[Advaita-l] Sandhyopasana - Savita

[chetan nagaraja]

Dear All,
      Advaita is a state of mind, not just a philosophy. If the mind is not
ready to concentrate on
the Para-Brahman, there is nothing wrong in keeping a diety. All medicines
do not work on all patients. You have to tune to that philisophy where your
mind is closer to. It does not make sense
on meditating on the Parabrhaman when your mind cannot perform to its best.
It is better to keep
a diety and in this case the Sun Lord.
The Sun is the source of everything that keeps us sustained on this earth.It
is the source of all energies [ except nuclear] , Source of rain, source of
gravitation to earth, the light of the moon. Infact it is the closest
representation of Advaita too - One energy manifested into many.

It is your comfort level. Not what is the best.
regards
Chetan



On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:11 PM, Sunil Bhattacharjya <
sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear Rameshji,
>
> Namaste,
>
> In Uttara Gita Lord Krishna says "Pratimā alpabuddhinām sarvatra
> samadarshinām". I think an advaitin may worship a deity in a pratima but
> sooner or later he realises that Brahman is everything including him and is
> everywhere and need not be imagined through a pratima. Nirakara can mean
> that there is no definable fixed akara and it need not necessarily mean
> non-existence.
>
> Regards,
>
> Sunil K. Bhattacharjya
>
> --- On Mon, 3/16/09, Ramesh Krishnamurthy <rkmurthy at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Ramesh Krishnamurthy <rkmurthy at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Sandhyopasana - Savita
> To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
> Date: Monday, March 16, 2009, 9:24 AM
>
> 2009/3/16 Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)
> <vidyasankar.sundaresan at ge.com>:
> >
> > The pratIka is an aid to concentrating the mind. If one has developed
> > the ability to concentrate on brahman without the use of an external
> > symbol, then one does not have to rely on it.
>
> I have never been quite able to appreciate the above point, though I
> have heard this from many people many times. It seems to imply that
> using a pratIka, perhaps a yantra or a vigraha, is somehow inferior to
> not using one. In other words, upAsanA of the nirAkAra is somehow
> above upAsanA of the sakAra.
>
> The point I am trying to make is that, at least as far as advaita is
> concerned, there is ultimately no such thing as an object of upAsanA.
> Within the dualistic realm however, the supposedly nirAkAra upAsya is
> as much an object as a sakAra upAsya. Otherwise, one would end up
> making the absurd claim that brahman is just a nirAkAra upAsya rather
> than the Atman! It does not make sense therefore, to say that one is
> "concentrating on brahman" just because a pratIka is not being used.
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-- 
Chetan

"Existence is a festival, Celebrate it"