[Advaita-l] ***UNCHECKED*** RE: Qualifications and Life style choices for a modern educated youth

[Sujal Upadhyay]

Namaste,

To add to the above explanation of point #2, I would like to add that for
choosing a successor of the peetham, both scholarlyness and inner purity is
necessary. Hence the divine intervention is necessary in choosing the
successor. I feel that Jagadguru also has divine eyes which help him see
the past and may be past lives of his disciples. Afterall not all become
eligible to become a Shankaracharya :)

Sri Abhinav Vidyatirtha's guru Sri Chendrashekhar Saraswati III didnt much
cared about the activities going on in matha and so his disciple had to
take care of it.

OM

Sujal

"To disconnect from the self and to become Aware of anything else is
nothing but unhappiness" - Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi

He who has faith has all
He who lacks faith, lacks all
It is the faith int he name of lord that works wonders
FAITH IS LIFE, DOUBT IS DEATH - Sri Ramakrishna

On Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at 12:37 AM, Vidyasankar Sundaresan via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> Dear Sri Srikrishna,
>
> I will answer to the best of my ability about specifics.
>
> 1. An institution like the Sringeri Peetham, being a highly traditional
> one with a long history, needs
> a leader who combines depth in vaidika learning, SAstra scholarship, high
> levels of qualification in
> the well known sAdhana catushTaya, and nowadays, a bunch of additional
> secondary qualities as
> well. There are so many social, cultural and political expectations that
> people have on the head of
> such an institution, which don't bear much relation to the central
> traditional criteria for a saMnyAsin
> who has also to be a maThAdhipati. Fortunately, in the case of Sringeri,
> successive AcArya-s have
> been very careful in their choice of successor. Through the last century,
> the AcArya-s have also had
> the experience of routine education in regular schools, but have chosen,
> at a very young age, to
> focus their energies outside the usual career trajectories that the rest
> of us have chosen.
>
> 2. At Sringeri, the candidate for succession is chosen from among those
> who have an aptitude
> for traditional SAstra learning at a young age, in addition to standard
> vedAdhyayana. By that, I
> mean those who study saMskRta in depth and go on to study nyAya/tarka
> before getting into
> mImAMsA and vedAnta. Typically, it is someone who has intelligence,
> discipline and scholarship,
> along with demonstrating to the current AcArya's satisfaction that he is
> capable of meeting the
> highest standards in saMnyAsa dharma. Some of the upanishads would have
> already been learnt,
> as part of vedAdhyayana, but indepth vedAnta learning happens after the
> saMnyAsa dIkshA, which
> includes mahAvAkyopadeSa. Think of the rest of the training as part of
> nididhyAsana, if you will.
>
> 3. For people who come to advaita vedAnta without the benefit of a very
> traditional educational
> pathway, but with the benefit of a more modern education, there are
> multiple choices available.
> Most people who get involved deeply with the Ramakrishna Math, Divine Life
> Society, Chinmaya
> Mission and Arsha Vidya Gurukulam have such backgrounds and some among
> them go on to
> saMnyAsa also. In these cases too, it takes an enormous amount of
> discipline and time to build a
> Guru Sishya relationship for adhyAtma learning to mature. (I don't much
> like to use the English word
> spiritual in this context.)
> 4. Re: technology usage, yes, multiple adaptations to change have been
> made historically, but
> not without other sorts of consequences. Addressing a larger audience than
> two hundred years
> ago using microphones and broadcasting technology or using cars to travel
> is one thing. Using
> email and social media seems like an entirely different thing altogether
> and the Sringeri AcArya
> is very selective about personally using them, and for very good reason.
> These technologies
> require users to become deliberately bahirmukha in everyday behavior, as a
> result of which we
> are all becoming even more entrenched in what the kaThopanishad describes
> as parAn^ paSyati
> nAntarAtman. We are constantly directing our attention outwards, to the
> multiple objects, actual
> and virutal, that attract our attention, to the not-Self. In contrast,
> advaita sAdhana requires what
> sureSvarAcArya calls cittasya pratyak pravaNatA, an inward vision, an
> orientation that turns away
> from external objects. So I'm afraid that our expectations about eager
> adoption of the latest
> technologies with smartphones, email, twitter and facebook can be
> fundamentally at odds with
> the traditional discipline required of a newly initiated saMnyAsin, which
> is what I can guarantee
> the Sringeri AcAryas, both current and designate, will be very concerned
> about over the next few
> years.
>  Best regards,Vidyasankar
>