Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission

I also have other ones.

Like this is, uh, a Ramakrishna Mission.

Uh, Swami, um, Gambhirananda, who was a Swami of a Ramakrishna Mission.

This is, uh, one translation of Shankara's commentary.

I've got one or two other translations of Shankara's commentary.

Though practically, I found the level of ethics or morality in the Osho commune really unsuited to my virtuous, my so-called virtuous temperament.

So naturally, the mind gravitated towards maybe the more so-called ethical sannyasis monks, the Ramakrishna mission, the well-known Ramakrishna mission and Swami Vivekananda's group of young monks.

It's the

same mission.

This is succeeding in regular life, in doing your things that you have to.

And he was talking about this, a monk in Ramakrishna mission who was IIT number two, all India rank and who became a monk.

And he says, I have watched him do things.

Even when he is cleaning his room, he cleans every grill of the window with so much of attention and focus as if he's doing a math problem.

I get initiated into the Ramakrishna Mat and mission.

And now there's a new complication because as a Shaiva, the Ramakrishna mission didn't want to initiate me because I'd already been initiated.

And there's rules against initiating someone who had already been initiated and rules that we're going to encounter in just a few moments in the text themselves.

The tantras themselves say you should not give a mantra to someone or you should not initiate someone who is part of a different lineage.

And we'll talk a little bit about as to why that's sensible and good.

So for a long time, I wasn't... being given initiation in the Ramakrishna mission, but I really wanted it.

I thought it would be like something that could really help me.

Also, my guru had died.

So, like, the question is this: Can I practice a text that I was not given by my grandfather? And can I practice a text that my current guru doesn't know about or hasn't himself practiced? That's one big part of the conversation on the internet regarding, like, my platform and my legitimacy.

There are people who are my guru bhaiys, people who are also initiated in the Ramakrishna Math and Mission.

Like, they look to my guru and they say, "I don't understand how you can be teaching Kaulachara or Vāmachara when your guru is a Vedāntācārya.

He doesn't teach any of these things." Now, first of all, this is incredibly presumptuous.

Like, I should stick to the Upanishads, Upanishad Na- uh, Upanishad Pramana, Vedanta Nama.

Vedanta is the study of the Upanishads.

So I should only teach Vedanta along the lines of Shankaracharya, which is what the Ramakrishna Math and Mission mainly does, of course, with an emphasis on Vivekananda's, like, take.

So I should just teach Vivekananda.