[Advaita-l] Advaitic Foods

[V Subrahmanian]

Here is one shloka which is especially directed to spiritual aspirants and
is often recited and taught by the Advaita Acharyas.  I do not know the
source of this verse:

दिने दिने  च वेदान्तश्रवणात् भक्तिसंयुतात् ।
गरुशुश्रूषया लब्धात् कृच्छ्राशीतिफलं लभेत् ॥

diney  diney cha vedAntashravaNAt bhakti-samyutAt
gurushushrUshayaa labdhaat kRcchraasheeti phalam labhet

By engaging every day in Vedanta shravaNa sincerely coupled with the service
to the Guru, one will get the (chitta-cleansing) fruit of performing eighty
kRcchra rituals/observations.

Performing of just once the Kricchra praayashcitta is considered extremely
tiresome, painful.  So, the above verse assures vedanta sadhakas that the
pratibandhaka, obstacle, born of pUrva paapa karma that obstructs the dawn
of knowledge or even progress in sadhana, is removed by sincerely engaging
in vedanta vicharaatmaka sadhana with the grace of the Guru.

By quoting the above I am not suggesting that no prAyashchittam is
required.  I want to know what 'kRcchra' is.  Since Jaldhar ji has mentioned
'chAndrAyana', and since it is said that kRcchra and chAndrAyana are two
most severe prAyaschitta karma-s, I thought I will pose this question.

Best regards,

v.subrahmanian

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Dec 2010, Krunal Makwana wrote:
>
>  Jai Sri Krsna
>>
>> Namaste members,
>>
>> I have recently got married and had gone to Singapore for my honeymoon.
>> Unfortunately I had ordered a vege dish but unfortunately I had later
>> learned after I had consumed a few spoons that he dish had prawn oils in it.
>> Needless to say I'm a pure vegetarian and have been for a great part of my
>> life. I'm really upset about what happened and have deeply repented my
>> actions. is there any official ritual i must perform for this sin I have
>> committed?
>>
>
> Dear Krunal, Jai Shri Krishna,
>
> I will respond to this thread at greater length later but I just wanted to
> address your question as tomorrow is a good opportunity to rectify your
> mistake.
>
> The Chandrayana that Satish mentioned is a vrata where one lives only on
> rice for a whole month.  You take one mouthful on the padvo, 2 on bij, 3 on
> trij and so on until 15 on poonam.  Then you decrease by one mouthful every
> day until amasa when you fast totally for the whole day.  Needless to say
> this is very arduous.  However, 1.  Such a penance only has to be made by a
> dvija (na shUdre pAtakaM kiMchit "A shudra never becomes an outcaste [by
> eating forbidden foods.]" - Manu smrti 10.126) 2. in any case it only
> applies to intentionally eating ashuddha food.  I was present once when go.
> va. Krishnashankar Shastriji was asked the same question.  His reply was
> that one should do nirjala upvasa for one day and recite 10 malas or more of
> dvadashakshari (i.e. OM namo bhagavate vAsudevAya.)  So as you are probably
> doing agiarash tomorrow anyway just make it as rigorous as possible and do
> the dvadashakshari jap.
>
> I would also add that dAn (charity) of any sort is a surefire insurance
> against any offences we may have accidently caused.  I try and make some
> sort of dan every day.
>
>
> --
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
>
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