[Advaita-l] jnAna-vijnAna, gradations in Atma jnAna,

[S Jayanarayanan]

This is the third time I'm posting this, hopefully it should make it
to the list this time around.

--- Ravishankar Venkatraman <sunlike at hotmail.com> wrote:

[..]

> >   Coming to the link given by you in kamakoti.org, in which 
> >shri.ra.ganapathi wrote about our paramacharyaal and
> paramacharyaal of 
> >kanchi. First these were write ups of sh.ra.ganapathi. 
> Sh.ganapathi is a 
> >very articulative writer.  But, there were factual inaccuracies in
> the 
> >article.  Contrary to what is written there, Shri.Chandrashekara
> Bharathi 
> >swaminah have never discouraged
> 
> I do not think that Sri. Ra.Ganapathi wrote anything with any
> malicious 
> intent in that article. He was trying to promote goodwill among
> general 
> public to look at the positive aspect of the things. He may not
> have 
> reproduced conversations verbatim, but he has tried to get the
> essence of 
> it.

If RG did not write the article with malicious intent, he must have
written it in ignorance of the Sringeri Acharya's views.


I have pointed this out in the following postings:

http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-June/017580.html
http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2006-June/017601.html


Basically, RG says that the Sringeri Acharya's shirking his "duty" of
religious propaganda can be "excused" because the Acharya was always
absorbed in meditation:

"For the fourth issue of Arya Dharmam of the year Dundhubi (1922),
Sri M.N. Subrahmanai Sastri had sent an article in which he had
lauded the active spirit of Kanchi Periyaval in going to every nook
and corner of the land and giving new life to the Vedic traditions
thereby. He had also written that others in the same position had not
cared to exert themselves similarly. It was evident that he meant the
Sringeri Acharya. 
...
Here Periyaval himself added: "But as the Divine will is not such,
they are going into nishta (absorption within)"!

There are two salient features in that pithy addition, One is that
such happenings take place due to the Divine Will, not understood by
us humans, and, no one should be blamed therefor. The second point is
that the INACTION OF THE PERSON WHO WAS BLAMED was not due to inertia
or inability but due to nishta which belongs to a plane higher than
activity."


But is the above claim true -- that the Sringeri Acharya cannot be
"BLAMED" for his inaction of not propagating dharma because he was
absorbed in meditation? Hardly -- for the Sringeri Acharya rejected
the very idea that he had such a duty:

"G: That may not be enough. It will be well if Your Holiness yourself
leads a movement for the propagation of dharma. 

HH: I have already told you that no such movement can influence the
people who persist in adharma fully knowing it to be adharma and that
such a movement, if any, to be practically useful must really be led
by worldly persons like you enjoying high positions in life and not
by persons like me whose 'business' is religion. FURTHER, I DO NOT
SEE WHY YOU CAST ANY SPECIAL DUTY UPON ME. I AM NOT CONSCIOUS OF EVER
LEADING A MOVEMENT FOR THE PROPAGATION OF ADHARMA; IF I HAD AT ANY
TIME DONE SO, IT MAY BE NOW MY DUTY TO SEE THAT THE MISCHIEF CAUSED
BY ME IS REMEDIED."


RG's implication that the Sringeri Acharya "cannot be BLAMED for his
inaction" makes the implicit assumption that the Sringeri Acharya had
a duty to perform towards the propagation of dharma. But the Sringeri
Acharya had categorically rejected the very notion that he had any
such duty to perform in the first place.


Regards,
Kartik



 
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