The so-called "people on the spiritual path" are always looking for something else. They go on reading many a leader, in their eternal search, not following one thing. They confuse all paths and mix up and do something on their own accord. Then they go on to make arbitrary statements quoting many a different path to make you see their point. You give in.
Its one thing to say that all roads lead to God, and quite another to walk as many paths. See, if you decide that you like one path, why not walk it instead? A good example of this sort of a thing is mixing up of neo-advaita, zen and nihilism and concluding that what all of these mean is advaita! Another classic example is to say that Sw. Vivekananda talked of four yoga-s, following any means the same. Then yet another would be to quote Ramakrishna and say that the paramhamsa said that saguna and nirguna mean the very same! More than some times have I heard people randomly quote Ramana or Nisargadatta that there's no one to search for, no one to liberate, etc. Or Jiddu Krishnamurthy, for that matter, to say that there's no guru needed. My recent readings of UG Krishnamurti also brought a new angle for this posting. So here, I'm going to try to say what I understand by these paths myself and where they lead and why mixing more than one can have disastrous results! I'm not saying that one path is better than the other. Its quite subjective in the sense that what you may be looking for may be different than what I might be having my mind towards.
Advaita's moksha: Shankara's moksha, led unto by adhyaaropa-apavaada, followed by neti-neti, with shravaNa-manana-nidhidhyaasana on shruti vaakya-s, is being one with nirguNa brahmaN. Only jnaana can liberate and any other path has only purificatory value.
Dvaita's bhakti: Madhava's moksha means being in the eternal bhakti of the lord at Vaikuntha, reached by naamasmaraN and the like.
Ramana Maharshi: Enquiry is the direct path to get moksha because any other path will finally reach you at the question: who am I?
Nisargadatta Maharaj: He believed in his guru's mantra and reached self-realization. There's no causality and anything exists so because everything exists so, be a witness to everything.
Buddhism: Momentariness of everything, nihilism. Do not believe in Vedas; advocate meditation as the basis and lead one into Buddha's silence.
Jiddu K: No guru is needed to liberate you.
UG Krishnamurthy: No path, no gurus, no moksha. The (no) state is where the question and the questioner are the same. No one can do anything about it. Its something that happens, no one can give you anything, no one can get himself anything. Looking for eternal bliss is delusion.
Whats necessary now is for one to decide if s/he really thinks that all paths are same, much less, lead to the same goal! Can we see now how futile is the exercise of walking multiple paths, with mixed up ideas, at the same time? It may be opening a new path with unfounded ends, if thats what we're looking for!
gururarpaNamastu
2 comments:
Paths are not goals. Paths may be several, but the goal is the same. Guru would guide you, depending on your metabolism and efforts made. Why did Buddha or JK prefer to talk to people? Is it to say Guru is not needed? How do we accept them as? And why?
Of course, paths are not goals, but that doesn't mean that all paths lead to the same goal! The eternal goal is singular, as we advaitis say, but not everyone agrees to it. Ever tried telling that the goal of moksha of an advaiti is the same as that of a dvaiti, to a dvaiti? :)
What I'm essentially saying is that if a person walks on a particular path, he'd likely insist that his path's end goal is the goal and that may not be so, as per advaita. So mixing paths poses this risk.
om tat sat
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