Advaita Bhakti thro. Contemplative Practice of Narayaniyam (ABCPN - 8)(fwd)

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

Forwarded message from Savithri Devaraj

Thankyou, A beautiful post indeed !!

<..lots of good stuff deleted..>

> Tr.  Oh Lord of all the worlds! Even after
> developing revulsion to the
> extremely difficult life of adherence to Vedic
> ritualism and cultivating
> deep faith in the discipline of listening to Thy
> deeds and excellences, I
> am not able to abandon all the desires of my heart.
> I shall therefore try
> to overcome these by resorting to them with a
> discriminative mind that is
> fully aware of the harmfulness and is firmly fixed
> on Thee. I shall
> strengthen my devotion to Thee; for when You reside
> in the heart, worldly
> attachments perish in no time.

If Bhattadri says this, what to speak of wordly people
like us?

> So when temptations are there for the mind to stray
> away from its
> spiritual moorings, the only monitor for the
> discriminative mind is the
> Lord within. Even Sankara, for the benefit of us
> ordinary mortals, gives
> us strong forceful prayers, like the following one,
> that one can imbibe
> and make it come from one^s innermost heart. This
> one is Sloka No.20 of
> Sivananda-lahari:
> sadA mohATavyAm carati yuvatInAM kuca-girau
> naTaty-AshA-shAkhAsu aTati jhaTiti svairam-abhitaH /
> kapAlin bikSho me hr^idaya-kapim-atyanta-capalaM
> dR^iDhaM bhaktyA baddhvA shiva bhavad-adhInaM kuru
> vibho //
> meaning, Oh Lord Shiva, (The mind) constantly dwells
> on the sensualities
> of the woman^s form, and dances on the hopes and
> desires generated by such
> thoughts. Oh Lord with the skull as the begging
> bowl, please deign to bind
> my extremely fickle monkey-mind, tightly with (the
> rope of) devotion and
> make it  totally subservient to You!

When discrimination is off, I resort to the last
stanza of Shiva mAnasa pUja -

AtmA tvaM girijA matiH sahacarAH prANAH sharIraM
gruhaM
pUjA te vishayopa bhoga rachanA nidrA samAdhi stitiH
sancAraH padayoH pradaxiNa vidhiH stotrANi sarvA giro
yadyat karma karomi tattadakhilaM sambho tavArAdhanaM

The 2nd line - "the pleasures of my senses are verily
objects used in your worship!" - glory the genius of
Sankara to come down to the level of us mortals to
create such poetry.

Thanks again,
Savithri