01-18-2005, 04:15 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->And I thought this was a "shameless lineage right from the start".<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Shankara was taught a lesson in truths, humility and non discrimination by a dalit. This was his point of realisation. The dalit was apparently more 'realised' than Shankara. The dalit was Shankara's true teacher (guru). What was Shankara before this meeting with the dalit? Was he a realised soul? I dont think so.
But almost immediately after this eventful moment, the established smartha sampradaya forgot this lesson by the dalit and became casteist till this day. The sampradaya ignored Shankara's experience and teaching, and even went directly against it. Hence, shameless. To this day they have been living off his name, fending off attacks on castiesm and contributing nothing more to Hinduism, not even another saint of repute. 1300 years of existence and nothing to show for it except the founder and his advaita mayavadam. Meanwhile during this same period thousands of bakti saints and reformers rose to fend off the jains and buddhists and inspire the people and lead the masses back to faith. The shankaracharyas were in obscurity all this time till the 20th century when they suddenly arose again to prominence, simply because most of the smarthas were english educated and filled the higher echelons of professional society. But this prominence has nothing to do with spiritualness.
Of course, in the 20th century the smarthas did give rise to some reformers and leaders but these came from the dasanami orders and not from the 5 shankaracharyas.
There is a parallel with buddhism. He too taught against idol worshipping but today almost all buddhists are idol worshippers.
But why should we be surprised with this parallelism, when buddhism and advaita vedanta are almost parallel. Because those theories cannot hold, to survive, the buddhists soon absorbed icon/temple worshipping rituals and puranas, and the smarthas absorbed castiesm, emphasis on itihasa-puranas and temple worship though the agamas are not part of their philosophy. Hinduism in practise today is almost all agamic and very little vedic. Agamas are theistic - directly contradicting advaita. Because its scruti the smarthas are silent on it while the followers are almost wholly agamic.
By adopting casteism, they locked themselves in. By their own rules they cannot spread the religion to others and overseas. Something had to be broken to free them, face the karmas and obtain moksha. Hence, JS's experiences. Here karma is the teacher.
Pathma
Shankara was taught a lesson in truths, humility and non discrimination by a dalit. This was his point of realisation. The dalit was apparently more 'realised' than Shankara. The dalit was Shankara's true teacher (guru). What was Shankara before this meeting with the dalit? Was he a realised soul? I dont think so.
But almost immediately after this eventful moment, the established smartha sampradaya forgot this lesson by the dalit and became casteist till this day. The sampradaya ignored Shankara's experience and teaching, and even went directly against it. Hence, shameless. To this day they have been living off his name, fending off attacks on castiesm and contributing nothing more to Hinduism, not even another saint of repute. 1300 years of existence and nothing to show for it except the founder and his advaita mayavadam. Meanwhile during this same period thousands of bakti saints and reformers rose to fend off the jains and buddhists and inspire the people and lead the masses back to faith. The shankaracharyas were in obscurity all this time till the 20th century when they suddenly arose again to prominence, simply because most of the smarthas were english educated and filled the higher echelons of professional society. But this prominence has nothing to do with spiritualness.
Of course, in the 20th century the smarthas did give rise to some reformers and leaders but these came from the dasanami orders and not from the 5 shankaracharyas.
There is a parallel with buddhism. He too taught against idol worshipping but today almost all buddhists are idol worshippers.
But why should we be surprised with this parallelism, when buddhism and advaita vedanta are almost parallel. Because those theories cannot hold, to survive, the buddhists soon absorbed icon/temple worshipping rituals and puranas, and the smarthas absorbed castiesm, emphasis on itihasa-puranas and temple worship though the agamas are not part of their philosophy. Hinduism in practise today is almost all agamic and very little vedic. Agamas are theistic - directly contradicting advaita. Because its scruti the smarthas are silent on it while the followers are almost wholly agamic.
By adopting casteism, they locked themselves in. By their own rules they cannot spread the religion to others and overseas. Something had to be broken to free them, face the karmas and obtain moksha. Hence, JS's experiences. Here karma is the teacher.
Pathma