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CONTEMPORARY VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY, CONTINUED
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is not opposed to the ordinary faculties of intelligence, feeling, and will, but underlies them. The mystic path involves first morality based on our own efforts, secondly God's loving us by grace, but because we are good, finally our loving God. The principal criterion of the reality of mystical experience is the individual's increased moral and social sensitivity. Since retiring from teaching, Ranade has devoted himself primarily to meditation, several hours a day. Unlike many Hindu mystics, however, he makes no claims to advanced experiences; he told me that he had never yet enjoyed the "unitive experience" described by the great saints.
As a guru“ he maintains, in opposition to a view commonly held, that the disciple must seek and choose his guru, that the guru does not seek the disciple. He expects his disciples, following his own life-long practice, to spend three hours a day in meditation. Morning, noon and night the disciples in residence gather to chant hymns to the guru, and when Ranade has completed his own devotions a bell calls them to assemble for a reading, lecture, or discussion. The guru's principal work, however, is the individual instruction of each disciple according to his own ability, and whatever spiritual progress each one makes he attributes to the guru's grace. In a country where philosophy has always been associated with guruship, but where, as many persons told me, there are a hundred false gurus for every true one, Professor Ranade is carrying on the institution of the true guru in the grand tradition of India.
Conclusion...
Of the eight contemporary Vedanta philosophers discussed in these articles, K. C. Bhattacharya, K. Bhattacharya, Murti, Chaudhury, and Malkani represent the school of Advaita (monism), Ranade and Das (in his speculative stage) represent Visishtadvaita
42 I was told that he has about 2000 disciples in different parts of India, but have no idea how accurate this figure is. Disciples in residence at the ashram when I visited it varied in social status from a raja to an outcaste, and included professors, doctors, lawyers, government officials, and business men.
