dharma

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

There is a saying "Who gives GOD a second place in life give Him no
place". In the recent discussions about "what defines a brahmaNa? some of
the duties were outlined.

With so much other [meaningless] thing to do many of us have given up our
dharma. This downfall is getting rapid with every new generation. Besides
feeling guilty, we should now atleast try for remedy. Many like me are
absolutely clueless about what is the basic minimum one has to do. In fact
I learnt a nice phrase (at shrI venkatesha mahima conference @ Pittsburg)
- abhachchAra chakravarthi. Despite the realization that we cannot do
anything perfect (in the eyes of God) at any point of time, an attempt to
do will by itself be a good thing. Atleast one should know what one is
supposed to do?  and what one is doing?  That leads me to this question:

What are the basic things (absolute minimum) a  brahmana should do
at the various stages of life like brahmachAri, gr^ihasta, vAnaprsatha and
a sannyAsi?


To define a brahmana it is so dificult. OTOH it is so sweet and nice to
define a bhakta. All one has to do is see bhagavAn in everything one does.
Whether a brahmaNa or not, may HER grace make us all bhaktAs

With Respects,
Ravi
mInalochani pAshamochani


=============
andaNanar enbOr aRavOr maRRevvuyirkkum
chenthaNmai pUNDozhugalAn  - thiruvaLLuvar

A brahmaNa is one who as his vratam and dharmam will have a benevolent
attitude towards all beings.  (Parimelazhagar's commentary on this very
nice to read)

>From  Fri Jun  5 20:14:05 1998
Message-Id: <FRI.5.JUN.1998.201405.0400.>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 20:14:05 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: What is adhikAra? (fwd)
Comments: To: Advaita-L <advaita-l at tamu.edu>
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Ram Chandran wrote:

>    Atharvaveda means the Veda of the Wise and the Old. It is associated
> with the name of the ancient Rishi Atharvan.  It is also called
> Atharva-Angirasa, being associated with the name of another rishi,
> Angiras. Although later in age, the Atharvaveda reveals a more primitive
> culture than the Rigveda.

Really, can you enlighten us your view of "culture"?

> Reference: "Vedavyasa" by Dr. K. M. Munshi, Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan,
> Bombay, India. (This is a great book about the life history of the
> greatest sage of India)

I have read a book by Munshi and if it's the same one (he repeated the
same story about atharva veda being primitive) it would be good to throw
the book into the trash can. In short, the guy has no common sense.

Rama.

>From  Fri Jun  5 21:06:53 1998
Message-Id: <FRI.5.JUN.1998.210653.0400.>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 21:06:53 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: What is adhikAra? (fwd)
Comments: To: Advaita-L <advaita-l at tamu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Ram Chandran wrote:

> Vidyasankar's scholarly and timely statement on "AdhikAra" has
> instigated more discussions and clarifications.  Recently, I completed
> reading the book "The Vedas" by Sri. Chandrasekharendra Saraswati

Thanks for posting the excerpts.

> It is time for me to stop my remarks and control my desire for the
> intellectual dialog.

I fail to see why you are always posting stuff against "intellectual
dialog". Were all the books quoted below written without any
intellectual thought? Wouldn't it be easy to say, "I experienced thus,
go experience it yourself, end of book"? Why would shrI sureshvara take
pains to use logic in his writings?

Simply because till one gets firm conviction one will not practice with
zeal. This is obtained only by using logical thought not otherwise. This
is not to say that one must keep on reading books. All teachers (not
restricted to advaita) make this clear. Practice along with studies is
absolutely necessary. See for eg, naishhhkramya siddhi. When you want to
know about brahman you go to shrI chandrashekharendra sarasvatIs book,
don't you? Obviously you used some discriminating intellect there, why
not go to some Heaven's gate cult or David Koresh instead? Why not
blindly follow your "heart" instead of engaging your intellectual
discretion? You may have the intuition to look for the correct teacher
without using your intellect (perhaps due to prArabdha karma). The rest
of us poor mortals have to exercise our intellects.

I find it very sad that you excersise your intellect to condemn the
great seers of the atharvaNa veda themselves as "primitive" (in another
post), but with montonous regularity put down "intellectual
discussions". It seems to me from such statements that you must be very
convinced of your intellectual powers. Please define "intellectual
discourse" so that we understand what you are talking about. In my view
a life without exercising the "intellect" is possible only for a GYAni
or a vegetable.

> Brahmasutras: Sarirakabhasya of Sankaracharya, Sribhasya of
> Ramanujacarya, Sutrabhasya of Madhvacharya, NimhbArkAcharya,
> VallabhAcharya, BaladevAcharya, SrikanthasivAcarya, Sripatipandita

[list of books deleted]

Rama.