Vivek Chudamani

SR No.: 007022
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Chandrashekhar Bharti Swami, P Sankaranarayan
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidyabhavan
Publication Year: 1988
Total Pages: 552
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 14 MB

Page 69

VIVEKACUDAMAŅI
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when taught by a competent teacher, their meaning should be meditated on, the same should be expounded to others followed by a process of mutual enlightenment. Ideas of a contrary nature should not cloud the understanding and there must be a continuous flow of accordant ideas. Such a mental process is called by the wise nididhyāsana. One must strive with concentration by an earnest adoption of this process. By such sarvasankalpa-samnyāsa, the giving up of all stimuli to every kind of action, yogārudhatva, which is synonymous with supreme and absolute detachment, is achieved by a person.
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(From the foregoing it will be seen that for securing yogārudhatva, it is prescribed that all karmas, even nitya (obligatory) and naimittika (occasional) karmas prescribed in the karmakāņda portion of the Vedas, not to speak of kāmya (optional) karmas should be given up.) It may be objected: The śrutis command:
yāvajjīvam agnihotram juhuyāt; yāvajjīvam darśapūrņamāsābhyām yajeta; aharahassandhyām upāsīta; (Taitt.)
kurvanneveha karmāņi jijīvişet satam samāḥ: (iśā.) "One should perform the agnihotra sacrifice as long as one is alive.
One should perform the darśa and purņamāsa sacrifices all through life.
Every day the sandhyā worship should be done."
"In this life ever doing karmas one must desire to live a hundred years."
The śruti prescribes that karmas should be done all through life. Then, will not giving up all karmas (sarvakarma-samnyāsa) be a transgression of the command of the śrutis?
We reply: No; for, these commands are directed only to a person of impure mind, i.e., to a person who has not cultivated complete detachment. A mantra of the iśāvāsyopanişad says: evam tvayi nānyatheto'sti no karma lipyate nare. "For one who thinks of himself as a mere man (without the awareness of the ātman), there is no other go except to do the karmas. The performance by you of the prescribed karmas will not taint you. No sin will attach to you. (But, for one in your position, because you are not a jñānī, their non-performance will be a sin.)"