[Advaita-l] SAstra vAsana

[Prasad Balasubramanian]

namasthe,

  I've a question on Sastra vAsana - the
attachment to studying scriptures.

In jIvan mukthi vivEka, Acharya says that
it is not possible to study all the Sastras 
and the more we learn, it becomes only a burden. 
He gives examples of Rishi durvAsA and others who want to 
gain knowledge in more and more 
fields but are made to know that this gaining 
of knowledge in various domains only becomes a burden
and will not help in realizing the brahman. 
Acharya says that one who aims at realizing brahman 
should remove this SAstra vAsanA completely.  

But simulataneously, many Acharyas preach
that learning should be continuous and 
should go on until the last moment as
any kind of knowledge gained will not go
unused. They as well preach that if the
knowledge gained in this janma goes unused,
it will certainly be useful in the forth
coming janmas.

 Both these seem to be contradictory. When 
and how does one come to the conclusion that
one is done with his studying the SAstras.
Though one is in the path of realizing brahman,
how long should he be studying SAstras and when
does he put an end to it ? 

namasthe
Prasad


____________________________________________________________
Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail!
http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005