jim Jones, and Charlie Manson but hopefully we will all

agree that they were complete NUTS. Neither good intentions or commitment

to a cause are adequate to endorse the authenticity or usefulness of what

someone presents. This is particularly true when we are discussing matters

pertaining to the absolute truth. My concern is that Mr. Harvey has just

contributed yet another piece of literature which basically tells his

audience that you have the inherent ability to "Figure It All Out For

Yourself" and that you should not trust ANYONE from ANY religious

Organization because they don't really have anything to share with you that

you don't have the ability to figure out on your own. This too is a direct

negation of what Krishna specifically says in regards to the absolute

necessity for accepting a spiritual master. (Bg. 4.34) So because of all

these things a trained Vaishnave is forced to conclude that Mr. Harvey is

just another arrogant, God-Envying, impersonal, intellectual, flamboyant new

age icon spouting off a lot of his own mixed up ideas about spiritual life

to a bunch of equally proud independent minded pseudo- spiritualists. The

bottom line we all need to be asking is who does a wise person accept his

counsel from? Should we be impressed by the words of the latest fast talker

who stands behind the podium, or the time tested words of wisdom spoken by

non other then God himself Krishna, which are found very eloquently

presented in the Bhagavad Gita?

 

Sorry. But these points must be made. Impersonalism is bursting out

all over the place and it is the duty of every one who claims to be in the

linage of Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu to expose it for exactly what it is

when we encounter it. I hope you will join me in that cause. Meanwhile,

Caveat-Emptor.

 

Hoping this finds you earnestly engaged in the service of Lord

Krishna.

 

Your servant,

mayesvara dasa

P.O. Box 489

Oak View, California 93022

(805) 640-0405 Home

(805) 228-0736 Work

robertswg (M-F 7AM - 3PM)

mayesvara (About once a week on weekends.)

 

 

 

 

Ronald Landry [webhawks]

Friday, December 22, 2000 7:25 AM

vediculture

[world-vedic] Direct Path to the Divine

 

 

http://about.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?boardID=2154&pageloc=/story/17/story

_1769_1.html

 

review of Direct Path to the Divine -

Andrew Harvey returns to his boyhood mysticism

 

One night in India when he was six years old, Andrew Harvey relates in

his bold new book, the family cook taught him that God can appear

anywhere, anytime. His parents were out for the evening so his nanny let

him have his dinner on the balcony. Afterwards, the kindly, alcoholic

cook sat on the ground beside Harvey and played a drum ecstatically.

Suddenly, the man stopped, set his drum aside, and knelt to touch his

forehead to the floor. He explained to an amazed Harvey that he was

thanking God.

 

"And you think God hears you?" Harvey asked.

 

The cook was astonished. "God is the moon. God is the garden. God is

you. God is me. God all around. God always seeing. God always listening.

All you need to do is to whisper and God will hear."

 

Harvey's upbringing in India, where many religions and many strands of

spirituality coexist, bred in him a deep faith in what Keats called "the

holiness of the heart's affections." The author of the best-selling "A

Journey in Ladakh" and "Hidden Journey" believed he could experience the

sacred in what he loved and the acceptance and kindness he encountered

from a vast array of characters, from the Hindu cook to holy men to the

Muslim driver to his own Protestant parents, affirmed that this was so.

 

India also bred in Harvey the sense that the divine could be present in

nature--he could see the sacred in the sensual as well as the

transcendent. At nine years old, Harvey, was shipped off for an

education in England, where, at 21, the gifted student was elected a

fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, England's highest academic honor.

Before he was locked in the "dark refrigerator" the English public

school system, he remembers feeling God's presence in the wild beauty of

peacocks dancing at twilight in a bramble-choked, snake-infested field

behind his Delhi house. Long before he read Shakespeare, this rapturous

image of beauty emerging from chaos has became for him "a sign that the

Divine threads all of the Creation with its secret splendor."

 

But spiritual longing led Harvey to abandon a promising career in

academia to search in India and other countries for a guru. He thought

he had found a true divine master in a young Indian woman, Mother Meera.

Yet, in 1993, Mother Meera, urged him to leave his new love (and current

husband) Eryk, get married and write a book describing how her divine

force had zapped him straight.

 

The prolonged crisis that followed caused Harvey to question everything

he had believed to be true.

 

Harvey's new book is an affirmation of his boyhood belief that everyone

has the ability to contact the divine. He begins "The Direct Path"

(Broadway, 320 pages) with a call to spiritual revolution. His mystical

faith had been blasted open by his disillusionment with a mentor who

would ask him to abandon his lover for her teachings. Harvey's

soul-searching to become a rallying cry for all of us to free ourselves

from the limiting religious systems and unscrupulous gurus. Harvey

paints a vision of a direct path, "free of the divisiveness, body

hatred, and bias toward transcendence that disfigures all the inherited

patriarchal religions."

 

"I had, for the sake of my own inner survival, to refine, deepen,

purify, and esentialize everything I had learned about mystical

reality," he writes. "I had also to face and in the most unsparing way

all my illusions about myself and about my own inner search."

 

Harvey follows with the fruits of his long self search, a rich

compendium of exercises described with beautiful clarity and simplicity.

His advice is uncommonly practical and balanced. He cautions readers to

embrace the centuries' old wisdom of traditional religious practices,

from the Buddhist precepts to Tantric lovemaking to a Taoist laughing

dance.

 

Indeed, what stands out most about this book is not Harvey's fervor and

passionate lyricism, but his generosity. He writes not as a guru but as

a spiritual friend eager to share the tools that others have shared with

him. This book's learning and friendliness will encourage many others to

claim their own power and possibilities. Harvey extends his experience

and his learning like a light, showing us that there is nothing to fear

and that the sacred is indeed close at hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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