[Advaita-l] A recent news item

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

> Namaste Sri Vidyasankarji,
> 
> Thank you indeed, for putting up this link. Swami Sri Swaroopananda
> Saraswatiji, the current Shankaracharya of Dwaraka and Jyotishpeeth,
> has now initiated a total of 5 sannyasis. 
> 
> Swami Sri Swaroopanandaji remains very active in spreading the message
> of Adi Sankara amongst His given realm, and upholding Sanatana Dharma.
> Apart from Chaturmas and a few other periods of the year, He travels
> intensely in remote rural areas, helping the poorer people, and never
> staying longer than three days. 
> 
> The Dwaraka and Jyotish peeths do not have as large a public profile
> as Sringeri, and hence, news about what goes on is not so readily
> available. So, we appreciate your posting of this item to the
> Advaita List.
> 
> Krishnadas

Thank you. Although a Tamilian by birth myself, I keep trying to highlight
to this list that the tradition of advaita vedAnta is not restricted to south India.
I find that many south Indians and even Western academic scholars seem to
think that the advaita vedAnta tradition begins and ends in south India.
Whereas the truth is otherwise. Also, in my opinion, the Sringeri Peetham
does not have a large contemporary public profile in the Indian news media,
and that is by design. What profile it does have in the public eye is more a
function of its historical importance, and not a result of cultivating journalists
and politicians, or giving out press releases and being in the news. 
 
Anyway, the important reason I posted this link is that in the person of Sri
G D Agarwal, who is now formally Sri Jnanaswarupananda Saraswati, we
have an example of someone whose profession was as an environmental
scientist/engineer, who also has kept up a clear philosophical and religious
orientation in his effort to keep the major Indian rivers clean and sustainable.
He does not seem to think that the Hindu Shastras have "scientific" answers
to an issue such as cleaning up the Ganga from the untreated wastes being 
poured into it, nor does he seem to think that modern science has all the
answers to the common weal in India. In the midst of all the angst that we
seem to have about advaitic jnAna and bhakti and science and how/whether
we apply all of them to the communities we live in, here is someone whose
life, ideas and motivations we should all probably study a bit more closely.
 
Regards,
Vidyasankar