[Advaita-l] Sankara on sannyAsa for Steadiness in GYAna (was Re: Jivanmukti - Jnana plus Sannyasa pt 5)

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear friends,

Our shastras have explained some complicated issues thorugn anecdotes. Here is one, which may help this extended debate going on without any sight of solution. Once a rishiputra went to King Jnanaka for the final lessons on Brahmavidya, on his father's insistence. Janaka was busy with the queen and could not attend to the rishiputra and the latter went back. The rishiputra had to come back to Janaka at the insistence of his father. This time Janaka had the time to talk to the rishiputra. Janaka apologiged for not being able to attend to him on the earlier occasion and suggested that they talk after rishiputra takes his meal. A sumptuous meal was offered to him but a sword was hanging over his head while he was having his meal. At the end of the meal Janaka asked him as to how he enjoyed his meal. He said that as the sword was hanging over his head his attention was on that and not on the meal. Then Janaka told him that though he (Janaka) is busy in the
 material world his attention is only on the Brahman and not on anything of the material world. This was the final lesson on Brahmavidya or rather the application of the Brahmavidya while living in this world of matters.

Regards,

Sunil K. Bhattacharjya



--- On Wed, 10/21/09, Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <rama.balasubramanian at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Sankara on sannyAsa for Steadiness in GYAna (was Re: Jivanmukti - Jnana plus Sannyasa pt 5)
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 3:02 PM

On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 3:21 PM, S Jayanarayanan <sjayana at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Tue, 10/20/09, Bhaskar YR <bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com> wrote:
>
>> This is not ignorance but, quite
>> frankly, deliberate utterance of untruth.
>>
>>
>> praNAms
>> Hare Krishna
>>
>> 'A gratuitous personal attack' This is what ultimately one
>> can expect when
>> the deep rooted delusions attacked...Thanks for your
>> invaluable verdicts
>> on me prabhuji.
>>
>
> I do not see any personal attack here, just a statement of fact.
>
> Sankara says: "BrahmasaMstha is to be completely absorbed in Brahman, with no other occupation but to be established in THAT. THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR THOSE IN THE FIRST THREE ASHRAMAS."
>
> You maintain: "BrahmasaMstha IS POSSIBLE in the first three ashramas."
>
> Your position is diametrically opposed to Sankara's.
>
> At worst, you are willing to directly contradict Sankara whenever his commentary does not suit your taste.
>
> At best (if can be called "best"), Sankara is stressing on the need for sannyAsa to attain BrahmasaMstha, whereas you are downplaying it.

Kartik,

I am not sure if you got the joke here. Apparently Shyams comment is a
personal attack due to attack on "deep rooted delusions".
Bwhahhhhaaaa! This made my day. Here we have a clear cut statement
from Sankara and we have people mistaking purvapaxa arguments for
siddhaanta apparently attacking deep-rooted delusions. Only in the
internet :-).

Rama
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