Q: Ecstatic symptoms of Impersonalists

[Guest guest]

Dear Gerald Surya prabhu (and interested readers):

Dandavat pranams. Jaya Srila Prabhupada.

 

I read your ICJ article reviewing a book supporting the neo-Vedanta

movement and criticizing Prabhupada's mission and philosophy:

http://www.iskcon.com/icj/7_2/72surya.html

 

>From this essay, QUOTE:

Interestingly, Sinha's critique promotes Ramakrishna as a Vedantin,

even referring to him rather uncritically as an incarnation

(avatara) of God. Jeffrey J. Kripal's intriguing work Kali's Child:

The Mystical and The Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna

deconstructs the Ramakrishna myth revealing little more than an

unorthodox tantric sexuality at the basis of his life, sayings,

practices, and even literary styles of his biographers. UNQUOTE

 

I was wondering if Kripal's psychoanalysis is really fair and

consistent. I think Swami Tyagananda of the RK Mission wrote a

rebuttal and Kripal has come in for some pretty severe criticism.

Doctrinally, what would be the Vaishnava reaction to Kripal's book.

 

More importantly, I would like to know how Gaudiya Vaishnavism

explains the apparent ecstatic symptoms and visions of popular

Mayavadi saints like Sri Ramakrishna. I have read that Sri Caitanya

Mahaprabhu said that the 'altered states' and experiences of

Mayavadis are only a "reflection", and not the real thing. Can

someone explain this?

 

Thanks in advance. Your servant,

Carl.

[Guest guest]

Carl wrote: >

Jeffrey J. Kripal's intriguing work Kali's Child: > The

Mystical and The Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna > deconstructs

the Ramakrishna myth revealing little more than an > unorthodox tantric

sexuality at the basis of his life, sayings, > practices, and even literary

styles of his biographers. > >I was wondering if Kripal's psychoanalysis is

really fair and >consistent. I think Swami Tyagananda of the RK Mission wrote a

>rebuttal and Kripal has come in for some pretty severe criticism. >Doctrinally,

what would be the Vaishnava reaction to Kripal's book.

 

The Vaishnava epistemology accepts the following pramanas: 1) pratyaksa 2)

anumana 3)sabda; 3a) guru, 3b) sadhu, 3c) sastra, 3a1) the sravana or

vartma-pradarsaka guru, 3a2)diksa guru, 3a3)siksa-guru 3c1) smrti, 3c2) nyaya,

3c3) sruti. All knowledge has to be consistent with all of these pramanas in

order to be accepted as valid. All the Vaishnava philosophies have various

grades of harmony between all these sources. However, the imperfect knowledge of

the non Vaishnavas (such as scientists, impersonalists, and mleccha

religionists) is based on some crude invalid combination of the above sources.

First of all, Ramakrishna's philosophy is not sound, so his testimony to his

experiences is practically useless. Sabda-brahma-nisnata or proficiency in the

Vedic literature is the first test of the state of being a guru. Then one may

speak of the concerned person's realization or para-brahma-nisnata. Secondly,

the content of his visions of a motley of religious figures seems like an

fabrication. In the Bhagavatam, the Lord generally reveals Himself in one

particular form according to the devotee's inclination. Impersonalists in

general may achieve some awareness of the soul or of some phase of Godhead but

it cannot be of much utility or importance to the serious Vaishnava. In the

overall scheme of things, it seems that Kripal's book is meant to insult

Hinduism so I should probably not have given the book importance in my essay.

However, even the famous critique by Swami Tyagananda admits: "Ramakrishna did

practice Tantra under the guidance of a qualified teacher, just as he practiced

the disciplines of other traditions ...The idea behind Tantric traditions is

this: libido (kama) is the most powerful instinctual drive in human beings.

Unless it is controlled and sublimated, it is impossible to transcend the world

of the senses. But the roots of libido lie deep and ramified in the unknown

chambers of the unconscious. Tantric practices are a way of creating certain

external situations which bring out the contents of these chambers of the

unconcsious. ...Through his Tantra practice, Ramakrishna helped revive this

healthy core of the tradition minus the accretions: 'magical power, strangeness,

seediness, and the sex.' If Kripal had focussed his attention on the Tantra

proper and not on these accretions, he wouldn't have felt the need to distort

the Bengali text of the Kathamrta."

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~tyag/Home.htm

 

Therefore, even the idea that proper Tantrism penetrated his life and followers

coupled with his meditation on Krishna's activities with the gopis doesn't sound

very compatible for Vaishnava realization to me. The Vaishnava eliminates the

negative things in one's heart during bhajana-kriya and anartha-nivrtti with the

help of the Paramatma situated in the heart.

 

>More importantly, I would like to know how Gaudiya Vaishnavism >explains the

apparent ecstatic symptoms and visions of popular >Mayavadi saints like Sri

Ramakrishna. I have read that Sri Caitanya >Mahaprabhu said that the 'altered

states' and experiences of >Mayavadis are only a "reflection", and not the real

thing. Can >someone explain this?

 

I heard that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta called him "the madman of Bengal."

 

Gerald Surya