--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Mason" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > At night he lay down outside Guru Dev's door."17 > > > > [Quote from Raj Varma, made in early 1968 and extracted from 'The Way > > to Maharishi's Himalayas' by Elsa Dragemark.] > > For anyone who has visited India, it is a very common sight to see > people lie on the floor. > > But anyway, I have come to view MMY's uncle 'Dr' Raj Varma's remarks > with some caution since observing that the major part of his 1980 > book 'Strange Facts About a Great Saint' was derived from a direct > translation of Rameshwar Tiwari's 1965 Hindi biography of Guru Dev and > parts of a 1950 compilation of Guru Dev quotations. This creates the > illusion to the casual reader that he has contributed a fresh > biography. Seemingly his biographical notes, contained in Elsa > Dragemark's book, also stem from Rameshwar's precious biography.
******** That was also my impression when I first compared the two (Whole Thing/Strange Facts). It later occurred to me that they may both have been derived from original material, perhaps the same source as the Upadeshamrit. I am stretching to give Varmaji the benefit of the doubt; Tiwari's work seems to have been a compilation, probably based on the Shankaracharya organization's newspaper, Advice from Shri Shankaracharya. Varma's material follows the same organization as Tiwari's, but also includes the quotes you mentioned and specific incidents based on Varmaji's personal experience with Guru Dev. Plus a few minor additions of uninteresting material such as how many hours it took Guru Dev's sedan to get out of the ashram when the crowds had gathered for his darshan, etc. I have not had any luck obtaining a first edition of Tiwari's biography, which I would like to compare with subsequent editions to track any changes/revisions. A friend may have the original Hindi version, but hasn't been able to find it. He is moving in a week or two and promises to dig deeper as he packs things up. L B S To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
