introduction and a question

[Alfred Collins]

Sri Atmananda, Krishna Menon, was a great sage of a couple of generations ago, semi-famous for a while among Europeans, though with a large Indian following as well. His son, Sri Padmanabha Menon, Sri Adwayananda, was my teacher.  He died three years ago.  Sri Padmanabha Menon's son, who is rumored to be the successor, still lives in the family home in Malakara, near Chengannur, not too far from Kotayam, on the Pamba river about equidistant from Trivandrum and Cochin.  You can read about Atmananda in Arthur Koestler's book The Lotus and the Robot, in Joseph Campbell, and in Jeff Masson's My Father's Guru.  He is identified as Gurunathan in the last reference. Raja Rao, the novelist, was Atmananda's disciple, and it was through Raja (then teaching at the University of Texas) that I met his son. An "experimental" school started by Sri Adwayananda's disciples and called the Sri Atmananda Memorial School, is operating in Malakara.  It has had very positive notice by national educ
ational officials.  A branch has opened in Austin, Texas.

You might have heard of Krsna Menon as the "police saint of Malabar."  He was a police officer, I believe stationed in Trivandrum.  At any rate, Campbell met him at a Trivandrum hotel and that is where European disciples stayed (before my time).  There was an article in the Kerala papers that I saw after Sri Adwayananda passed with some history.

Al Collins

----- Original Message -----
From: Maheswaran Nair <swantam at ASIANETINDIA.COM>
Date: Thursday, December 18, 2003 8:21 am
Subject: Re: introduction and a question

> I would like to know more about Sri Atmananda (Krsna Menon).Though
> I am here in Trivandrum I have no connection with anyone knowing him.
> Thanks in advance.
> K.Maheswaran Nair
> University of Kerala
> Trivandrum
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Alfred Collins <acollins at GCI.NET>
> Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 11:41 pm
> Subject: Re: introduction and a question
>
> > Re the Zen reference, Yes, I think I was confabulating Chinese and
> > Indian texts, perhaps because the liminal feeling is similar.  My
> > interest is in this very special moment on the verge, which seems
> > to open the possibility of an enlightenment that endures in life,
> > which of course is fundamental in Zen.  I think this is imagined
> > in the Vrindavan world, and what Sri Atmananda (Krsna Menon)
> > called "the world between the guru and disciple," (his Malayalam
> > Radhamadhavam): a third realm distinct from ordinary life and
> > moksa.  I talked about this at Madison this year in connection to
> > psychoanalysis, but left out the poem I am now searching for,
> > obviously!  My main text was the Samkhya Karika where prakrti says
> > to purusa "nasmi naham na me."  More on this at my website
> > braindance.us, see the East-West Psychology page.
> >
> > Al Collins
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: jkirk <jkirk at SPRO.NET>
> > Date: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 7:27 am
> > Subject: Re: introduction and a question
> >
> > > Posted by Joanna Kirkpatrick
> > >
> > > Perhaps you are thinking of the famous death poems of Zen monks
> > > and other
> > > poets in Japan? Like Saigyo's death poem, written perhaps a decade
> > > earlieraccording to La Fleur, 2003 (his translation):
> > >
> > > Let it be in spring
> > > and under the cherry blossoms that
> > > I die, while the moon
> > > is perfect at midmonth, like
> > > it was for his peaceful passing. (refers to the Buddha, of course)
> > >
> > > =========
> > >
> > > > Yes, thank you, that is certainly the sort of poem I remembered.
> > > I don't
> > > think it is the same one, but of the same genre. Thanks again,
> > > >
> > > > Al Collins
> > > >
> > >
> >
>