[Advaita-l] bAwA nI langoTI (was Samit Pani)

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

Last response for now on Samit Pani topic...

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013, kuntimaddi sadananda wrote:

> There seems to be total
> misunderstanding here about what sanyaas means.

I'll say!

> Giving up the attachments does not mean neglecting the BMI needs as 
> required by prakRiti.

It most certainly does.  As you know, one of the shaDopaya for all serious 
mumukshus which I hope includes all sannyasis is titikShA.  And what is 
the definition of titikShA?  shItoShNAdidvandvasahanaM titikShA 
"endurance is the ability to withstand the dualities _such_as_heat_and_cold 
etc." (from vedanta paribhasha.)

If there happens to be a fire burning I would not grudge a poor bhikshu 
its warmth but he should not be demanding it from others as samitpani 
suggests.


> Giving  up involves giving up the reality assumed to the BMI
> and the world.

In other words he should give up the idea his BMI is cold no? :-)  What is 
that other than an attachment?

> BMI needs to be taken care of just as we take
> care of the car – Without BMI he cannot even teach.  With shivering body
> in cold – neither the teacher can teach nor the student can listen.
> Sanyaasi can be very active in the world or inactive not even teaching
> shaastras

It starts of innocently enough and then...

On Tue, 29 Oct 2013, balagopal ramakrishnan wrote:

> These days, instead of 'samit', an android phone with a working internet
> connectivity to a 'realised guru' who can guide one through the maze of
> 'samsara' aided by the 'sastra' and grace of god should do the work


This reminds me of the Gujarati folk tale mentioned in this posts title. 
A bawa or baba is the term for those saintly people who can still be found 
in punyabharat who may not know necessarily know the niceties of 
shastrarth or be well known outside of their villages but who exemplify 
the ideal of vairagya described by Shankaracharya in kaupIna pa~nchaka. 
A wandering ascetic who thinks only of brahman.  Who lives on the bhiksha 
he can accept in his hands not even owning so much as a begging bowl. 
Who wears nothing but the holy bhasma and a loincloth (kaupIna in 
sanskrit, langoTI in Gujarati.)

Once there was this bawaji who wore nothing at all.  But he was 
convinced by his bhaktas to atleast wear a langoti for proprieties sake. 
So he agreed.  But one day he found that mice were making holes in the 
cotton of his langoti.  So he decided to get a cat to drive away the mice. 
But the cat wanted milk to drink so he decided to get a cow to provide it. 
But then he found that the cow demanded a lot of time for milking, being 
led to pasture etc.  He decided to get married so his wife could mind the 
cow while he was doing his sadhana.  Soon his wife had a son and 
eventually the boy had to be sent to school.  But the teacher wanted 
tuition money.  So the bawaji got a job to earn some money...

And it goes on.  Like all good folk stories a master story teller can spin 
this one to epic proportions.  In one variant, the now quite elderly bawa 
is a wealthy and powerful man living in a magnificent palace who 
gradually loses everything in the end winding up naked once again before 
he realizes the moral of this story: desire can never be quenched by 
desire because it only leads to more desire.

Yes you can do good with an android phone or a fire or maybe even a 
website.  If you feel that way then follow the pravR^itti mArga as taught 
in the shAstras and by all means do good.  But realize your actions will 
never cease to breed more and more actions trapping you in an endless 
round of birth and death.  The only escape from that is to take the 
nivR^itti mArga and renounce 100% all actions.  There is no in between 
path.  And giving desire a fancy name like BMI wont help you.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>