Greg/One Good Testimony Deserves Another!

[Guest guest]

At 10:54 AM 6/9/99 -0400, you wrote:

 

<excerpt>Greg:

 

Totally agree - among arrogant spiritual practitioners, the most arrogant

tend to be those trying to practice Jnana; NOT bhakti, karma, hatha, raja

or any of the other margas. In fact, in my experience, the most arrogant

of the Jnana practitioners tend to be the ones who never practiced karma

or bhakti yoga. Orthodox advaita vedanta holds these two to be

pre-requisites for the study/practice of Vedanta.

 

 

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

 

 

As a Jnani (mostly), I feel I must respond to this. I combine jnana and

raja yogas, and also practice karma yoga, but bhakta is not my cup of tea

at all. Bhakta and jnana tend to be mutually exclusive and don't go

together well at all.

 

 

It should be noted that "arrogance" is a quality of the "me" (ego) only,

and should disappear upon realization. Despite the admitted tendency of

the jnani to sometimes speak in an arrogant manner (which I freely admit

as being true), arrogance should not affect those who do not tend to

REACT rather than QUESTION. Those who respond to arrogance with a severe

emotional reaction need to assess what kind of authority figures they had

in their past that made them overly sensitive to those who speak from the

gut.

 

 

In sadhana,

 

 

Tim

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Tim, thanks for responding!

 

 

 

At 08:15 AM 6/9/99 -0700, Tim Gerchmez wrote:

>>>>

 

<excerpt>At 10:54 AM 6/9/99 -0400, you wrote:

 

<excerpt>Greg:

 

Totally agree - among arrogant spiritual practitioners, the most arrogant

tend to be those trying to practice Jnana; NOT bhakti, karma, hatha, raja

or any of the other margas. In fact, in my experience, the most arrogant

of the Jnana practitioners tend to be the ones who never practiced karma

or bhakti yoga. Orthodox advaita vedanta holds these two to be

pre-requisites for the study/practice of Vedanta.

 

 

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

 

Tim:

 

As a Jnani (mostly), I feel I must respond to this. I combine jnana and

raja yogas, and also practice karma yoga, but bhakta is not my cup of tea

at all. Bhakta and jnana tend to be mutually exclusive and don't go

together well at all.

 

</excerpt>

 

Don't you mean "practitioner of Jnana" instead of Jnani? Jnani is

usually one who has "accomplished the accomplished." Maybe you do mean

Jnani in this sense. As far as bhakti and jnana not going together,

there are several outstanding counterexamples to this. More could be

added if we talked about more examples:

 

 

-Shankara, who wrote devotional poetry

 

-Ramana, supremely devoted to the mountain Arunachala

 

-Nisargadatta, who performed puja twice a day to (I'm not sure to

whom/what)

 

-Ramakrishna, who is usually considered a tantric Kali worshipper but

 

who evinced great Knowledge

 

 

I'd say that these two paths converge more and more, till at last they

meet. After all, the bhakta says there's nothing but Love or that

particular devotional object (at the lower levels they might say there's

also "me loving It"); the jnana practitioner says there's nothing but

That. How can they not agree? The Sat-Chit-Ananda non-qualifying

attributes of Brahman serve to remind practitioners of the equivalence

among the Being/Consciousness/Love aspects.

 

 

Tim writes:

 

<excerpt>It should be noted that "arrogance" is a quality of the "me"

(ego) only, and should disappear upon realization.

 

</excerpt>

 

Greg:

 

First, what is realization?

 

 

Next, upon realization, would you say that the ego disappears more than

anything else, like the nose on one's face, or the April 15th U.S. tax

deadline? If you say Yes, then (i) this is a psychologizing way to

measure or certify something called realization, and can't be proven to

be a good pointer. After all, the bhakti and karma yoga paths can wipe

away arrogance, and no hint or claim of realization need be made

whatsoever. And further, if you say Yes, (ii) why doesn't Everything

disappear upon realization?

 

 

If you say No, the Ego doesn't disappear more than anything else after

realization, then that means that nothing or everything disappears.

Then, what's the big deal about the ego? How is it different from a

T-shirt?