Adoration

[Nara]

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I think this thread is for bhakthas who follow the Mutt and the Swamiji. If you don't like the thread you need not visit it personally.

Dear Anand, you are right of course -- and therefore, in deference, I shall submit my comment here and avoid my discordant note over at Saidevo's corner.

..... Are you saying this is all just made up and there is no truth in it? Or it could be true but just promotes hero-worship and superstition?

Sishyas make up tall stories as though that is a mark of devotion to their acharya. Our acharya guru paramapara prabhavam are full of such stories. Adi Shankara is supposed to have transmigrated into another's body. Bhagavat Ramanuja, true to him being an Athisesha avathara, is supposed to have taken the form of a snake with 1000 heads, when he debated the Jains in Melkote. There are similar stories about Swami Sri Desikan and Swami Sri Manavala Mamunigal and scores of other Acharyas.

All of these stories start from some over-exuberant sishya who is no doubt impelled by exemplary devotion. Then, the rest, out of reverence for the respected Acharya and a desire not to cause any offense, or as a result of conditioned superstitious mind, just go along. In due course of time these stories take on lives of their own. The mind-set thus created is fertile ground where superstitions grow and flourish.

I don't know why a child-like, unquestioning reliance on inerrant Acharyas is often touted as a mark of true sishya. In fact, the Acharyas themselves seem to discourage this type of over adulation. I have personally witnessed a renowned and respected acharya often admonishing his sishyas for overdoing their reverence with claims that lead to superstitions -- he uses the word "மூட நம்பிக்கை".

Cheers!

 

[anandb]

Sishyas make up tall stories as though that is a mark of devotion to their acharya. Our acharya guru paramapara prabhavam are full of such stories. Adi Shankara is supposed to have transmigrated into another's body. Bhagavat Ramanuja, true to him being an Athisesha avathara, is supposed to have taken the form of a snake with 1000 heads, when he debated the Jains in Melkote. There are similar stories about Swami Sri Desikan and Swami Sri Manavala Mamunigal and scores of other Acharyas.

All of these stories start from some over-exuberant sishya who is no doubt impelled by exemplary devotion. Then, the rest, out of reverence for the respected Acharya and a desire not to cause any offense, or as a result of conditioned superstitious mind, just go along. In due course of time these stories take on lives of their own. The mind-set thus created is fertile ground where superstitions grow and flourish.

I don't know why a child-like, unquestioning reliance on inerrant Acharyas is often touted as a mark of true sishya. In fact, the Acharyas themselves seem to discourage this type of over adulation. I have personally witnessed a renowned and respected acharya often admonishing his sishyas for overdoing their reverence with claims that lead to superstitions -- he uses the word "மூட நம்பிக்கை".

Cheers!

Honestly, I don't understand how Gurubhakti and reading about the experiences of devotees encourages superstition. There are innumerable accounts of devotees recorded over ages for so many gurus and acharyas. Can all this be summarily dismissed as products of fertile imagination? My question is does it mean that humans are just like robots not having emotional experiences or if such experiences cannot be verified in a physical lab then they are just hallucinating.

To me, a matured shisya is one who has already been touched by the Guru in an extraordinary way that he needs no further proof to accept him even mentally as a guru. These devotional experiences of others just add to his experiential enjoyment of his relationship to the guru.

For a shishya who has just started reading these emotional stories and then decide to accept someone as a guru, he will still need personal emotive experiences with his guru to be able to connect with him. so superstitions will not help. He will need actual experiences to connect. I think that is the beauty of a guru-shisya relationship.

thanks

 

[nachi naga]

A die-hard rationalist popular politicians shares the same dias with a popular god man/womanand rationalises it publicly.Adding fuel to fire publicly admonishes religious gurus about kama sutra while leading a life of a bohemian in their persoal lives.The media did not publish or braodcast the great work of enlightened masters,but broadcasts mischevious soft-porn variety of videos in the garb of expose,all the while seeing its tv channel lapping up the publicity for more revenues?And these are rationalist with a rational mind without superstition.God bless India,please.

nachi naga.

 

[Nara]

Honestly, I don't understand how Gurubhakti and reading about the experiences of devotees encourages superstition.

Dear Anand, I did not say Guru Bhakti leads to superstition. This is the quintessential straw man. Here is a definition of straw man from Wikipedia:

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
​

My point was, I am paraphrasing from my earlier post, a mindset nurtured on a guru sishya relationship that extols and venerates tall stories is fertile ground where superstitions grow and flourish.

Nowhere did I say Guru Bhakthi per se encourages superstitions.

The recent outing of the peccadilloes of someone towards whom scores have blind guru bhakthi is a lesson in the dangers that attend emotional attachment with guru that promotes and values fanciful stories. A guru who does not discourage this tendency is in fact doing a disservice to his sihsyas and thus not deserving of being a guru.

Cheers!