Introduction - Chirag S. Mehta (fwd)

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 23:25:43 -0500
From: "Chirag S. Mehta" <chiragm at email.msn.com>
To: "Ravisankar S. Mayavaram" <msr at isc.tamu.edu>
Subject: Introduction - Chirag S. Mehta

Namaste to ALL members on the Advaita Vedanta List.

I respectfully bow to the Eternal Light in all of us.  May the teachings
of the Divine Master Adi Shankaracharya guide us all to the timeless
plentitude of Being, to the silence divine, to Saccidananda, indeed to
our very true nature, to Brahman.

Let me briefly introduce myself, my material self, as living in this world,
the self as being under the influence of Avidya, and as being within the
domain of Maya.  I shall refrain from getting into the technicalities now.

My name is Chirag S. Mehta and I am a senior software engineer, living
in Boca Raton, FL, with my wife and 18 month old daughter.  I have been
reading the Advaita Vedanta Home Page periodically for some time now,
and I truly feel that it is a wonderful initiative taken up by Vidya, Ravi,
and
all of you learned members, whose postings I read quite often.

In India, I am from Ahmedabad, where I grew up in a very loving, cultured,
and religious environment, which I am indebted to, since spiritual
cultivation
should preferably begin as early as possible.  We worship Lord Shiva and
Goddess Amba.  Around the time I was nineteen, I started reading the works
of Swami Vivekananda, after which started my search for the Truth.  Over the
next ten years, and amidst coming to the US, working on my Masters and
getting my MBA, I read many other books on Vedanta.  This included many
different types and categories, but it all culminated in the Divine Master's
interpretation of Advaita Vedanta.  I found in the end, after years of
reading,
introspection, intuition, prayer and meditation, to whatever limited degree
that
I could do all of these, that for me, the teachings of all other faculties
and schools
of Vedanta were gradually subrated, and the Divine Master was indeed the
path
to the Truth.

Please understand, that I have great reverence for Shri Ramanujacharya and
his
Vishishtadvaita school of belief, and of course Shri Madhavacharyaa and his
Dvaita teachings.  These are but different paths the rivers travel to
finally reach
the ocean of Saccidananda.  Also, I am always respectful towards other
schools
like Samkhya, Mimamsa, Nyaya-Vaisesika, etc., but I firmly believe in
Advaita
Vedanta, and specifically in the Vivartavada school of thought with regards
to
Brahman and the world.  I am also very interested in the Divine Master Shri
Gaudapadacharya's works, after all, Adi Shankaracharya refers to him as the
"teacher's teacher", and upon reading the Gaudapadakarikas, one realizes
why.
Allow me to put my favourite verse from the Gaudapadakarikas (Book II,
31-38):

 "All these things that people construct on the basis of the jiva appear
 as the objects of dreams and illusion do.  Nothing originates or
disappears,
 no one is in bondage, no one seeks anything, liberation or anything else,
 there are no liberated ones - this is the highest truth (paramarthata)."

I sincerely hope to learn from all friends, and to share my thoughts with
them in
the process.  After all, we are all birds with our feet tied by a string to
the perch.
Some strings are longer, some shorter, and we all try to fly off and away,
only to
be reminded, sooner or later, by the inevitable harsh tug, that we are still
attached
to our perches.  The point is not to compare the lengths of the strings, but
to cut off
these strings of Avidya and fly away into the beautiful open skies of Bliss
where we
truly belong.

I thank you all for taking the time to read my introduction.  Let me end
with this
very simple verse from the Taittiriya Upanishad, III, 1, 1.

 "Crave to know
 that from which all beings take birth,
 that from which being born they live,
 that towards which they move, and
 into which they merge.
 That is Brahman."

With Sincere Regards to All,

Chirag S. Mehta.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 "brahma satyam jagan mithya jivo brahmaiva na'parah"
"Brahman is real, the world is illusory, the self is not different from
Brahman."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>