[Advaita-l] 'Chants in Cyberspace' स्वदेशो भुवनत्रयम्

[V Subrahmanian]

Dear Sri Venkatesh Muthry,

It is one's personal perception.  We read and hear Shankaracharya's
bhashyas, verily 'instructions', the do's and don'ts of the Veda, etc.
through books, audios and even lectures or classes by personally attending
them.  Is it not a second  hand medium that we are exposed to?  Should the
effect of such instructions be any less for that matter?  Much depends on
how one tunes oneself to such things.

I do agree with you that the effect of having a Purohit in person is
something special.  You get to offer him a seat, bow down to him and offer
dakShiNaa treating him as 'AchArya'.  While compromising on so many other
things, this also gets into that category.  On popular pUjA days there is a
severe shortage of qualified priests and if one has to wait for a proper
priest it will be some 4 or 5 in the evening for that person to come to
your place if yours is the last one in his schedule.  Often priests also
rate their clients and accept only the 'most preferred' according to their
standards and refuse to come to the 'less preferred' one's house.

It is next best to learn the mantras, the procedures oneself and see that
the pUjA is performed without 'lopa'.  In my opinion what really brings
benefits is one's personal shraddhA.  Even with a purohita in person at the
venue if the people are lacking in shraddhA, do not repeat the mantra
properly, which is most often the case, there is not much benefit.  As they
say, since the purohita alone utters the mantras, only he gets the
benefit.

regards,
subrahmanian.v

On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Venkatesh Murthy <vmurthy36 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Namaste Sri Subrahmanian
>
> Sometime back there was some person saying if we play Mantras from
> cassettes and CD and do Pooja and other activities it is not correct.
>
> Some person said they did some experiments on Mantras from CD and
> priests saying without mikes. The effect of electronic Mantras is not
> same. There may be no benefits.
>
> Same objection may come here also. The Purohita is giving instructions
> but his voice is coming from electronic medium. It is not coming to us
> directly without any in between medium. Is it correct to take
> instructions like this? If correct we can also play Pooja Mantras and
> do Pooja according to them and it will be correct.
>
>