SV: SV: reviews and comments (Freud, Vishnu, Kali, Indus Samskrut)

[Arun Gupta]

The following appeared on RISA-L, and may be of interest.
It is a little long, so I take it to eat up my quota of posts
for the day.

-Arun Gupta
(http://www.acusd.edu/theo/risa-l/archive/msg04165.html)

From: john grimes <grimesj at pilot.msu.edu> Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001
07:20:54 -0800 (PST)



All,

I have resisted for long enough. I had a conversion with Jeff Kripal
12 years ago in Miami, Ohio in which he did not want to acknowledge
that an avatara, a paramahamsa (as defined by certain traditions,
devotees, scriptures - not as defined by him) existed or can exist.
"Human beings are human beings, mortal and fallible and there ends
the matter. Don't speak of siddhis and selflessness, of jnana, bala,
aisvarya, sakti, virya, and tejas)."  A voice propounding reason, of
scientific thinking, of empiricism, of psychoanalysis and
homoeroticism. Perhaps I protest too much and it was/is I that am
the deluded one performing my magic act of transference to protect
that which does not really exist. Now, after all these years and so
much energy has been expended and after having read Kripal's most
recent responses to the Kali's Child controversy (available at
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/dpa/news/bulletin.html), I will add my
two cents worth:

"The turtle told the fish that he had just returned to the lake from
a walk on the land.  The fish said, you mean swimming in water.  No
replied the turtle, walking on dry land.  But when the turtle tried
to explain that one can't swim on land, that it is solid and one
walks on it, the fish said, there is nothing like that." It appears
to me that Jeff Kripal cannot image that a paramahamsa, a siddha, an
avatara is anything other than a male (or female) human being.
Interesting isn't it?

When the Buddha was asked, "what is the truth," he remained silent.
When the Christ was asked by Pilate, "What is the truth," he
remained silent. When the Upanisadic sage Bahva was asked by the
seeker Vaskalin, "What is the truth," he remained silent. When I am
asked, "What is the truth, I remain silent." My silence imitates
their silence. On the surface of it, both answers appear the same.
But Buddha, Christ, Bahva remained silent because their wisdom
embodies the ineffability of Reality. My silence, on the other hand,
is from my ignorance in that I do not know Reality.

Superficial similarities may be very very misleading. Yes, through a
person's eyes he (Ramakrishna, Buddha, etc) looks to be a male human
being - at least the initial superficial appearance. But beware warn
the texts: Yat bhavo tat bhavasi - as one thinks so one gets.
Throughout India's history there have been many sages, siddhas,
paramahamsas, avatars, etc (in modern times, see the words of Ramana
Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Shirdi Sai Baba, Bhagavan
Nityananda, etc) that have boldly declared that they are not their
physical bodies and that they do not "look" at the world as "normal"
individuals do. Yes, they apparently inhabit a human body, but they
declare they are not their body (mano buddhyahankara cittani naham,
cidananda rupah sivoham sivoham) Thus, to attribute "normal" human
motives, delusions, imperfections to them is merely to describe
one's own naivete, one's own ignorance. The quotes are legion and
can easily be provided.

Thus, when Kripal applies psychological theories, psychoanalytic
perspectives, homoeroticism, sexuality, and transference theories to
Ramakrishna, it is not that Swami Tyagananda or any other critic has
missed, "the forest for the trees," as Kripal replies, but that
beings such as Ramakrishna are neither forests nor trees. To reduce
Ramakrishna to an ordinary, mortal, physical, homoerotic physical
human being is to misunderstand, refuse to acknowledge or be
incapable of even conceiving of, what a paramahamsa or an avatar is.
First and foremost, according to their own words as well as to
scriptural references they are not merely fallible human beings
operating from desire prompted, ego-centered presuppositions. When
that is acknowledged as even a possibility, then all the other
"red-herrings" (arguing over how a particular term is to be
translated or whether sentence A or B has been overtly/covertly left
out of a given edition or whether Kripal speaks fluent or halting
Bengali are seen to be rather insignificant and inapplicable.
Ramakrishna's life history notes countless experiences in which he
went into ecstasy (samadhi) from childhood on - were they all acts
of transference to escape the pain, the embarrassment (of what pray
tell)? It is entirely within the realm of conceivability that an
individual may be virtually if not totally selfless and thus
self-interest just does not enter into the equation. It is within
the realm of possibility that Ramakrishna went into samadhi at the
sight of numerous objects - not as an act of transference - but
because of his nature. Ecstatic bliss need not be the same as
momentary happiness. Spirituality need not be aberational
secularity. To go North is definitely not to go South. His
relationships with his young male disciples, with his wife, with
females, with things in this material world just may not be
motivated, nor adequated described by Freudian theories. If there is
"no one home - no egotistic personality" there is no one to protect
and nothing to "transfer" or escape from. Moment to moment, from
Bliss to Bliss. There may, just may, be paramananda and the bliss of
experiencing it. Is it conceivable? Is it possible? Could it be that
there are beings who are radically different in motive, from you and
me? Those who have eyes to see may see and such sight has nothing to
do with one's physical eyes. It would be like hearing that a woman
is a foreign land and then searching in a geography book for this
strange entity. Alas, one needs to expand one's imagination, one's
understanding of the phenomena under scrutiny.

I agree with Kripal that a homoerotic/gay/and/or . . . . ./
paramahamsa could, in theory, exist. There is nothing to prevent
such. I strongly disagree with him that Ramakrishna was a homoerotic
paramahamsa. The diagnosis missed the mark. Ramakrishna may have
been mad, but as the Brahmani said, for God, not sexually.

I apologize for this outburst but it is time that someone included
another voice/ perspective into the discussion. I rest in silence.

John Grimes, MSU