[Advaita-l] Re: A REQUEST FOR GUIDANCE.

[Abhishek RK]

Namaste,

On 7/18/06, Ramesh Krishnamurthy <rkmurthy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You are just shooting off your mouth to show how orthodox you are.


Attack the message, not the messenger :)

What is a christian lifestyle anyway? If you are talking about social
> work, then many sannyAsI-s do it. The Kanchi Math also does it. I
> think the Sringeri Math also supports some hospitals, schools,
> libraries, etc.


I am not talking about social service. I am talking about not performing
nitya karma. "Rituals" are not very popular in christianity, except perhaps
for Orthodox Christianity. Sitaram Goel also calls this organisation a
"Christian mission, for all practical purposes". Do you think he also is
shooting off his mouth?

If you are expecting all advaitin sannyAsI-s to behave in exactly the
> same way, thats unreasonable. The tradition is not a bunch of parrots.
> Different organizations have their own ways of doing things. The core
> tradition is the same; peripherals vary.


Well, as many in the list have emphasised (refer archives), advaita does not
exist in a vacuum.

In any case, why should a sannyAsI bother about karma-s? Does
> SankarAcArya teach karma-s in his writings? All he says is that if you
> are not a sannyAsI, you should practise karma-s. But to learn those
> karma-s you have to go elsewhere, not to a sannyAsI.


I am sorry, you are just not getting my point. All I am saying is sannyAsis
should not bother with karmas, especially not discourage it.

Translations/commentaries produced by the Ramakrishna Math say the same
> thing.
>
> Sadananda-ji was talking about learning vedAnta, not karma-s. I am not
> saying that karma-s are unimportant, but there are other sources from
> where one can learn them.


Adi Shankara says that vedanta has to learnt from one who is in the
sampradaya. Refer Gitabhashya.

Another thing to be kept in mind is that the audience of the
> Ramakrishna Math is different from that of Sringeri or other older
> maTha-s. Only a small fraction of our population has a family
> tradition of doing nitya karma-s, etc. What about the rest?


This is a biased view. That nitya-karmas are performed by "only a small
fraction" is simply not true (I guess you mean Brahmanas here).

Regards,
Abhishek

-- 
satyena dhAryate pR^ithvi satyena tapate raviH|
satyena vAti vAyushca sarvaM satye pratishThitam||

calA lakShmIshcalAH prANAshcalaM jIvita yauvanaM|
calAcale ca saMsAre dharma eko hi nishcalaH||