vedic wisdom for learners

June 17, 2007

Dear PVR,There is a profound gravitation towards the knowledge flowing here. From the sidelines, I aspire to learn the basics to better understand your messages. In your previous mails you suggested Ganapathi Homam as a daily ritual. Your messages convey a concept that there are umpteen paths to vedic wisdom. For starters can you please give a list of readings and daily practices. It could be due to lack of initiation or laziness if we cannot do Homam what do you think we should start with.

Namaste,-Kishore.

June 17, 2007

Dear Kishore,

There are so many practices that are geared towards creating discipline, reducing ego, overcoming the inner enemies and purifying oneself.

Any practice will do. However, depending on who one was earlier and what one did earlier, one may experience different levels of affinity towards different practices and also get results at different speeds with different practices.

Normal people can only give you good advice from THEIR perspective. They cannot give you advice from YOUR perspective. Only a sadguru, who knows more about the real you than you yourself do, can give you advice from your perspective. Unfortunately, I am not one.

If you want my suggestion nevertheless, here are some basic suggestions.

(1) In "Yoga Vaasishtham", Maharshi Vasishtha prescribes company of saints as the first step in acquiring self-knowledge. Spend some time every week with spiritually inclined people discussing spiritual matters.

(2) Identify one personal weakness (e.g. anger, jealosy). Make a sincere effort to overcome it. Whenever the weakness strikes you (e.g. you become angry), consciously restrain yourself and divert your mind to something else (e.g. repeating a mantra).

(3) Take a mantra (e.g. Gayatri mantra). Spend atleast 30 minutes everyday repeating that mantra. Sit comfortably with a reasonably straight back and closed eyes and repeat the mantra. If your mind wanders off the mantra and its deity and you get distracted by all kinds of thoughts, do not worry. Accept it as the nature of mind and make a conscious effort to pull the mind back into the mantra and its deity.

(4) Before that japa, do a simple pranayama for 5 minutes. Breath in through the right nostril for n seconds, breath out through the left nostril for n seconds, breath in through the same left nostril for another n seconds and then breath out through the right nostril for n seconds. Keep the time duration - n seconds - approximately the same in all steps. If you want, you can use a small mantra as the measure of time and say it mentally in each step. Keep repeating this sequence for 5 minutes.

(5) Cultivate the thinking that you do not own anything. Think that you are just a *temporary caretaker* of things that seem like your possessions (e.g. you relations, your house, your car and even your own body, name, fame etc). Tell yourself that all these are god's property and that you are servant and a temporary caretaker. Just as a servant working at a rich man's house takes excellent care of things entrusted to him without developing the "it is mine" attachment to the things, tell yourself that you too have to take excellent care of all the things entrusted to you (e.g. your relations, your house, your car, your body, name, fame etc) while cultivating the "it is god's and not mine" sense.

This is a very important step and just keep on trying if you keep failing.

(6) Read a little of some scripture or teachings of a holy man everyday. Examples are BhagavadGita, Jnaneshwari etc. I particularly recommend "Gospel of Ramakrishna". Ramakrishna Parahamahamsa was a great master who taught the highest knowledge in simplest terms to all kinds of people. Read his teachings with an open mind, understand them and try to follow them.

* * *

If some previous karmas are blocking one's spiritual progress, one has to either burn those karmas through sadhana or experience the result of the karmas. Then only the blockage will go away. There is no other way.

Each minute spent in spiritual sadhana - including japam, homam etc - contributes to that. No effort is wasted. One should never get disheartened.

Best regards,Narasimha-------------------------------Homam manual and audio: http://www.VedicAstrologer.org/homamFree Jyotish lessons (MP3): http://vedicastro.home.comcast.netFree Jyotish software (Windows): http://www.VedicAstrologer.orgSri Jagannath Centre (SJC) website: http://www.SriJagannath.org-------------------------------

-

Kishore Chitrapu

Sunday, June 17, 2007 10:08 AM

vedic wisdom for learners

Dear PVR,There is a profound gravitation towards the knowledge flowing here. From the sidelines, I aspire to learn the basics to better understand your messages. In your previous mails you suggested Ganapathi Homam as a daily ritual. Your messages convey a concept that there are umpteen paths to vedic wisdom. For starters can you please give a list of readings and daily practices. It could be due to lack of initiation or laziness if we cannot do Homam what do you think we should start with. Namaste,-Kishore. || Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

June 17, 2007

parnam guru ji thanks for such a nice mail ...... this morning i was unable to concentrate my mind on japa(it happen many time ) and i was thinking to post a message to my own guru or in this group ........... and with the blessing of mother as after japa i opened my box i read your message got my answer thanks for spreading knowledge keep it up may god bless you with more knowledge ,,energy and time to teach us.Regard Amit puri"Narasimha P.V.R. Rao" <pvr wrote: Dear Kishore, There are so many practices that are geared towards creating discipline, reducing ego, overcoming the inner enemies and purifying oneself. Any practice will do. However, depending on who one was earlier and what one did earlier, one may experience different levels of affinity towards different practices and also get results at different speeds with different practices. Normal people can only give you good advice from THEIR perspective. They cannot give you advice from YOUR perspective. Only a sadguru, who knows more about the real you than you yourself do, can give you advice from your perspective. Unfortunately, I

am not one. If you want my suggestion nevertheless, here are some basic suggestions. (1) In "Yoga Vaasishtham", Maharshi Vasishtha prescribes company of saints as the first step in acquiring self-knowledge. Spend some time every week with spiritually inclined people discussing spiritual matters. (2) Identify one personal weakness (e.g. anger, jealosy). Make a sincere effort to overcome it. Whenever the weakness strikes you (e.g. you become angry), consciously restrain yourself and divert your mind to something else (e.g. repeating a mantra). (3) Take a mantra

(e.g. Gayatri mantra). Spend atleast 30 minutes everyday repeating that mantra. Sit comfortably with a reasonably straight back and closed eyes and repeat the mantra. If your mind wanders off the mantra and its deity and you get distracted by all kinds of thoughts, do not worry. Accept it as the nature of mind and make a conscious effort to pull the mind back into the mantra and its deity. (4) Before that japa, do a simple pranayama for 5 minutes. Breath in through the right nostril for n seconds, breath out through the left nostril for n seconds, breath in through the same left nostril for another n seconds and then breath out through the right nostril for n seconds. Keep the time duration - n seconds - approximately the same in all steps. If you want, you can use a small mantra as the measure of time and say it mentally in each step. Keep repeating this sequence

for 5 minutes. (5) Cultivate the thinking that you do not own anything. Think that you are just a *temporary caretaker* of things that seem like your possessions (e.g. you relations, your house, your car and even your own body, name, fame etc). Tell yourself that all these are god's property and that you are servant and a temporary caretaker. Just as a servant working at a rich man's house takes excellent care of things entrusted to him without developing the "it is mine" attachment to the things, tell yourself that you too have to take excellent care of all the things entrusted to you (e.g. your relations, your house, your car, your body, name, fame etc) while cultivating the "it is god's and not mine" sense. This is a very important step and just keep on trying

if you keep failing. (6) Read a little of some scripture or teachings of a holy man everyday. Examples are BhagavadGita, Jnaneshwari etc. I particularly recommend "Gospel of Ramakrishna". Ramakrishna Parahamahamsa was a great master who taught the highest knowledge in simplest terms to all kinds of people. Read his teachings with an open mind, understand them and try to follow them. * * * If some previous karmas are blocking one's spiritual progress, one has to either burn those karmas through sadhana or experience the result of the karmas. Then only the blockage will go away. There is

no other way. Each minute spent in spiritual sadhana - including japam, homam etc - contributes to that. No effort is wasted. One should never get disheartened. Best regards,Narasimha-------------------------------Homam manual and audio: http://www.VedicAstrologer.org/homamFree Jyotish lessons (MP3): http://vedicastro.home.comcast.netFree Jyotish software (Windows): http://www.VedicAstrologer.orgSri Jagannath Centre (SJC) website: http://www.SriJagannath.org------------------------------- - Kishore Chitrapu Sunday, June 17, 2007 10:08 AM vedic wisdom for learners Dear PVR,There is a profound gravitation towards the knowledge flowing here. From the sidelines, I aspire to learn the basics to better understand your messages. In your previous mails you suggested Ganapathi Homam as a daily ritual. Your messages convey a concept that there are umpteen paths to vedic wisdom. For starters can you please give a list of readings and daily practices. It could be due to lack of initiation or laziness if we cannot do Homam what do you think we should start with. Namaste,-Kishore. || Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Om Namah Shivaaya

Amit Puri

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June 17, 2007

Namaskar,

Quite seriously, please do not address me as a guru. Guru is a very heavy word. It means the remover of the darkness of ignorance. I am NOT a guru.

If She wants to answer something, She can pick someone and answer through them. The person in question is just a nimitta.

Actually, Vasishtha teaches that even a guru is a nimitta! Then what about someone like me? Everything here is just a coincidence. She is the master planner. If She wants something to be given to someone, she will select somebody else as a nimitta for it and make the second person give that thing to the first person. She is the energy that moves the entire universe. She is the ichcha sakti (desire), kriya sakti (action) and jnaana sakti (knowledge) of each being in this creation. It is amazing how She plans the whole thing.

She is like a master film director who is making a secretive magnum opus. Imagine a director who has a really complicated script and shoots one scene with one set of actors and another scene with another set of actors etc. Each actor only knows the scenes (s)he is in. No actor can figure out the complete story from the few scenes that (s)he knows. The Mother is like that. She has a beautiful screenplay and we are all actors playing out roles. We only know a little bit of the story.

Some people become too attached to the play and start wondering what the complete story is. They waste their time and energy wondering what the complete story is or what the next scene is. This does not improve their performance in their own scenes even one bit. On the contrary, this guesswork sometimes biases them and they end up messing up their own scenes due to the mistakened biases.

Now take an actor who leaves it completely to the director, resigns to the mastery of the director and just does what (s)he is told to do. Such an actor gives a perfect performance and does not waste any time or energy in unnecessary activities. Similarly, one who realizes Her mastery and realizes that She is the doer of everything and considers oneself a pawn in the hand of a master chess player does not over-analyze everything and leads a blissful and fruitful life and serves Her agenda perfectly.

This is not a direct comment on what you said, but an extension of the previous streams of thought...

Thank you for your blessings.

Best regards,Narasimha-------------------------------Homam manual and audio: http://www.VedicAstrologer.org/homamFree Jyotish lessons (MP3): http://vedicastro.home.comcast.netFree Jyotish software (Windows): http://www.VedicAstrologer.orgSri Jagannath Centre (SJC) website: http://www.SriJagannath.org-------------------------------

-

Amit Puri

Sunday, June 17, 2007 8:57 PM

Re: Re: vedic wisdom for learners

parnam guru ji thanks for such a nice mail ...... this morning i was unable to concentrate my mind on japa(it happen many time ) and i was thinking to post a message to my own guru or in this group ........... and with the blessing of mother as after japa i opened my box i read your message got my answer thanks for spreading knowledge keep it up may god bless you with more knowledge ,,energy and time to teach us.Regard Amit puri"Narasimha P.V.R. Rao" <pvr wrote: