[Advaita-l] Adi Sankara's comment about Prayascitta Karma and Sureshvaracharya's comment about Nitya Karma

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Hari Om, Venkatesh-ji,


On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 9:00 AM, Venkatesh Murthy <vmurthy36 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Some questions.
>
> How can Citta Suddhi be there when there are sins? Is Citta Suddhi
> different from removing bad karma? What is Citta Suddhi? What is bad
> karma? What is sin?
>
> Fast answer is this is all Maya but I like different answer.
>
>
One of the doshas of any karma is it provides adRShTa phala in the form of
bandhatva or dependence on it. Over a period of continuous karma (sinning),
such result is vAsana. So if its some sin one knows having committed of, one
may trap it before it becomes a vAsana by performing prAyascitta, which
would also provide for citta shuddhi. However, the sin by itself may not
cause ashuddha citta, based on the state of the mind, involvement therein or
the sin itself.

Another point I want to make is that a sAdhaka may want to develop titikshA
which requires him to undergo the effects of his past karma and endure them
(possibly without prAyascitta).


gurorarpaNamstu,
--Praveen R. Bhat
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