--- In [email protected], t3rinity <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "Paul Mason" <premanandpaul@> > wrote: > > > 'There is no mention of women being gurus anywhere in the shastras. > > Women cannot be a guru. Gargim, Chudala, Sulabha etc. were women who > > had become yogis and possessed of self-knowledge. But it is not met > > with anywhere that they made their own disciples.'
Checking on the story of Chudala and her husband Shikhidhvaja, I came across this: Shikhidhvaja said: "Aha, I have truly been awakened by you, O sage. I am freed of foolishness, You are MY GURU; I am YOUR DISCIPLE. Pray instruct me in what you know, knowing which one does not grieve." In the story of Yoga Vasishtha, King Shikhidhvaja has given up the kingdom to become a recluse, turning over the reigns to his Queen Chudala. Chudala by sheer grace did get awakened on hearing the truth of the scriptures about non-attachment. The king is not able to accept her advice at first, as she is his wife, a mere woman. The queen sees his plights in the forrest with her yogic eye and appears to him as a Brahman boy, to whom the King has addressed the above. The Queen, in the disguise of the Brahman boy accepts his discipleship, by saying: " I shall instruct you if you cherrish my words and are in a receptive mood" Yoga Vasishtha VI.87.42 This dierectly contradicts what Guru Dev says. Indeed the whole import of the story seems to be, that enlightenment is independend of social status. See the pun in the story, that She who is enlightened does only get recognized to be so by her husband, after she has adopted the shape of a Brahmana. As she continues to instruct the King who finally realizes, and comes back to the kingdom. So it is also about that the enlightened is qualified to be the teacher independend of social status. Besides that, both weren't Brahmanas, they were of course Kshatriyas as was Krishna who instructed Arjuna. Maybe Guru Dev, who certainly knew the story, which directly contradicts him, meant to say that women did not accept other disciples or more disciples. He did so to make his point, and obviously this question was around at his time, otherwise no need to address it. I can imagine, that in old times, the Sadhus were basically naked, just dressed with a lion cloth, it would have been strange for a women to have male disciples. Other way round too. So the whole thing was very much a male affair, except when wifes were involved. These are totally outdated rules, but orthodoxy tries to preserve them, and GD happened to be their main representative. There have been many female teachers in India, very famous e.g. Anandamayi Ma, whom Maharishi visited. I know that MMY accepted Anandamayi as a teacher, because I once overheard, how somebody suggested to him to call a certain person for a project, and MMY declined saying that this person was now with Anandamayi Ma, which shows, that he respected that this person had adopted her as a Guru. If MMY was not a Guru, there would be no need to refer to people with 'other' 'Gurus', that being a reason for rejecting dome attendance. It would be enough then, if people practise TM and Siddhis at the time of the programme. So Maharishi seems to be Guru to at least some. Also, traditionally, Mantra Diksha (Initiation) is indicative of adopting a Guru (in the case of MMY, he has delegated this task to disciples). In any case, it is clear that MMY broke with the rigidity of this tradition, rightly as I think. This is not the first time at all,but it just happened to be within this most orthodox branch of the Dasanami Sampradaya. If you want to accuse MMY of that, do it. But then you show symphathy for the utmost orthodox opinion within Hinduism, and prove your agreement to heritary caste system. For most people, with the possible exception of Paul, our views and appreciation of Guru Dev stem solely from MMY. We love him because we see him through the eyes of MMY. Obviously GD was a very powerfull yogi, full with the radiance of decades of tapasya, but also with very outdated and oldfashioned ideas. I doubt that anybody here would be interested in him, if it wasn't for the involvement with MMY and TM. If MMY would have been rejected to be a teacher out of lack of qualification, I would understand it. But here its all about caste and sexism. I have a female guru (who doesn't call herself guru btw.) and so has Rick and many others. 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/
