[Advaita-l] FW: Pratyavaaya paapam

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

From: svidyasankar at hotmail.comTo: kuntimaddisada at yahoo.comSubject: RE: [Advaita-l] Pratyavaaya paapamDate: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 08:47:23 -0700

Dear Sri Sadananda, On a list like ours, I would like to make general commentsand would hesitate to comment upon any particular person'syogArUDhatvam or otherwise. You are correct that it alldepends on the person's adhikAra, but I am not going tojudge anybody's adhikAra here. You are also correct thatthere are surely gradations in adhikAra among gRhastha-s. I find the argument about internal mindset and belief aboutrituals to be on the brink of a dangerous slope. One couldconceivably justify all kinds of things with such an argument.In my understanding, adhikAra is about a little more than aninternal mindset. For example, one person may not believein performing the ritual of nAmakaraNa, but can that internalmindset justify a choice never to name his child? For the sake of functioning in this world, he will have to choose aname, or else he cannot even get the child admitted to aschool. He could choose to simply to register a name on abirth certificate, but at its core, isn't the process of gettingsuch a certificate merely a secular ritual? So long as onelives within society, one submits one's behavior to a set ofvalues, whether one likes it or not. As for the question, why should a gRhastha take to bhoutikasaMnyAsa, if he has yogArUDhatvam, I can only point to thepractice of millenia. Beginning with the upanishadic accountof yAjnavalkya, we have the practice of gRhastha-s formally renouncing the world. Granted, the transition from gRhasthato vAnaprastha to saMnyAsa is an ideal that over the lastfew centuries has been honored more in the breach than inthe observance. However, yad yad Acarati SreshThaH ... ...On the specific discussion of pratyavAya pApa in the bhAshyaon taittirIya upanishad, let me pick it up separately in anotherpost.Best regards,Vidyasankar  

Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. See Now
_________________________________________________________________
See how Windows Mobile brings your life together—at home, work, or on the go.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/msnnkwxp1020093182mrt/direct/01/