RES: [Advaita-l] New member introduction: Asad Mustafa Rizvi

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

There is an interesting metaphor used by advaita vedAnta masters, which is 
very appropriate in the context of seeing someone like Ramana Maharishi as a 
Sufi sage. A sphaTika mani (transparent crystal) has no color intrinsically. 
However, when a colored flower or gemstone is viewed through the crystal, it 
appears as if the color belongs to the crystal too.

Ramana Maharishi did not call himself a Maharishi, and taught solely from 
his own experience. In the context of the society around him, scholars saw 
remarkable agreement of his sayings with the advaita vedAnta tradition. Sri 
Rizvi sees agreement between Ramana and Sufi masters like Rumi.

Ramana is like the sphaTika; we each of us impart to him the color that we 
see due to our own saMskAras! But this also points to another fact - in many 
ways, Sufi teachings are remarkably close to vedAnta, albeit in the context 
of Islam.

>I just joined yesterday; your point of realizing unity
>with Allah (Ishvara/God?) by merging the soul with Him
>is interesting in itself. The point of Sri
>Vishwanathan has some relevance, in the sense that
>several of our philosophical schools split hairs on
>such topics, viewing the final truth from different
>angles and asserting that their view of the Truth is
>supreme. As I believe, the Saiva Siddhanta philosophy
>is  more precisely equivalent to the version of what
>you said. More knowledgable members may inform if they

Within Vedanta too, there were and are those with a similar view. There is a 
major discussion of this in the sUtrabhAshya, and it is partially 
accommodated within advaita vedAnta also, in the context of krama mukti, 
whereby the individual jIva progresses in stages to brahmaloka and there 
merges into brahman.

>wish. Ultimately, as all the great saints of religions
>have confirmed, the "Truth is One. Sages speak of It
>variously."

As a matter of fact, only in India and in the regions of the world 
influenced by India, have saints talked of various ways of speaking of the 
Truth. Outside this cultural zone, history has shown that the norm was a 
claim to exclusivity.

Best regards,
Vidyasankar

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