[Advaita-l] aruNa prashna & upanishad chanting in evening

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian prabhuji
Hare Krishna

The taittiriiya aaraNyakam clearly states "graame manasaa ... uta
vaaco ta tiShTan uta vrajan uta shayaano (!!) adhiiyiitaiva
svaadhyaayan tapasvii puNyo bhavati" etc (2.12). Sayana in his
explanation takes the literal view that svaadhyaaya can be done
sitting, standing, lying down(!!) .... The shatapatha braahmaNam has
very similar verses. The thrust of the yajus is that svaadhyaa however
done will result in "tapasvii puNyo bhavati". How do we reconcile this
explicit statement with other sources claiming "should be done in the
morning" etc? In the spirit of aanarthakya, either a) it refers to the
case when the chanting is done with a particular result in mind or b)
in order to get the best benefit, one has to be concentrated in mind
and so on. In this case time and other niyamas like taking bath will
help make the mind one-pointed, at least for the vast majority. So
such statements are an arthavaada for making the mind one pointed to
get the maximum benefit, and not an injunction against chanting vedas
whenever one can.

>  Thank you very much for your clarification prabhuji.  In fact, after 
reading those restrictions,   I was bit worried   because sometimes if I 
dont get sleep at night  I try to recall some veda maNtra-s by-heart, if I 
dont get it,   straight-away from the bed I go to my reading room and open 
the book and refer the relevant maNtra and try to memorize that maNtra by 
repetition.  Now, I can do that exercise without any doubt in my mind. 

Sorry, but your surprise is very surprising to me, to say the least
:-). You do remember that there are supposed sampradaayavits who
became that by dint of their own "midnight study" of 1200 year old
texts. So the mindset is very clear, is it not? If multiple
things/ideas can coexist inspite of some "text" (forget the fact that
the interpretation of the said texts may be wrong in the first place),
that opens a whole new can of worms - I hope the implication is clear.

>  prabhuji,  can you not stop hating  me ??  I buried the  hatchet  long 
back with your goodself prabhuji.  My hairs are already becoming grey and 
I dont want to leave this world with animosity with anyone.   I know I am 
from the camp, in which  you have uncompromising aversion.  But I request 
you to not to treat me as an representative of your rival camp, just treat 
me as a bAla sAdhaka who doubts everything due to, as you said,  multiple 
ideas co-existing in the turbulent mind.  Prabhuji-s like Sri vidya 
prabhuji, Sri Jaldhar prabhuji, Sri Ananda Hudli prabhuji, Sri Karthik 
prabhuji, Sri Subramanian prabhuji have seen enough of this poor soul and 
despite my ramblings on and off the list, they never hesitated to help me 
whenever I am in need. May I expect that generosity from your goodself 
also prabhuji?? If I dont deserve your friend atleast stop hating me 
prabhuji.. That is my sincere request to you.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar