Message #16785

[Swami Peevananda]

What you are saying is true from the highest perspective. Ramana Maharshi also would not entertain people's philosophical questions to the extent that they were merely getting the person more deeply entrenched in mind identification. All of his advice was given in an effort to turn the questions back upon the questioner. He said his highest teaching was in silence, and even 'self-inquiry', the teaching that he gave most often, was only for those who were not yet ready to understand the silence.

With that said, I am a little impatient with people who are dismissive of philosophy on the grounds that ultimate truth cannot be attained by thinking. Because until they are truly abiding in that thought-free state they are not free of philosophy and thinking. Even while they dismiss philosophy, their head is full of all kinds of ideas (many of them wrong, due to their distaste for critical philosophical thinking).

This is just my opinion. I have rarely met people who hold both views as I do, and expect to be disagreed with on this point. Most people either think that thinking is the only way to truth or that thinking is the great evil and they would rather remain stupid. Cults are bad about promoting this latter view, when in many cases they could only stand to benefit from a strong dose of critical thinking. It is an under-appreciated form of tuition in American society as well, because most state schools do not teach it. Private schools are different, which is why your upper classmen are often better critical thinkers.

So it appears that I hold contradictory views. But to me, these are complimentary views. In my opinion, the mind can be greatly purified by critical thinking and philosophical exercises as long as they are realized as such. It is only when a person is overly identified with his own thought processes that the problem arises (in my opinion).

Even Yogananda, whose approach was more devotional and practical (yoga is a procedure), was not against philosophy. I read somewhere that he told Tara Mata that she was the only American that he enjoyed discussing 'eastern philosophy' with. Also, in his B.A. course in college, he did best in philosophy. (There was an instance in which he wrote a long essay on Sri Yuktswars teachings and intentionally left his name off of the paper to trick the professor into grading him fairly.)

One of his affirmative statements is, "Lord, I will think. I will reason. But guide thou my thinking, guide thou my reason."

It is wrong, in my opinion, for Gurus to "poke out your eyes of reason", to use Sri Yukteswars phrase. When people are taught in this way, their devotion becomes overly emotional, immature and unstable. Doubt becomes a repressed trait, which paradoxically makes it stronger. Much like a wound which is keep for too long underneath a bandage until it begins to fester.

These are my opinions.

"Stupid people will not find God." - Paramahansa Yogananda