[Advaita-l] Sringeri Jagatguru announces His Successor

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2015, Sujal Upadhyay via Advaita-l wrote:

> I do not understand that instead of getting happy on hearing this news,
> some are always questioning.

This is the modern Indian culture D.V.N Sharma wants to us to adopt.  Only 
one in a hundred actually does anything and as soon as he does the othe 99 
line up to lecture him about how hes doing it wrong.  For those who want 
India and Indian culture to flourish it is worth contemplating how we got 
to this state but Advaita-l is not the right place for it.

On Wed, 7 Jan 2015, Sujal Upadhyay via Advaita-l wrote:

> We have become slaves of technology. My nephew will play games on mobile
> instead of enjoying the company of family members when we are out for a
> dinner in a nearby hotel. His parent and grandparent (got to mention them
> too ;) ) will not object his behavior. Even when someone visits our house,
> youngsters and even some (modern) elders will have a look at their mobile
> every 10 minutes.

What you describe is uncomfortably close to my life situation :-)  I 
myself am often lectured for checking email on my cellphone while driving 
for instance.  You are right that it is an addiction and something a 
sadhaka must overcome like any other addiction.  I think younger 
generations do in some ways have a more balanced view of technology 
though.  As I write this, I have my daughters ipod in my desk drawer. 
She said "I have a big project for school this weekend and this will only 
distract me so take it and don't give it back to me until Sunday."  (She 
is also the one who will scold me for unsafe driving habits. :-)

And we must acknowledge as D.V.N Sharma was perhaps trying to say albeit 
in an unsuccessful way that technology can be useful in propagating 
samskriti too.  My son is a big watcher of youtube videos.  Mostly of the 
quality that leaves his parents shaking their heads at how someone could 
waste so many hours watching but he also recently discovered that all the 
episodes of B.R. Chopras' Mahabharat TV series from the 80s are available 
so he started watching that.  Then we began watching with him as a family. 
He has to write an essay about a book at school so now he is reading C. 
Rajagopalacharis English translation of the Mahabharat.  When he has 
questions about a particular character or story I help him research it in 
the Gujarati and Sanskrit Mahabharat editions we have.  But all the videos 
and books in the world would not have helped if my boy didn't have an 
underlying reverence for dharma which I am proud to say he does despite 
being a 3rd-generation Gujarati-American.  My wife and I tried to 
inculculate these values in our children not by the kind of "Our glorious 
heritage" lectures I was subjected to as a child but by demonstrating 
those values in our own lives

And to bring things back to the beginning this is the value to me of 
knowing about saints like Shringeri acharya.  His "job" is only to live an 
exemplary Vedic life. And by doing so he gives me a model to live my life. 
Maybe I might never reach that standard but he challenges me to try.  And 
if I try than my future generations will see that it is worth trying.


-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>