Re: [FairfieldLife] Dangers of Pseudo-Advaita
There can never be any resolution to this debate from the side of the mind. The mind is looking for gratification through affirmation and support. The value of a teacher is in the impact they have on awakening you. This teacher could be quite a fruitloop or very traditional; very sweet and supportive or a real son-of-a-bitch. Their personality is is quite secondary to that which is awake, as it were, in them. Everything else is just the mind trying to resolve conflicts primarily by making everything that is in disagreement with it wrong and everything that agrees with it right. We all are such frigging morons! --- sinhlnx [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Excellent article on previous postmakes it all the more important to formulate a set of objective/relative signs which attest to one's Enlightenment, realization of the Self. But this is problematic within the context of the groundrules laid out by the proponents of Pseudo-Advaita, of where are many in the Web. A quick google can uncover a few dozen of them. Most are devottes of Ramana Maharshi, a few of Nisargadatta Maharaj, and at least one of Adi Da.; or in the lineages of these people. (which is in itself a contradiction since Ramana Maharshi didn't setup a lineage. Gangaji claims she is in the lineage of Ramana since she is a devotee of HWL Poonja and the latter was a devotee of Ramana. At any rate, let's briefly discuss the problem involved in stating that one is Enlightened ; first within the context of the Neo-Advaitins then within the context of Buddhism. 1. In the Pseudo- or Neo-Advaitin tradition: Ramana Maharshi, HWL Poonja, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Gangaji, I-Nome, Andrew Cohen, Adi Da, etc The problem arises since Ramana Maharshi himself stated that any talk of I'm Enlishtened is a lot of nonsense since there's no I left to claim it. This should stop a lot of self-styled Neo- Advaitins in their tracks straight away since lots of them have websites and obviously want to let on that they are Enlightened; but have difficulting enunciating that. They are left in a quandary: a. don't state it and thus potentially be left out of the adulation they crave by having sycophants worship them, attend their lectures, give donations, OR do make the bold claim and risk contradicting Ramana's teaching. If they go around saying I'm enlightened, then people will become suspect in that making the claim outright have resorted to then, is to avoid certain taboo statements such as I'm Enlightened (but Andrew Cohen goes ahead and makes such a claim anyway).; and allude rather to certain peripheral statements of which there many. These are certain pet code or buzz phrases intended to convey the information that I'm enlightened ...but not allowed to say it outright; so I will resort to the code words. 2. The MMY/TM org solution is to zero in in certain symptons of Enlightenment which must be present for those in CC or higher but not present in those not in CC such as continuous Witnessing throughout the sleep state. The shortcoming here is that the list of symptoms appears to be mighty short, unless there are others conveyed during personal communications with the bonavide Teacher. (besides MMY, who would these people be?). The very notion that there are criteria for judging whether or not people are Enlightened is rejected by the Neo-advaitins but is no problem for MMY, whom in his cleverness has (more than anybody else) seen that for every state of Consciousness, there are corresponding physiological states. Although one cannot adequately describe Enlightenment, the physiological components CAN be described, (somethingthe Neo-Advaitins have overlooked). 3. Buddhism probably has the most complete and through framework for determining if the person is Enlightened; and some of these criteria were listed previously. 4. Other traditions, Sant Mat for example. The major goal here is God Consciousness which is probably the same as GC in MMY's scheme. A few of the Sant Mat Gurus probably were Enlightened but the Sant Mat Tradition basically can't deal with the idea of non-dualism and there's no conceptual framework for Advaita in Sant Mat since the founders of that Tradition reject Shankara. Well, that's about it. To conclude, many of the Neo-Advaitins want to claim Enlightenment for themselves but run into problem since their major founder Ramana Maharshi rejected the very idea of a claim as being delusional. Certain Neo-Advaitins such as Andrew Cohen have gone against Ramana's teachings with some risk to their reputations; and have indeed come up with their own long lists of the symptoms of Enlightenment, to wit: (Andrew's magazine What is Enlightenment goes into this question in vertually every issue. Unfortunately for Andrew, if one of the criterions is Your Mother
Re: [FairfieldLife] Dangers of Pseudo-Advaita
on 10/2/05 7:49 PM, sinhlnx at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The problem arises since Ramana Maharshi himself stated that any talk of I'm Enlishtened is a lot of nonsense since there's no I left to claim it. Everyone assumes Ramana Maharishi was enlightened. How did he convey that fact? What phrases or descriptions of his own state did he use to convince everyone? Do those in his lineage use similar phrases or descriptions, or do they go on to say things Ramana never would have said? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM ~- 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/
[FairfieldLife] Dangers of Pseudo-Advaita
Excellent article on previous postmakes it all the more important to formulate a set of objective/relative signs which attest to one's Enlightenment, realization of the Self. But this is problematic within the context of the groundrules laid out by the proponents of Pseudo-Advaita, of where are many in the Web. A quick google can uncover a few dozen of them. Most are devottes of Ramana Maharshi, a few of Nisargadatta Maharaj, and at least one of Adi Da.; or in the lineages of these people. (which is in itself a contradiction since Ramana Maharshi didn't setup a lineage. Gangaji claims she is in the lineage of Ramana since she is a devotee of HWL Poonja and the latter was a devotee of Ramana. At any rate, let's briefly discuss the problem involved in stating that one is Enlightened ; first within the context of the Neo-Advaitins then within the context of Buddhism. 1. In the Pseudo- or Neo-Advaitin tradition: Ramana Maharshi, HWL Poonja, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Gangaji, I-Nome, Andrew Cohen, Adi Da, etc The problem arises since Ramana Maharshi himself stated that any talk of I'm Enlishtened is a lot of nonsense since there's no I left to claim it. This should stop a lot of self-styled Neo- Advaitins in their tracks straight away since lots of them have websites and obviously want to let on that they are Enlightened; but have difficulting enunciating that. They are left in a quandary: a. don't state it and thus potentially be left out of the adulation they crave by having sycophants worship them, attend their lectures, give donations, OR do make the bold claim and risk contradicting Ramana's teaching. If they go around saying I'm enlightened, then people will become suspect in that making the claim outright have resorted to then, is to avoid certain taboo statements such as I'm Enlightened (but Andrew Cohen goes ahead and makes such a claim anyway).; and allude rather to certain peripheral statements of which there many. These are certain pet code or buzz phrases intended to convey the information that I'm enlightened ...but not allowed to say it outright; so I will resort to the code words. 2. The MMY/TM org solution is to zero in in certain symptons of Enlightenment which must be present for those in CC or higher but not present in those not in CC such as continuous Witnessing throughout the sleep state. The shortcoming here is that the list of symptoms appears to be mighty short, unless there are others conveyed during personal communications with the bonavide Teacher. (besides MMY, who would these people be?). The very notion that there are criteria for judging whether or not people are Enlightened is rejected by the Neo-advaitins but is no problem for MMY, whom in his cleverness has (more than anybody else) seen that for every state of Consciousness, there are corresponding physiological states. Although one cannot adequately describe Enlightenment, the physiological components CAN be described, (somethingthe Neo-Advaitins have overlooked). 3. Buddhism probably has the most complete and through framework for determining if the person is Enlightened; and some of these criteria were listed previously. 4. Other traditions, Sant Mat for example. The major goal here is God Consciousness which is probably the same as GC in MMY's scheme. A few of the Sant Mat Gurus probably were Enlightened but the Sant Mat Tradition basically can't deal with the idea of non-dualism and there's no conceptual framework for Advaita in Sant Mat since the founders of that Tradition reject Shankara. Well, that's about it. To conclude, many of the Neo-Advaitins want to claim Enlightenment for themselves but run into problem since their major founder Ramana Maharshi rejected the very idea of a claim as being delusional. Certain Neo-Advaitins such as Andrew Cohen have gone against Ramana's teachings with some risk to their reputations; and have indeed come up with their own long lists of the symptoms of Enlightenment, to wit: (Andrew's magazine What is Enlightenment goes into this question in vertually every issue. Unfortunately for Andrew, if one of the criterions is Your Mother must say you're Elnlightened then Andrew is a failure in that regard since his Mom wrote a whole book listing the various symptoms of Andrew's big Ego. This begs the question then - are these real symptons of a Ego are just apparent symptoms ? I say - a cow is a cow regardless. What's your opinion? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/JjtolB/TM ~- 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,
