[Buddha-l] Modern Advaita sages

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Andrew Fort schreef:

> I think Vivekananda was a great neo-Vedantin, and Ramakrishna clearly 
> more a Shakta Tantrika.  As far as modern masters of traditional 
> Advaita, I think Ramana Maharshi and the Shankaracharya 
> Chandrashekarendra Sarasvati were fine exemplars.  If anyone is 
> interested enough in the issue, I discuss this in my book /Jivanmukti 
> in Transformation/ (SUNY Press, 1998).
>   

I think you're right here, Ramakrishnan was an old style yogi. He came from a small village not far from Calcutta and he taught himself yoga. His village was a pelgrimsresort and there were always yogi's passing by and Ramakrishnan watched them carefully and imitated what he saw. He had visions of most Indian gods and even Jesus and Mohammed, but being a rural Bengali Kali, mother Nature, has always been closest to his heart. Vivekananda was like Rammohan Roy and others a rationalist because of his English education. He liked science and he never had any feelings for the trational Indian gods. Later on when he was famous, some Germand vaidantins who offered him a place to stay, were shocked to discover that he liked wine very much and used to smoke a pipe as well.

Erik


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