[Advaita-l] Importance of sannyAsa for study of VedAnta

[bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com]

praNAms Sri Sanjay Srivastava prabhuji
Hare Krishna

SS prabhuji:

Some AchAryas actually hold this view. I remember visiting devAnanda
swami of uttar kashi in my college days and he maintained that study
of vedAnta by gruhasthas would give them pApa.

bhaskar :

Do our smruti texts / dharma shAstra-s say like this prabhuji??  or is it
swamiji's individual opinion??  Why I am asking this is, as you know, being
a dvija, it is mandatory to study sva-shAkha vEda...In vEda-s, we have
saMhita, brAhmaNa & AraNyaka portions, one has to study all these three
parts to complete the sva-shAkhA vEdAdhyayana..upanishads/vEdAnta normally
comes in the AraNyaka portion..if the vEdAntAdhyayana is prohibited for
gruhasthAshrami-s, we would have left out that portion of
vEda-s...Moreover, in saMhitA-s also we have few upanishads (for exp.
IshAvAsya ) but traditionally we are studying it all together. Nowhere,
atleast AFAIK, shAstra-s tell us vEdAnta studies is pApa kArya for
gruhasTha-s. Ofcourse, we know that vEdAdhyayana should be completed in
brahmacharyAshrama itself...but those who have not done these studies in
pUrvAshrama (brahmacharya) can do so being a house-holder under the
guidance of shrOtrIya guru.  Neither we can wait for the next janma to go
back to brahmacharyAshrama nor immediately take saNyAsa to shirk from the
family responsibilities to study vEdAnta is it not prabhuji??  What I am
trying to say here is *mumukshatva* is the key here, no matter where you
are, with all intensity we can straightaway start our brahmajignAsa.

SS prabhuji:

He would discourage his gruhastha students from coming to his vedAnta
classes that typically started at 3:00 AM in the morning and were finished
by sunrise.The
only exception he made was for Gita which he taught in the evenings and
considered appropriate for everyone.

bhaskar :

but in gIta also we do have shruti maNtra-s is it not??  you can find the
kaTOpanishat maNtra-s in gIta...can we accept it for studies since it is
appearing in a smruti text??


SS prabhuji:

Late paramAchArya of Kanchi and previous shringeri AchArya held that
the  study of vedanta by gruhasthas would at best give them some punya
but not brahma-jnAna. Apparently, there are others who do not take
such charitable view.

bhaskar :

shankara says in sUtra bhAshya that brahma jnAni can be there in both
saNyAsa as well as gAruhastyAshrama. He may be a emperor like Janaka, he
may be a gruhastha-maharshi like yAgnAvalkya, he may be a avadhUta like
shuka/ashtAvakra/dakshiNAmurthy, he may be a sanyAsi like our bhagavadpAda,
he may be a boy like nachikEta, he may be a shUdra like
vidhura/dharmavyAdha, he may be a avatAra puruSha like rAma/krishna or he
may be a *anAshrami* like ramaNa maharshi..so I dont think brahma jnAna
specifically meant for saNyAsi-s.

SS prabhuji:

And therefore later AchAryas such as Swami Vidyaranya had to clarify
that even a brahma-jnAni cannot be a jivanmukta unless he takes up
sannyAsa.

bhaskar :

kindly pardon me I am not able to get the difference between brahma jnAni &
jIvan mukta..prabhuji do you mean to say here brahma jnAni is inferior to
jIvan mukta??  Further, I donot know why should brahma jnAni bother about
taking up formal saNyAsa when he realized that he is akatru, abhoktru at
any point of time ??

praNAms onceagain
Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar