Teaching, GYaani and BMI

[Guest guest]

Namaste Shri Ramakrishna Upadrasta-ji.

 

Sir, thank you very much for your very scholarly and impressive

message (No. 43001).

 

I am really honoured. Here are my two cents.

 

There are two friends A and B. While A devotes himself to a very

worldly life, B takes to Vedanta and self-realizes. As far as A is

concerned B remains more or less the same except that he is now clad

in saffron robes, has a beard, mumbles some incomprehensible mumbo

jumbo and, above all, he continues to have a BMI. For " B " , there is

he himself as I AM, I AM. `A' and the rest of the world have

resolved (not disappeared!) into him irreversibly. Pre-realization,

his I AM, I AM was subjective with an objectifiable world ominously

looming outside it. Now that same I AM, I AM is no more subjective

in the sense that it doesn't need a you, he, she, it or they for

validation. It is now self-evident fullness whereas before, when he

set out on the road of Vedanta, it was just an isolated self-

evidence amidst threatening externalities.

 

BG verses under consideration (not all of them) are perhaps the best

attempt, in the phenomenal, to describe B to A and others like him in

the phenomenal in their own language. If and when A self-realizes,

he is B himself, i.e. the erstwhile (sure, there is no erstwhile

there!) objectified B of his life pre-realization was simply Grace

manifesting. The Grace was within his wholeness. He was projecting

it as coming from an external object (B, another guru, Lord Krishna,

scripture etc.) due to ignorance. Thus it is that the " student will

find a teacher to teach him " as you say.

 

Why have I said all this? Yes, because you said this:

 

QUOTE

 

I find that there is more practicality in 2.70, in the sense that it

clearly marks a goal-state, where the GYaani does not get perturbed

by anything. If beyond this state, there is a nishtraiguNya state,

where one goes beyond the BMI, I do not know. I believe in it, with

the caveat that there is seemingly less practicality in that belief.

 

Vedanta as I understand, as from what I have been told, suggests one

to become shuddha-sattva first. If beyond that, there is a

nishtraiguNya-state, becomes less practicable and more theoretical.

 

UNQUOTE

 

Sir, practicality and theory belong to the phenomenal. Vedanta says

the phenomenal is turIya through and through and comes to rest when

the latter is realized. We all know that turIya, thus, is not a

state but the omnipresent substratum of the phenomenal. My

understanding is that becoming shuddha-sattvaM is niShtraiguNyatwaM

is turIya is self-realization, i.e. getting firmly rooted in turIya

or being sahaja.

 

Once it happens, there is no one there to bother about practicality,

theory, parampara and sanAtanadharma, teachings and BMI. There are

upaniShadic statements to support this view.

 

To my eyes, it is this `state' that is is described in BG 2-70, 71

and 72 in the language of the phenomenal. It is not a preceding

state of practicality as you contend. Every time I read those

verses, I break into rapture and ecstasy. Such niShtraiguNyatwaM is

incomprehensible to us because the knowledge of it reaches us from

Grace through the refracting media of words, senses and mind. That

doesn't mean that we should reject it for want of practicality.

Then, why do we talk so much about faith?

 

In this understanding, the significance and utility of parampara or

sanAtana dharma have not been questioned. Neither have the

possibilities of a man of wisdom teaching or having a BMI have been

rejected from the phenomenal stand-point. Only a caution has been

expressed that such possibilities just belong to the phenomenal and

do not have anything much to do with Truth. Above all, this

understanding includes all our Masters like Bh. Ramana and Maharaj as

inspearable part of sanAtanadharma.

 

Advaita-Vedanta has its goal in non-duality. It works and achieves

its goal by cleaning up the samsAric mess.

 

Thanks once again, Sir, for your patience with me.

 

Best regards.

 

Madathil Nair

 

_______________

 

 

advaitin , " Ramakrishna Upadrasta "

<uramakrishna wrote:

 

> I should note that both these positions about both the cases

above " whether

> a GYaani would teach or not " and whether " a GYaani would have BMI

are not "

> are equally supported by Vedanta and only Lord Krishna could have

put such

> seemingly opposing statements in the same teaching. But the

practicality of

> one kind of statements makes one stick to Parampara and aspire for

the

> Highest state. Also, we should note that they are being made from

different

> levels. I also think that Advaita-vedanta is not just non-duality.

The

> Vedanta part of it is a systematic way to clean up the mess that

samsaara

> causes, primarily because of raaga and dvesha. That has been made

possible

> only in Sanatana Dharma.