[Advaita-l] Idea of Namaskaram

jaldhar at braincells.com jaldhar at braincells.com
Mon Dec 27 10:51:04 CST 2004


On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Navin Rajaram wrote:

> Kartik, could you kindly elaborate on why one ought not to show equal
> respect to all jIvas when in the presence of conceitful people? Is it
> the actual presence of such people that will sully the respect shown?
> Should we not show equal respect to all jIvas(without assuming higher
> moral ground) inspite of their blatant limitations as individuals ?
>

I had an idea about this.  My daughter Shailaja like many little girls
likes to play "Tea party" And everyone has to stop what they're doing and
play the game.  So one day we were playing and Shailaja made me some "tea."
I was in a hurry to get back to my work so I took my cup
and started "drinking."  Whereupon Shailaja said "No it's too hot. You
have to wait until it cools down."  So I had to pretend to  wait until my
imaginary tea cooled down before I could pretend to drink it.

In the same way, I think what Shankaracharya is saying here is that if you
want to play the game of worldly life, the game the conceited people play,
you have to play it properly.  This game has rules and you cannot pick and
choose which rules you want to follow.  But paramartha is a whole
different game.  There different rules apply.

Kartik: does the gautama dharma sutra refer to namaskara or abhivadanam?

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
It's a boy! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/nilagriva/



More information about the Advaita-l mailing list