[Advaita-l] Bhagavan Ramana and the pain of cancer

Sunil Bhattacharjya sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com
Sat Mar 20 11:42:31 CDT 2010


Everybody has to have the bhoga of karmaphala including those due to the karmas in one's past life and Ramana Maharshi could not be any exception to that. Being a jnani he knew the reasons for  his suffering and he knew that he had to to suffer it out, His suffering was not given more importance by him than it deserved..  

Regards,
 
Sunil K. Bhattacharjya
 

--- On Sat, 3/20/10, Anbu sivam2 <anbesivam2 at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Anbu sivam2 <anbesivam2 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Bhagavan Ramana and the pain of cancer
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Saturday, March 20, 2010, 7:56 AM


Subramianji,

Namasthe.

You wrote:
[It is not a suffering for the Jnani; it is a fact that he cannot do away
with.  Brahma sutra bhashya 4.1.15 is proof for this.]

BS Bhashya 1.1.4 is related to this.  You cannot talk ignoring this.

In Brahma Sootra Bhashya Sankara says:  "Tadetat asareerithvam mokshaakhyam"
(1.1.4).   The word 'Asareeri' only means being without a body. The loss of
awareness that  'I am the body' is Asareerithvam - the state of being
without a body.  The Acharya has defined Moksha thus: If desires are
gradually reduced eventually made extinct, attachment to the body will
totally disappear. The soul within will then shine forth. There is no need
to go to other worlds for this. This is what the Vedas and Vedanta refer to
as "Ihaiva-Ihaiva' - here itself.

Please forgive me if I say that you have too much emphasis on the vEsham
which is only mithya, unreal.

Please read my posting on Sri Rama's episode by Bhagavan Ramana.

Also Bhagavan Ramana says:

24. ईशाजीवयोर्वेशाधीभिदा |
     सत्स्वभावतो वस्तु केवलं ||

The impersonal and identified Consciousness are essentially the same. The
Sage has no ego or the thinking mind and is not attached to any form; the
man of ignorance feels that the ego and the form are real and is totally
asleep to the Self.

(Source for Upadhesa Saaram:
http://ashutoshg.blogspot.com/2008/06/upadesa-saram-text.html )

Regards,
Anbu

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 6:47 AM, V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 5:03 PM, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > praNAms Sri Subbuji
> > Hare Krishna
> >
> > You start talking like a dvaitin now :-))  do you still have any doubt
> > that this loukika & vaidika vyavahAra is kevala avidyAkruta from advaita
> > perspective??
>
>
> [I have no doubts about this.]
>
>
> >  do you think jnAni still suffers from this avidyA vyavahAra
> > to see the duality??
>
>
> [It is not a suffering for the Jnani; it is a fact that he cannot do away
> with.  Brahma sutra bhashya 4.1.15 is proof for this.]
>
>
> >  I'll ask you one simple question since you are
> > holding jnAni's individual mind, body etc. close to your chest...tell me
> > how can a body of a jnAni without having the strong feeling of an
> opposite
> > sex can indulge in sexual activity?? You take your own example of
> talking,
> > seeing, sitting, listening etc. of a jnAni & extend that to this scenario
> > also, what would be  your answer??
>
>
> [ Atma sAkShAtkAra or enlightenment will not take away the Jnani's capacity
> for maithuna. There are several examples in the scripture and in the world
> to show that a Jnani, that is after enlightenment, did engage in maithuna
> and sired offspring.  The famous case of the birth of Paandu, DhritarAShtra
> and Vidura through Veda Vyasa is there.  After Vichitraveerya died, the two
> widows who did not have issues to continue the Kuru clan, gave birth to
> those two brothers Pandu and Dhritarashtra through Vyasa as the father.
> There is no doubt at all about Veda Vyasa's JnAnitva.  One might not say
> that he had a 'strong feeling of the opposite sex' but he did indulge, as a
> matter of obeying the command of Satyavati, his mother, in the maithuna.
> And there is no escape from the feeling the activity brings.  When someone
> sprinkles water, prokShaNa, on you as asheervachana, if it is cold season,
> you will feel the chill.  If it is hot season, you will feel pleasant.
>
> Kashyapa PrajApati is spoken of as a Jnani.  There is the famous case of
> how
> Diti demanded maithuna in sandhyA kaala and Kashyapa had to oblige, much
> against his will.  And that is how daityas were born.
>
> In contemporary history, here is an incident reported by Swami Saradananda
> in  'Sri Ramakrishna the Great Master':
>
> (Quote) The Master: 'Ah, lust does not vanish till God is realized.  So
> long
> as the body lasts, a little of it continues even after realization but then
> it cannot raise its head.  Do you think I myself am altogether free from
> it?
> At one time I thought I had conquered lust.  When I was sitting under
> PanchavaTi such an onrush of lust came that it seemed to be beyond my power
> of control.  I then wept rubbing my face against the dust on the ground and
> said to Mother, ' I have done a great wrong, Mother.  I shall never again
> harbour the idea that I have conquered lust.'  It was then only it
> vanished.' (unquote)
>
> Here is an excellent example of how vasana works.  It requires something to
> trigger it.  It could be actually sighting someone in front of you or it
> could be triggered just by thinking of someone or remembering a past
> incident similar to the one that can trigger lust. ध्यायतो विषयान् पुंसः...
> In any case, there is dvaita darshana, externally or internally.  The
> intellect might wage a war but the deep rooted emotions could have an upper
> hand.  That is when a crisis develops.
>
> A Jnani who lived till recently, was a Grihastha.  Out of his five
> children,
> two were born after he was enlightened.
>
> All these sample cases show that Atma Jnanam will not render a Jnani
> incapable of any activity that he was capable of prior to enlightenment.
> Sri Vidyaranya has shown that activities of prana, indiryas, manas, buddhi,
> ahankara are common to Jnani and ajnani.  A Jnani may not or will not allow
> himself to indulge in maithuna, for example. But there is no such thing as
> 'he cannot'.  That is the reason why even a Jnani should, in his own and in
> the society's interests, exercise extreme care in dealing with women.  He
> will not incur sin and require rebirth as a result of any sin but he will
> cease to be a good example for others. He will not be a 'shreShTha purusha'
> in society if he indulges in adharma.]
>
>
> >  your explanations in support of jnAni's individual body is as good as
> > saying 'ramaNa' was a cook coz. he was cutting the vegetables at Ashram
> > kitchen...
>
>
> [ Why not? See what Krishna says in the Bhagavadgita (5.8,9):
>
> नैव किंचित् करोमीति युक्तो मन्येत तत्त्ववित् ।
>
> पश्यन् शृण्वन् स्पृशन् चिघ्रन् गच्छन् अश्नन् स्वपन् श्वसन् ॥
>
> प्रलपन् विसृजन् गृह्णन् उन्मिषन् निमिषन्नपि ।
>
> इन्द्रियाणीन्द्रियार्थेषु वर्तन्त इति धारयन् ॥ (५. ८,९)
>
> //The man of Knowledge, a Jnani, even while engaged in - seeing, hearing,
> touching, smelling, walking, eating, dreaming/sleeping, breathing, talking,
> discharging (ejecting), holding/grasping, closing and opening the eyes
> (even
> while still alive) – is of the firm conviction ‘I do nothing at all; the
> senses/organs interact with their respective objects.’ (*is free from his
> body) *.//
>
> Dharmavyaadha was a butcher by profession.  What is wrong if someone
> referred to him that way?  Will it take away his JnAnitva?  Was Krishna not
> पार्थ सारथि ? A driver because He did that.]
>
> > rama had the strong feeling of his body hence he got the kids from seeta,
> > krishna has the strong feeling of his body, hence he tried to throw
> > sudarshana chakra at bheeshma
> > in kurukshetra by succumbing himself to krOdha..
>
>
> [ A very accomplished Jivanmukta can feign anger, etc. without actually
> becoming angry. Vyasa's case shown above is one such. He will have so much
> control over the mind.  Without the capacity to show anger, etc. one cannot
> live in the world.  That is what Rama and Krishna showed to the world. ]
>
>
> > Instead of giving undue importance to these socalled activities of jnAni,
> > it is better to stick to the shruti vAkya which emphatically says when
> for
> > the jnAni all has become
> > one Atman, there who is to see whom, there who is to smell whom, there
> who
> > is to taste whom, there who is to speak to whom, there who is to hear
> > whom, there who is to think of whom, there who is to touch whom??  it is
> > we, who are ignorant of that samyak jnAna attributing body, mind &
> > intellect to the brahmavida jnAni...
> >
>
> [ Pl. note that no one is giving 'undue' importance to the activities of a
> Jnani.  These were highlighted only to counter your erroneous stand on
> Jivanmukti/praarabdha.  No one is unaware of the above shruti vakya.  No
> one
> has thrown away this vakya to the winds.  You have quoted it umpteen times
> in this and other forum on this topic.  What is repeatedly pointed out to
> you is:  The above is the Jnani's realization of his svarUpa.  The
> knowledge
> of the above shruti vAkya is incomplete unless one also realizes the need
> for knowing the set of Gita verses quoted above.  Without that one will be
> missing the point completely and end up with an incorrect idea of the
> Jnani.  That Shruti vakya is about Brahman that a Jnani is.  But the Jnani
> continues to be, for the world, so many things that he was before.  In
> responding to these, he will conduct himself the way taught by the Gita
> verses quoted above.  You seem to take only the Shruti vakya and leave out
> the Gita verses as irrelevant. That is the mistake. That is why the
> prasthana 'traya' is studied.  Lord Krishna need not have taught these at
> all.  It is this that Shankara says as 'sthitaprajna lakshana' in the Sutra
> bhashya 4.1.15 for which I gave the Kannada translation.  To leave out
> these
> will amount to grasping a teaching only partially.]
>
> I have nothing more to say on this topic.
>
> >
> > Om Tat Sat
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