To become a discilple

[Dasha]

Also I know what some of you will say about it, I would like to have the opinion of devotees in contact with ISKCON on this article that I have read on the site http://www.krishna.org/Articles/2001/02/00263.html.

 

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In the meantime the devotees in Bangalore are being initiated by Srila Prabhupada personally. When the Temple President considers a devotee to be ready for initiation he writes a letter recommending the devotee to Srila Prabhupada. Then the devotee goes before Srila Prabhupada and prays: "Dear Srila Prabhupada currently your ritvik representatives are not doing their service so I am asking you to please accept me as your disciple and inspire me to select a spiritual name." So in this way the ISKCON Bangalore devotees are being initiated by Srila Prabhupada.

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Is it so easy to become the disciple of any Guru you have choise ?

 

Cheerfully

 

Dash

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

When the process of initiation is based on the delusion of a conditioned souls "inspiration" the process is sure to fail.

 

They claim the system established by Srila Prabhupada is not being properly executed. So they choose to manufacture a process of initiation which has no connection to Prabhupada, whereby you ask Srila Prabhupada's deity to initiate you and then you, a conditioned soul, choose your own spiritual name. It is a creation of the mental factory of conditioned souls. What is the use of following a process established by conditioned souls?

 

Another fault of this process is you are assuming the guru (Srila Prabhupada) must accept you as a disciple. Why? You take away his free will to refuse you as a disciple.

 

The process of initiation basically becomes a ritual just as is performed in the families of caste brahmanas. Theonly benefit is a mental satisfaction that "I have fulfilled my religious duties."

 

Those who are sincere in their spiritual pursuits must find the shelter of a liberated soul and inquire from him submissively. This concept is not something knew, for Lord Krishna has established it as the process in the Gita.

 

It may be difficult to find a liberated soul, much more difficult than finding a deity or picture of Srila Prabhupada, but that is the sacrifice one must take if they are actually interested in advancing in spiritual life.

 

Find a liberated soul, render menial service to him, and inquire from him submissively. This is the process we must follow.

 

[shvu]

 

Finding a liberated soul:

 

Frankly, this is a difficult task and is not clearcut. Most people usually put on a show and deceive people. Anyone who knows how to pass off as a guru can play this role. I can do it myself because I know exactly what sounds pleasing to whom. If I never get exposed, I will go down in history as a great Guru.

 

Some examples,

 

1. Swami Sivananda had a Yoga school in the himalayas. Once one of his disciples saw him eating pickles behind closed doors. That was disillusioning for the disciple. A Guru must be someone who has experienced his teaching. If Swami Sivananda lacked discipline himself, he should not have been teaching others to be disciplined.

 

2. Osho Rajneesh was considered a great Guru until he was exposed. Ultimately he died in prison and is rumored to have been poisoned to death. If Rajneesh had died earlier, he would not have been exposed and he would have gone down in history as a great liberated soul.

 

3. The general western opinion of India was that India was full of spirituality. Paul Brunton, a english journalist was a spiritual seeker and came to India with high hopes during the 1940s. He searched high and low for a genuine Guru and was disappointed. He found out the hard way, that most of the people parading as Gurus were bogus. He made plans to leave and had a meeting with the pontiff of Sringeri. This person told Brunton that there was a person named Ramana who could help him. Brunton by then, had lost faith and was not interested. However circumstances pushed him to make a trip to Ramana and that meeting blew the top of his head off. Finally, after his long search he had found what he was looking for.

 

It is no picnic searching for a Guru. Eventually we may find someone who fits the description we have in mind. From there, it is faith. It will be our good luck, if he is genuine and our bad luck otherwise.

 

Cheers

[jijaji]

shvu posted 04-08-2001 05:47 AM PT (US)

--

 

Finding a liberated soul:

Frankly, this is a difficult task and is not clearcut. Most people usually put on a show and deceive people. Anyone who knows how to pass off as a guru can play this role. I can do it myself because I know exactly what sounds pleasing to whom. If I never get exposed, I will go down in history as a great Guru.

 

 

**Yea I could do it also shvu, my only problem would be what color robe to wear LOL ;^)

 

Some examples,

 

1. Swami Sivananda had a Yoga school in the himalayas. Once one of his disciples saw him eating pickles behind closed doors. That was disillusioning for the disciple. A Guru must be someone who has experienced his teaching. If Swami Sivananda lacked discipline himself, he should not have been teaching others to be disciplined.

 

** With all due respect shvu..they could have easily been some canned mango pickle!

he he ...

 

2. Osho Rajneesh was considered a great Guru until he was exposed. Ultimately he died in prison and is rumored to have been poisoned to death. If Rajneesh had died earlier, he would not have been exposed and he would have gone down in history as a great liberated soul.

 

** He did not die in prison dude...his Sanyasins claim he was poisoned in prison and died later back in India at his ashram in Poona. (there's a whole book on it)..not worth reading as far as I am concerned.

OSHO was eating Valium like candy in his last years to aid his lectures.

This group of idiots always bugged me..because they just SAT there in front of this rajneesh guy rattleing on and on..talkin all this and that and no one really questioned. They just "allowed the master to pour into them" OH YEA! Anyway..sorry to ramble but that OSHO guy was the worst!

 

3. The general western opinion of India was that India was full of spirituality. Paul Brunton, a english journalist was a spiritual seeker and came to India with high hopes during the 1940s. He searched high and low for a genuine Guru and was disappointed. He found out the hard way, that most of the people parading as Gurus were bogus. He made plans to leave and had a meeting with the pontiff of Sringeri. This person told Brunton that there was a person named Ramana who could help him. Brunton by then, had lost faith and was not interested. However circumstances pushed him to make a trip to Ramana and that meeting blew the top of his head off. Finally, after his long search he had found what he was looking for.

 

** Have you yourself found true Sad-Guru shvu..? you are a follower of advaita? correct? forgive me but I am new on this forum and am not familier with all the people here!

 

It is no picnic searching for a Guru. Eventually we may find someone who fits the description we have in mind. From there, it is faith. It will be our good luck, if he is genuine and our bad luck otherwise.

 

** Mind is one thing...Diksha from a Sad-Guru in Parampara is another.

Diksha into an authentic guru-parampara requires direct contact with the Guru receiving mantra etc. directly from the lips of the Guru himself. And this is goes for systems Vaishnav, Shaviate, Shakta, Advaita etc.

To imagine some self-realized soul from a past time to be one's Guru, with him or her handleing all aspects of traditional Guru-diciple relationship is pathological and somewhat delusional. That is not to say..that one cannot get inspiration from ALL self-realizied masters from the past. One can of course...but to blur it with thinking one has a special relationship with that person has something to do with the EGO as far as I am concerned!

 

Cheers

 

peace

 

jijaji

 

[animesh]

Hi jajaji,

I know most of acronyms used on internet. But I do not know the meaning of LOL. You have used this word. What does it mean? Once I guessed it meant "Lots of love." But I think that is not correct because I have seen this word being used in a context in which the meaning "Lots of love" did not fit. Ultimately I decided to ask you the meaning.

[jijaji]

Lot's of Luck! ;^)

 

jijaji

[Dasha]

Thank you JNDAS, this was my feelings.

 

Long ago I red that "when the disciple is ready the spiritual master manifest". It is also said that the spiritual master and the disciple have an eternal relationship (janme janme prabhu se). Does that mean that we keep the same spiritual master up to our going back home back to Godhead ?

Srila Gour Govinda Maharaja used to say:"Pray sincerely to Srila Prabhupada and Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu"... "They will guide you..."

Do we have to go to India or should we wait that we meet some authetic guru in our country ?, so many older devotees are coming but spiritual life is not a lotery.

 

I was a disciple of Bhagavan das who had fall down, do I have to get another spiritual master or if I sincerely follow Srila Prabhupada's instructions (as many of my god brothers do) will it be good enough at least for this lifetime ?

 

Thank you for your lights.

 

Your fallen servant,

 

Dash

[shvu]

 

Hi Jijaji,

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>** Have you yourself found true Sad-Guru shvu..? you are a follower of advaita? correct? forgive me but I am new on this forum and am not familier with all the people here!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

I am an atheist now, but I have a special liking towards advaita. In spite of a continous barrage of attacks by other traditions for 1300 years, it has not budged one inch, thanks to the excellent logic of Shankara. Ramanuja, Madhva, Chaitanya, etc for all their efforts, failed in ousting Advaita. On the contrary it is only spreading across the world steadily.

 

The real beauty of Advaita is that there are living examples like Ramana, Ramakrishna et al, who have time and again showed the authenticity of Shankara. The key point here is that none of them were actual followers of Advaita, yet the truth discovered by them was exactly what Advaita says.

 

Cheers

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The real beauty of Advaita is that there are living examples like Ramana, Ramakrishna et al, who have time and again showed the authenticity of Shankara. The key point here is that none of them were actual followers of Advaita, yet the truth discovered by them was exactly what Advaita says.

 

And the bhakti saints, though not following a single path, also showed the authenticity of the bhagavat-dharma as the higest path.

 

The key point being, that you will reject statements about bhakti acharya's as imagination or exageration, but readily accept the unproven statements regarding saints you favour. Quite a double standard, but your free to have your own beliefs.

 

Just a quick question. How is it that you know whether or not the saints you mentioned actually had the experiences and realizations that are attributed to them? How do you know if Ramana had a realization that confirmed Shankara. Did Ramana write any books? Did you get into his mind and see his experience? Or are you just repeating what other people have told you.

 

It is really funny how you can say:

 

 

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

That didn't come right, so let me try it again.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The real beauty of Advaita is that there are living examples like Ramana, Ramakrishna et al, who have time and again showed the authenticity of Shankara. The key point here is that none of them were actual followers of Advaita, yet the truth discovered by them was exactly what Advaita says.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

And the bhakti saints, though not following a single path, also showed the authenticity of the bhagavat-dharma as the higest path.

 

The key point being, that you will reject statements about bhakti acharya's as imagination or exageration, but readily accept the unproven statements regarding saints you favour. Quite a double standard, but your free to have your own beliefs.

 

Just a quick question. How is it that you know whether or not the saints you mentioned actually had the experiences and realizations that are attributed to them? How do you know if Ramana had a realization that confirmed Shankara. Did Ramana write any books? Did you get into his mind and see his experience? Or are you just repeating what other people have told you.

 

It is really funny how you can say:

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>...yet the truth discovered by them was exactly what Advaita says.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

Do you really believe they discovered any truth? Simply because they all followed neo-vedanta does not establish anything as a more authentic truth. On what do you really base your judgements. You aren't sounding very rational now, just sentimental.

 

 

[shvu]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The key point being, that you will reject statements about bhakti acharya's as imagination or exageration, but readily accept the unproven statements regarding saints you favour. Quite a double standard, but your free to have your own beliefs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

As far as I know, I have not denied the statements of any Bhakti saints. Not even Prabupada's! Except of course, for his false translations and his personal attacks on Shankara.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Just a quick question. How is it that you know whether or not the saints you mentioned actually had the experiences and realizations that are attributed to them? How do you know if Ramana had a realization that confirmed Shankara. Did Ramana write any books? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

First of all enlightenment is not an experience. Ramana said that Atman = Brahman and everything is one, which is essentially Advaita. Ramana did compose a couple of poems. The point is that his statements agreed with Shankara's.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Do you really believe they discovered any truth? Simply because they all followed neo-vedanta does not establish anything as a more authentic truth. On what do you really base your judgements. You aren't sounding very rational now, just sentimental.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

The point that I am an atheist, shows that I don't believe anyone. btw neither Ramana nor Ramakrishna followed Neo-vedanta. Ramana was a kid when he got enlightened and never followed anything. Vivekananda and some others followed Neo-vedanta, which does not interest me.

 

Let me be more clear. In the case of Advaita, the conclusion drawn will be that everything is one. One can arrive at such a conclusion without having studied Shankara. I have given some examples above. In the case of a dual philosophy there is a form, which means that different people see it as different forms. What the person sees or finds depends on his or her background. Hence different groups of people worshipping different forms can never come to an agreement. This is what I was trying to say. Not that it is wrong, but it is a marked difference between Advaita and dualism.

 

Cheers

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The point is that his statements(Ramana's)agreed >with Shankara's.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

Did they really? Ramana was not a teacher and really has nothing coherent we can call as statements. All of his "teachings" were the writings of Ganapathi Shastri and Kapali Shastri, both of whom were tantrics.

 

Ganapathi Shastri and Kapali Shastri claimed to be "disciples" of Ramana, which can also be debated.

 

They were responsible for making Ramana famous, otherwise people just threw stones at him.

 

It is funny how a self-realized saint is only accepted by the public after a scholar recognizes him as such.

 

Also funny is the number of books available on "the teachings of ramana", which are nothing more than shankara's teachings stamped with ramana's name, usually written by some westerner who just passed through Tiruvannamalai. It is not that ramana taught shankara's advaita. Ramana was a realized soul who didn't care about the external world. He couldn't care less about shankara's advaita. He was already realized.

 

All his "teachings" are later peoples speculation about what he must have taught.

 

Ramana himself is a great realized soul.

 

 

[shvu]

 

An enlightened person is one who is free from desire. He will not even have a desire to free others. This was rightfully demonstrated in the case of Ramana who simply sat in a cave with no concern for anything [even food] from the age of 16. He never spoke for several years, and later spoke occasionally restricting his talk to terse, epigrammatic lines. I like him for his simplicity and his life-style. Not that there weren't others who lived such a life-style.

 

Westerners have had conversations with Ramana where he would answer their questions. He made perfect advaitic statements like,

 

1. The whole world disappears when the self is known.

 

2. Brahman = Ishvara = Atman and so on.

 

Some important points.

 

Since he was a kid when he got realized, he knew nothing about Brahman and Atman. Later when people flocked to see him, they used to give him books which he read. Then he realized that the descriptions matched what had happened to him at the age of 17. That is how he spoke about such things later. A person cannot know metaphysical [or any] terms without having read or heard about them at some point.

 

Ramakrishna however was a worshipper of the mother Goddess. He intensely desired to see her and at one point was ready to kill himself out of fervor. That was his enlightenement point and after that, his statements were all advaitic too. He too was a very simple person like Ramana and was not interested in writing books, founding organizations, etc.

 

Cheers