Theos-Talk Archives (March 2004 Message tt00152)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "arielaretziel" 
<arielaretziel@y...> wrote:
> I would like to have the exact reference and quote where Sankara 
> actually say this. Sounds like another crazy "internet story" like 
> the ones we here from Netenara and Frank all the time.

Nope. I studied Sankara many years ago before I ever heard of the 
Internet. His sadhana catustaya was one of the great discoveries of 
my life, but I was disturbed by some of the other things and was not 
comfortable with him. Some of these issues were philiosophical (the 
objective idealism of Samkhya seems more true or at least more 
acceptable than his subjective idealism) and some of them were 
comments such as the one cited. He was quite a controversial 
character during his lifetime. It is possible that some of the 
disturbing things I have read were canards spread by his enemies (and 
he did have enemies) but the nature of them is such that they would 
have been representative of the time in which he lived. I think an 
enemy would have concocted a different story, in other words. 
Anyway, Patanjali and the underlying philosophy of Kapila which 
supplies the theoretical unbderpinning for Patanjali's system, were 
just more palatable to me. Part of that is, we do not know anything 
about Patanjali except for the name and the content of his book, 
which is arguably the premier work on yoga ever written. Since we 
know nothing about him, it is impossible for any warts he may have 
had to sully our appreciation of his masterpiece. Maybe it is just a 
question of individual taste, who knows?

Anyway, there are scholarly books on Sankara and you can read all 
about him if you choose. Many of his works have also been 
translated, especially his BRAHMA SUTRAS (also known as the VEDANTA 
SUTRAS), etc.

I try not to spread "crazy" stuff unless I am in a joking mood.