[Advaita-l] Samit Pani, do we really have to stretch this ??

[Bhaskar YR]

As far as I am aware of, Upanishads say that, he who wishes to take 
Sanyasa
and practice Moksha-Sadhana, he must take samidha to the Guru. The Sticks
represent the Karmas of the Student. The Guru will burn the stick, their 
by
burning all the blocking Karmas of the Student. The ritual denotes that
Guru by burning the blocking Karmas of a student, now takes him along the
path to Moksha.

praNAms 
Hare Krishna

It is a good esoteric explanation indeed.  But I am really wondering do we 
really need symbolical explanations like this for each and every utterance 
of shruti?  I dont think so!!   we dont  have to read too much into 'samit 
pANi' issue, when 'vishaya' in this shruti statement is something else. 
This maNtra saying how important it is to have  a brahma nishTa guru in 
brahma jignAsa and indispensability of the shrOtreeya / brahmanIshTa guru 
in brahma jignAsa.  Here vishaya vAkya is not about : 'what  shishya 
should hold in his  hand or what he should  wear when approaching a guru, 
but here insistence and importance is all about having a brahma nishTa 
guru by a shishya in brahma jignAsa.  If I can give a loukika example,  if 
I say to someone : "yesterday I had been to Ashram with fruits to have the 
darshan & AshirvAdam of swamiji...nobody would in turn ask, why 'fruits' 
why not sweets/flower etc.   Because it is evident here in this statement 
that, 'yesterday',  'with fruits' in my hand etc. are 'gaUNa' vivaraNa and 
mukhya 'vishaya' is 'darshana of the guru'.  .  If the samit in the hand 
is the must for the shishya for brahma jignAsa, shruti would have insisted 
that invariably in other instances also like in taitireeya 'varuNam 
pitaramupasasAra' etc.  Hence, I think this 'samit pAni' is just a passing 
explanation by shruti and digging deep on this issue with a 'samit' in the 
pANi is not required :-))

Just my few thoughts on this and open for correction.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar