nirvanasatkam talks Blog by Rishi Vasanth

nirvanasatkam talks Blog by Rishi Vasanthnirvanasatkam talks

Doubtingtom Thomas

"So I can safely say that Nirvāṇaṣaṭkam was not composed by Śaṅkara. If he had responded like this to his guru, he was not in need of a guru then."

"He would have attributed the authorship to Śaṅkara Bhagavatpāda."

We need to rewrite Shankara Digvijaya; or else, we have missed some subtle point here.

Mirabai went to Guru Ravidas asking him to accept her as his disciple. He said, as a rule, he would not accept female disciples. She retorted saying she thought only Krishna was Purusha and everyone else was "stree." To that Ravidas accepted defeat and took her as his disciple. What was a need for her to have a Guru who did not know this basic fact, and how would he be able to guide her in the path of liberation? The situation is similar.

Kabirji wanted Guru Ramanand to be his Guru, but Ramanand was unsure of Kabir's caste and avoided accepting him as his disciple. Kabir found a means of getting himself to be Ramanand's disciple by sleeping on the steps of the bathing ghat in the early hours of the morning, when Ramanand returned from his morning ablutions. When Ramanand's feet touched Kabir's body he involuntarily said "Ram, Ram". Kabirji took it as his Guru's deeksha mantra and became Sant Kabir, the weaver of God's name.

Maybe our understanding needs some correction. Maybe self-realization is more than mere intellectual understanding or composing of poetry..

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Doubtingtom Thomas

Self-realization provides both intellectual understanding , and ability to composing of poetry

naanrishi kuruthe kaavyam

Expressions of scriptures are hyper links to enormous wisdom

and can be accessed individually verse wise or as a sum / essence

if one is having the connectivity to his inner self, then all the essence of scripture opens from within , without the need of reading/listening

without that inner connectivity , just reading literal meaning and interpretations will be superficial and incomplete

not all poets are self realized, but most self realized saints did express spontaneous poetry that endured times

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

Right. “not all poets (Court-Poets) are self realized, but most self realized saints did express spontaneous poetry (all Poet-Saints in all languages) that endured times.

In 14th century when the Bhakti and Sufi Movement swept India, all the Bhaktas expressed their feelings in form of poerty. Even our secular Govt. of India has recognized all of them as Poet-Saints. It is my privilege to list some of them, to convey that Saints have been born in India at all periods, and it is continuing.

Andal, (6th century?) the only female Alwar Saint

Sant Jnaneswar (1275-1296), author of Jnaneswari

Vidyapati (1350-), - his Padas

Chandidas (1408-), composer of around 1,250 poems in Bhakti

Narsimha Mehta (1414-1480) – Adi Kavi in Gujarati Literature

Kabir (1440-1518), famous Dohas in Hindi, Avadh, Braj, Bhojpuri

Sankaradeva (1449-1568) author of Kirtanagosha

Saraladas (1450-?), author of Mahabharata in Odia

Jagannth Das(1490-1550), author of Bhagavatam in Odia

Balaram Das (1470-?), author of Dandi Ramayana in Odia

Tulsidas (1497-1623), author of Ramcharitmanas

Surdas (1478-1581) – Sur-Saravali, Sahitya-Lahari, SurSagar

Meera (1498-1546) – Mira Bhajans

Rupa Goswami (?-1554) – a number of texts in Sanskrit on Philosophy, Poetics and Drama

(your) Akka Mahadevi (12th century) – Her Vachanas in Kannada

Tukaram (1598-1650) creator of ‘Abhang’

And all the 12 Alwar (Vaishnava) Saints and 63 Nyanamar (Shaiva) Saints

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Swamini Atmaprajna..

Thanks for this treasure trove

i have saved this list, will explore each in due course

the saint poets are noted for their spontaneous flawless infallibility, beauty, simplicity, brevity, direct, clear , and truth

consciously, they will not stick to rules of metre. rhyme,

what they express just conforms to best standard

even the first sanskrit grammar/chandas came out as valmiki started expressing

also, when valmiki scripted, things happened online as per his scripting, rama walked as per his script

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

My pleasure.

I deliberately put them chronologically to emhasise that India has been blessed with Poet-Saints always.

You are right.

A Kavi does not use craft. His/her krtis are manifestation of his/her feelings/ vision/ understanding.

Yes, beyond grammar and chandas rules. That is why in the Vedas, wherever there is a mistake Acaryas say - 'Chanadasam', licence of the Vedas, cannot be created, need not be created.

Like it should be 'satyam eva jayati'. But Mundaka says -'satyam eva jayate'. We accept it.

There are problem in metre in Bhagavadgita as well as Devimahatmyam' - In these two I have noticed.

Rishi Vasanth

Swaminiji, thank you for kind guidance , i stand corrected

The power of sankaras poetry ------- Kanakadhara Stotra

''quote

Sankaracarya during his Brahmacari Bhikshatana one day visited the house of a poor Brahmin lady, whose husband also went to the village for Bhiksha and nothing was available in the house to offer. She was very much upset and worried that she could not offer any thing to such a great person who came to her house. She earnestly searched for some thing to be given in her house. At last she found an Amla fruit (Emblic myrobalan). She was feeling very shy to offer but she gave it with all humility and respect in the bowl of Sankaracarya. Sri Sankaracarya was very much moved at the sight of the poverty, stricken woman and immediately in an extempore way started imploring Goddess Lakshmi to be merciful towards this poor Brahmin lady to drive away her poverty.

He recited twenty two slokas in praise of Goddess Lakshmi Who was very much pleased and appeared (Satkshathkara) before Sankaracarya and asked for his cause and all of prayer.

Sankaracarya pleaded her to grant riches to the Brahmin lady.

Goddess Lakshmi said that this Brahmin lady did not qualify to get any riches in this life as she did not to do any charities in her previous life and carry consideration and she deserves sufferance and justified her stand of not confering any wealth on her.

Sankaracarya while accepting her sand replied that in this life she gave him Amla fruit with very great reverence inspiteof not having any thing due toher extreme poverty and this act ofher alone will justify to shower riches on her.

Hearing upon this Goddess Lakshmi was greatly moved and immensely pleased with the advocacy of the argument of Sri Sankaracarya and showered instantly golden rain of Amla fruits (Emblic myrobalan).

Thus the stotra of Sankaracarya towards Goddess Lakshmi was sacred, famous and popular known as Kanakadhara Stotra. Bhagavatpada Sankaracarya’s Kanakadhara Stotra also called by him as Surarnadhara Stotra studded with Anugraha Bijakshar as aiming at Sri Lakshmi.

unquote

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

Please do not give away my secret/s.

I would be covering this on SOON

Doubtingtom Thomas Replies to Rishi Vasanth

But converse is not true. Every poet is not a realized soul.

You reach Nirvana when you know what you are not; but to know what you are, requires guidance from a self realized master. Merely repeating Shivoham does not turn one into Shiva.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Doubtingtom Thomas

First and foremost , earliest in life Shankracharya realized, experienced, stabilized in the transcendental pure consciousness, became yogastha,

and hence was able to proclaim----chidanda roopah, shivoham shivoham

and could give authentic bhashya of the gita , in the light of his own inner light , he validated the truth of gita by the strength of his experience of the self

was able to say

''bhagavathgita kinchidhadheetha ......''

if he did not have the inner connectivity, he would not have done justice to such scriptures

my submission is

scriptures reveal their essence, not thru just reading , but with the help of inner connectivity

so my emphasis is on gaining the inner connectivity first and foremost

if not

nahi nahi rakshathi dukrun karani

just reading no help

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Doubtingtom Thomas

Well said , this point must be noted by all spiritual explorers.

only a self realized master can provide the effective guidance, and enables the aspirant to successfully gain the most essential self realization , in shortest time Merely repeating scriptures will not lead to self realization

Doubtingtom Thomas Replies to Rishi Vasanth

Ignorance is ajnana. ajnana is absense of jnana. To get jnana, people loosely say remove ajnana and you will get jnana. How can you remove something which is not there in the first place?

Each person is a potential lamp with wick (bati) andf oil (tel) ready to be lit. But if there is no light you cannot light the wick. A realized person is the already lit lamp and with the help of his light your wick can also be lit.

"First and foremost , earliest in life Shankracharya realized, experienced, stabilized in the transcendental pure consciousness, became yogastha,

and hence was able to proclaim----chidanda roopah, shivoham shivoham"

This is your assumption. If he was already enlightened he would not need to take sanyasa and search for a Guru. Experience of realization cannot be expressed in words. It is avyakta (vak = speech). We cannot even express sweetness to a person who has not tasted sweetness. The music is sweet, the barfi is sweet the baby is sweet. All are sweet but there is a difference in the organ used to sense the sweetness.The music heard with the ear sounds sweet. The baby seen with theeyes appears sweet. The barfi tasted with the tongue appears sweet. Sweetness depends on the instrument of sensing used. Atman can be experienced only by the inner instrument, the antahkarana, It cannot be expressed in words no matter how hard you try. The bliss of brahmananda and Paramananda can only be known by experiencing it in the antahkatrana. When all other sensations are removed by neti neti, the antahkarana attains a state of Nirvaana or absence of thought. It is the last veil of ignorance called Mahakaali or Mahamaya (the same which we experience in deep sleep). The last leap into the Infinite is attained through the grace of a self realized master, such as Totapuri, as in the case of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. We all know and believe that we are the immortal Siva, yet we cringe when faced with death. This reaction does not occur in the case of a realized person.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Doubtingtom Thomas

Yours fantastic presentation, i agree, i confirm,

guru is like the match stick, he lights the inner lamp and he quits, the lit lamp becomes the inner guru, guiding ever, without needing further support from external

i feel that sankara must have written the nirvana satkam only after he realized self , not needing a guru any more as swaminiji as observed above.

on sanyasi robes persist thru -----sadhana has beginning/ primary level , and a intermediate stage , and final / graduate level

experience of ''shivoham'' will be momentary glimpse in the begining as soon as guru gives the first experience of self realization after giving the deeksha

and as the sadhana is sustained, the experience stabilizes for a few seconds, to few minutes to few hours to 24 hours ultimately

and gyan pushpam starts to sprout and blossom even from the first day onwards,

sadhak starts expressing the truths cognized from then onwards

discipline / dress code has its value more in the beginning and less and less later ,

later he becomes fully matured, to live ''yad yad karma karomi.........

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

I finally was successful in making one person question his thinking/accepting everything without questioning/not using logic.

How (half) fulfilled I feel.

Biographies are not "Pramana-sastras", to be accepted without seeing the incongruity in it here and there.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Swamini Atmaprajna..

Thank you, biographies are written mostly by intellectuals, much later, are sure to have some inadequacies

may i say prathyaksha anubhoothi is the authentic pramana

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

Not exactly.

To know a person, one has too read his/her work – writings, music, dance, sculpture, paintings. To know Sankara, one has to study his bhashyam.

Sankara is great because of his bhashym, not because of his meeting with Govindapada, or making Lakshmi shower gold coins by his Kanakadharastotra, or the story abt Parakaya-pravesha.

There was no need to attribute miracles in his life. A little bit of objectivity would be good in understanding Sankara. The super-impositions need not be there.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Swamini Atmaprajna..

With my prathyaksha anubhoothi, i find that many of the saints have not expressed any thing new or great that i did not know

and i am able to sync the essence of teachings of many saints

so by submission is true knowing happens thru being, that is with prathyaksha anubhoothi gives the authentic pramana

where as the biographies are just surface details , some times inconsequential

pranams

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

Please express all these in your own blog.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Swamini Atmaprajna..

Some how i am not modest, i just express in total nonchalance , driven by my inner call

long back i scribbled this assertion , none may take it seriously

'' i am

నేను

ఆది శంకరాచార 49;యుల వారి గురు పరంపరకు చెందిన

అన 74;త జగత్తు లోని శిష్య పరమాణువు 07;్ణి

ఆ అనాది శంకరుని విస్ఫులి 74;గ కణాన్ని

ఈ యుగపు ఆచార్యుణ 49;ణి

కాబోతు& #3112;్న అత్యాధున 35;క శంకరాచార 49;యుణ్ణి

మా& #3112;వత ్వానికి చిగురిస్ 08;ూన్న దైవత్వాన 49;ని

ఆది శంకరులు జగత్గురు 25;ులు

అనంత జగత్తు అతని శిష్య వర్గం

దైవ 08;్వం మానవత్వా 12;ికి చిగురిస్ 08;ుంది

మానవ& #3108;్వ ం పూర్తిగా ఎదిగి పుష్పిస్ 08;ే అది దైవత్వం అవుతుంది

&nbs p;

i am

one shishya paramaanu , among the anantha shishya jagath

of the guruparampara of adi shankaracharya

anaadi shankara's visphulinga kana

------i am the aachaarya of this yuga------

-----i am the most modern would be shankaracharya------

the divinity sprouting in the humanity

adishankara is jagathguru

anantha jagath is his shishya varga

divinity sprouts from the humanity

divinity manifests in full growth and blossoming of humanity''

and this i wrote , not after reading sankara, i read very little, but felt identification with sankara

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

Please express all these in your own blog.

I request you.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Swamini Atmaprajna..

''There was no need to attribute miracles in his life. A little bit of objectivity would be good in understanding Sankara. The super-impositions need not be there''

------i totally agree

but when i found some miraculous experiences happening in my own life, it makes me accept

those sankaras episodes, since i know what the sidhis are by a few direct experiences

others may disbelieve and brush aside, quite naturally since they do not have the support of prathyaksha pramana

Soon after my initiation into meditation, i happened to cognize insights and started scribbling ,

when i come across the writings of sankara, i find that my scribbling match well with those of sankara in many cases, to me it is no surprize

thus i validate / confirm the writings of sankara

this i call them as prathyaksha pramana

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

You need immediate Medical Attention.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Swamini Atmaprajna..

''To know a person, one has too read his/her work – writings, music, dance, sculpture, paintings. To know Sankara, one has to study his bhashyam.''

-----but , one has too read all in the light of his own awakened self , ie the prathyaksha pramana, ie knowing thru being

if not ,

all reading ends up ''pearls before the swine'', the full import left unfathomed, and true greatness of the saint/sankara cannot be known

not all can comprehend the message in its entirety, due to the difference in the levels of consciousness of the giver and receiver

saints / scriptures will be expressing truths in a cryptic language, which cannot be decoded unless in the light of one's self

Swamini Atmaprajnananda SaraswatiReplies to Rishi Vasanth

Ātmā is “atindriya-vishaya”, is not subject to “Pratyaksha-pramāna” – Direct sense-perception by any of the five senses. Ātmā cannot be seen (eyes), heard (sense of hearing), tasted (sense of taste), felt (sense of touch), smelt (sense of smell).

There are no ‘swines’, and the all “Pearls of Wisdom” is available to everyone. Someone knows, other are in the process of knowing, few are starting the journey, few are watching whether to take the plunge or not. The difference in the “levels of consciousness” of either the giver and receiver need not be judged or discussed.

Since the original texts – ‘Upanishads’ are cryptic, it comes alive only through a live teacher. A living teaching tradition is there, is continuing.

Please do not try to mystify things. I am not talking abt ‘Mysticism’ at all. Mystics are there all over the world, in all cultures, at all period, and have inspired thousands of people. However, one Mystic cannot create another Mystic.

I am talking abt a Teaching Tradition.

Please read what is happening in my blogs, “level of discussion”, and if you can participate, please do. I do not appreciate “Parallel discussions” although they are also instrumental in my being in the Home Page. However, they dilute my blogs, making it ‘vikshipta’ – ‘scattered’ without any continuity in the discussion.

Doubtingtom Thomas Replies to Rishi Vasanth

" I feel that sankara must have written the nirvana satkam only after he realized self , not needing a guru any more as swaminiji as observed above."

In that case we cannot take Shankara Digvijaya as authentic, and everything in it comes in for scrutiny. If there is any other text, which gives the life of Acharya more reliably than that, you can educate me about it.

Rishi Vasanth Replies to Doubtingtom Thomas

Shankara was born with shivas grace, so by birth he had some level

but sri krishna, though avatar , underwent sadhana under his guru sandipani

I am not familiar with his life,

but on searching i feel, slight differently

quote

Sankara was born in a very poor family in the year 788 A.D. in a village named Kaladi, six miles to the east of Alwaye, Kerala. Sankara was a Nambudiri Brahmin. Rajasekhara, a Zamindar (a rich landlord), built a Siva temple in Kaladi and formed an Agrahara for Brahmins who were in the service of the temple. Vidyadhiraja was doing Puja (worship) in the temple. He had only a son named Sivaguru. Sivaguru studied the Shastras and married at the proper age. He had no child. He and his wife Aryamba prayed to Lord Siva to bless them with a son. A son was born to them in the Vasanta Ritu or the spring season at noon, in the auspicious AbhijitMuhurta and under the constellation Ardhra. This son was Sankara.''unquote

------by birth and by good parents, shankara is a rare great soul

quote

Sivaguru died when Sankara was seven years old. Sankara had none to look after his education. His mother was an extraordinary woman. She took special care to educate her son in all the Shastras. Sankara's Upanayana or thread ceremony was performed in his seventh year, after the death of his father.

Sankara exhibited extraordinary intelligence in his boyhood. When he was only sixteen, he became a master of all the philosophies and theologies.

He began to write commentaries on the Gita, the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras when he was only sixteen years old .unquote

----so probably his nirvanasatkam is a trial / creation based on his scriptural studies , just a literary attempt, though it is authentic and beautiful , and so as a good sincere student , he must have recited it

http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Adi_Shankaracharya

it may be like a intelligent student , by his own interest / effort/ parent guidance might master the subject studying at home, before before joining a degree course, and in the interview he might give brilliant answers

if i get better infn , will share more

If the student knows 90 percent, still he may want to study in college to just complete 100 percent

so shankara might have thought to get qualified in the traditional way and be 100 percent sure to fulfill his higher vision for future