[Advaita-l] How to control the mind (without meditation)?

[Ramesh Krishnamurthy]

2009/3/12 Bhadraiah Mallampalli <vaidix at hotmail.com>:
<<All this effort is only to analyze the role played by devas in
advaita. Often advaitists say, Adi Sankara "also" worshipped his
favorite deva/devis in addition to practice of advaita; Advaita "also"
support Shrutis etc. These are merely redundant statements besides the
point. There are direct statements of Shruti well discussed and
accepted by Sankara, that deal with devas and still maintain supremacy
of advaita.>>

Frankly, I am unable to see any coherence in all your material on
devatA-s. First of all, I am unable to see why upAsanA of devatA-s
should be looked upon as anything apart from "practice of advaita".
Any kind of activity, whether mental or physical, is in vyavahAra, and
therefore any so-called "practice of advaita" (by which I suppose you
mean shravaNa, manana, nidhidhyAsana) is as dualistic as devatA
upAsanA.

Ultimately, advaita is about seeing or recognizing the non-duality of
all phenomena even though they appear different. upAsanA can be an
effective tool for this, just as many other tools.

Ramesh