A post i got in todays news paper about belief, surrender and reasoning....

[Guest guest]

Value of Scriptural Knowledge

 

Aghori Vimalane Tantric master declared the study of philosophy

as " Without a longing for liberation islike dressing up a corpse " . It

is useful toread the scriptures but there is no pointreading them

without devotion.

 

If approached with faith, humility andsurrender, they speak to us with

intimacy,love and compassion.

 

Sri Ramakrishna often describedscholarly or bookish knowledge as

" dry " knowledge. It is dry because such knowledge is intellectual

(appropriated in thehead) and not lived (experienced in theheart).

 

Intellectual knowledge tends to bloat theego, while the objective of

the spiritualjourney lies in killing the ego. This explains why Mata

Amritanandamayi(Amma) once said, " Jnana (wisdom) without bhakti

(devotion) and bhakti withoutjnana are both harmful. " Scriptures are

then best viewed assignposts that can alert the seeker to thepath,

(the existence of God for example),but the seeker must individually

traversethe path itself with guidance from a realized master.

 

As Sri Ramakrishna once said: " Books,scriptures and things like that

only pointout the way to reach God. After finding theway, what more

need is there of books andscriptures? Then comes time for action. " God

cannot be reached by the mind orthrough reasoning. He can only be

reachedthrough faith and surrender. Amma wasonce asked the place of

reasoning in spirituality.Her response was characteristicallysuccinct:

" To give up all reasoning, is theplace of reasoning in

spirituality. " " There are a few men, " warned Sri Ramakrishna, " who

cannot obtain knowledgeof God: men proud of their scholarship,proud of

their education or proud of their wealth. If you speak to such people

about a holy man and ask them to visit him, they will not go. But in

the heart of hearts they think: Why we are big people ourselves. Must

we go and visit someone else? " The Aghori Master, Vimalananda,

expressed the same thought differently: " I have never been and will

never be a teacher. When you try to teach, you usually end up by

cheating yourself. For one thing, most people are motivated by idle

curiosity rather than a sincere thirst for knowledge. Ihave no time to

waste my breath on people who want to know whether God exists

ornot.For those who believe in God,no explanation is necessary; for

those who do not believe in God,no explanation is possible. "

 

 

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Thank you,

Regards,

Prasad