[Advaita-l] Wearing religious marks

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, S Venkatraman wrote:

> Please forgive my ignorance; what is tripundra?
>

You probably know it by some other name.  It is the three horizontal lines
of bhasma (ash) warn by smartas as a tilaka.  (And Shaivas which has led
many to erroneously conclude that all Smartas are Shaivas which is not
true.)

This shloka which we say when we do tripundra dharana explains its meaning:

Fire is ash, air is ash, water is ash, earth is ash, ether is ash,
Everything is ash, mind and these eyes are ash.

When a fire burns something, ash is the essence that could not be burned.
When the fire of knowledge burns maya, Brahman is the essence that
remains.

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