Was Sri Atmananada celibate by the way?

Ananda Wood: No, Sri Atmananda was not celibate. He was a traditional householder, with a wife who bore him two sons and a daughter. And he spoke of himself explicitly as a householder teacher rather than a renunciate sannyasi.

Do you know if he ever spoke about celibacy, brahmacharya or suggest that his disciples practice this?

So far as I know, he wasn’t too keen on such practices.

What about his take on sex, post liberation, moksha and so on?

Ananda Wood:  Sri Atmananda was a very liberal sort of man who discouraged spiritual seekers from changing their way of life. The whole point of his Direct Method is for a seeker to focus on Truth itself, rather than on changing one's way of life. He encouraged his householder disciples to carry on with their marital and sexual and family relationships.

One of his prominent disciples, John Levy, was homosexually inclined and had an affair with another disciple David MacIver. Some Malayali disciples were a little puzzled by this and asked Shri Atmananda about it. He simply told them that these were were people with different samskaras which they had to work through accordingly.

He did have some disciples with yogic and renunciatory inclinations, but went out of his way to emphasize that these were not necessarily nor even ordinarily suitable for householders.

When John Levy was having this homosexual affair with another disciple, was this while he was still going through the direct path process, or was this after he had completed the process?

Ananda Wood: John, as I understand it, the direct path has two aspects. One is the meeting of a disciple with the Guru. If the disciple is ready for it, the disciple is taken then and there to the truth itself uncompromised, in all its completeness and purity. Sri Atmananda spoke of this as a 'visualization' of the truth. It is an immediate visualization in which the root of ego has been cut, irrevocably. In this immediate visualization, no ego then remains, so that the truth is experienced plain and clear.

But, in the disciple’s character, some egotistical impurities may still remain. And these remaining impurities may come to the surface and get reasserted later on, As they get reasserted in the course of time, the disciple may seem to lose some of the clarity and completeness of the initial visualization imparted by the Guru.

Then the disciple has to reflect again, through further questions and arguments, towards the complete and pure visualization that was imparted by the Guru. By carrying on thus, repeatedly reflecting back to truth in different situations in the course of life, a disciple's character gets progressively purified: so that the disciple gets more and more established in plain and simple truth. It's through such establishment that a saddhaka disciple may get to be an established and realized sage.

I would say that John Levy's homosexual affair may well have played its part in the process of his establishment in non-dual truth. Just like any other of his experiences in the course of life.

If you want to know more about John Levy as a disciple of Shri Atmananda's who went on to become a teacher in his own right, you might try accessing the following URL.

www.ods.nl/am1gos/am1gos5/jl_vriend_us.html

I  read that “John Levy (died 1976) was a British mystic, artist, and musician, best known for translating the works of his guru Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon, Atma Darshan and Atma Niviriti into English.  www.brahma-jnana.com/biblioteka/Atmananda.pdf . Born into a wealthy aristocratic family, Levy was an expert in Asian folk music, especially that of India. At one point in his life, he gave up his entire fortune and went to live in India with only a loincloth.”

Ananda Wood: John Levy did not translate Atma Darshan or Atma Nirvriti into English. Sri Atmananda translated these works himself. I know this because my father, Evelyn Wood, played some small part in editing and typesetting them.

Did Sri Atmananda ever express a conflict with his position as a governmental police officer whose conventional duty was to uphold the law of the land and his views on Advaita Vedanta and the issue of homosexuality?

Ananda Wood: No, I don't think so. Travancore was far too civilized to waste time and effort in such pettiness,

Do you mean the Kingdom of Travancore?

Ananda Wood: Yes. What people did in the privacy of their homes and families was not much the business of the police.

When you said earlier “By carrying on thus, repeatedly reflecting back to truth in different situations in the course of life, a disciple's character gets progressively purified: so that the disciple gets more and more established in plain and simple truth. It's through such establishment that a saddhaka disciple may get to be an established and realized sage.”

Do you mean in the sense of someone like Ramana Maharshi, a kind of saint, who no longer acts out on their samskaras, or someone who has the knowledge?

Ananda Wood: Ramana Maharshi was not basically devotional bhakta or saint but rather a jnyani established in true knowing.

Did Sri Atmananda ever speak of stages of enlightenment or stages of realization? If there were, did he map these stages out in any way with markers of some kind, such as behavior, fetters and so on?

Ananda Wood: I'd say he spoke more of truth and various prakriyas or ways of getting there.

I ask this because in some other traditions, they use a fetters model to gage how liberated one is. So if one has sensual desires of any kind, not completely celibate, they would still be considered in samsara. Still not completely free?

Ananda Wood: When truth is finally attained completely free and uncompromised, It is ridiculous to speak about degrees of it.

For example, a traditional Vedantin informed me about a case of a western contemporary advaita teacher was going to some holy place in India and in the morning he would visit the prostitutes and then at night he would give satang. If someone were behaving in this manor, what would that indicate in terms of the direct path teachings?  *

Ananda Wood: I'd say that the direct path is primarily concerned with asking for truth, as that pure knowing which has no changing acts or practices mixed into it. The emphasis there is on knowing truly, by asking back to that which knows, unmixed with any show produced by changing acts and happenings.

The asking there is for that changeless self which everyone already is quite independent of what one does through changing personality. Enlightenment is not an act, but rather a realization of what one already is, completely innocent and uncompromised.

It is the natural state of everyone's own truth of self, completely uncompromised by any acts that seem to mask its faultless perfection, its spontaneous nature and its pure peace and clarity.

So do keep throwing all the dirt and dissatisfaction you can find at it. Even this petty-minded throwing of dirt must finally take you back there.

Do you know if Sri Atmananda also taught the lower castes such as the Dalits, “untouchables” the direct path?

Ananda Wood: Not much that I know of in particular. On the direct path, it is the sincerity of love for truth that is required. Not any ritual restrictions like untouchabillity.

If one can be fully realized as a house holder, be non celibate and attain complete realization, then what is the point of the monastic system with Adi Shankara and so on?

Ananda Wood: I would say that monastic systems like Shri Shankara's were suited to their times and societies.