New member introduction: Venkateswara Swamy Swarna

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

Hara Hara Sankara, Jaya Jaya Sankara!!!

many thanks for the mail. The name given by parents is
Venkateswara Swamy and the family name is Swarna,
after a small village in Andhra. I am a telugu brahmin
by birth, a smartha by relgious beliefs. as you know
smarthas follow Sri Adi Sankara's path in worshipping
various Gods, including Vishnu, Siva, Sakti and
Ganapati etc. I saw the film by Sri GV Iyer and was
very much impressed. Also, since I fancy myslef  to be
an intellectual, Sankara's path of Knowledge appeals
to my ego and I hope to sublimate the ego finally so
that I realise the true nature of Myself.

By academic qualification, I am a Physicist, a
Metallurgist and am presently employed in Govt. of
India, Dept. of Atomic Energy, Nuclear Fuel Complex,
Hyderabad, India, as Manager, Quality Assurance. My
job is to assure the quality and involves fault
finding. So I keep looking at myself, my mind and my
actions to see that my own error rate comes down. Of
course, all thoughts of I, my and my errors arises
from Maya, but till we experience the Absolute it is
only an intellectual exercise.

Now I am 53 years old, married with wife and two
children. All my education has been anglicised and I
haven't studied Gita, Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and
other Standard works of Sri Sankara. But I do pick up
bits and pieces from here and there. I have also read
a bit about the other systems and try to synthesise my
own belief system with a broad perspective. I
presently feel that Bhakti and Jnana are the two
planks on which I can ride the Samsara Sagara! I am
also a devotee of Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi and find some
similarities in His teachings to Sankara's.

For the last 4 years, I have been in fairly close
contact with Sri Sri Sri Jagadguru Sankaracharya of
Sri Vidyaranya Peetham, Hampi, Hospet. Sri Vidyaranya
is regarded as Avatara of Sri Adi Sankara and was the
driving force behind setting up of the Vijayanagar
empire. He was a great Jnanai, Yogi and had the Grace
of Sri Maha Lakshmi. He also wrote extensively though
I haven't yet started any study of those. I am being
treated as a lay disciple by His Holiness Sri
Sankaracharya, but the kindness shown by His Holiness
is no less than what He bestows on formal Disciples.

Hari Om Tatsat. Sai Ram. Om Nama Sivaya. Om Sri Gurave
Namah!

swamy sv