Wednesday 18 May 2022

Nirvanashatakam

Advaita is a great philosophy, but whom should I follow? Adi Shankaracharya, Swami Vivekananda and Raman Maharshi propagated Advaita but out of these three I should follow who's path?
STK

The three Masters have not given three different paths.

It is the same Advaita.

All the three were even devotional of some sort.

Their teachings complement one another like a perfect note of music.

Ramana Maharishi has not given any path at all, strictly speaking.

When people asked Him so many questions, instead of parroting answers from the scriptures, He simply asked them back ‘Do you know who asks these questions? Do you know who you are?’.

When they mumbled and stuttered, he then asked them to find that out first, and come up later with other questions such as God’s existence and wherabouts.

When people contemplate Ramana Maharishi’s ‘Who am I?’, Adi Shankara’s works such as Bhajagovindam, Vivekachudamani, and Soundarya Lahari are like fountains of nectar to a thirty person in the desert. Extraordinary aids they are!

In turn, Swami Vivekananda’s thoughts about Adi Shankara are extremely important in practicing Adi Shankara’s teachings in the best possible manner. He has both praised and criticised the Acharya, and it is good for us to know both.

Swami Vivekananda translated Adi Shankara’s Nirvanashatakam, which is one of the super-short masterpieces of Advaita. You can listen to this Ashtakam, contemplate and enter Samadhi in minutes. Powerful in breaking the mind’s timeless entanglements in no time, at least for a while.

If you ever sang Adi Shankara’s Nirvanashatakam to Ramana Maharishi, He would smile and say that this was the very same thing that He was teaching in words and silence all the time.

Their teachings complement one another like a perfect musical note!

Shankaracharya had caught the rhythm of the Vedas, the national cadence. Indeed I always imagine that he had some vision such as mine when he was young, and recovered the ancient music that way. Anyway, his whole life’s work is nothing but that, the throbbing of the beauty of the Vedas and the Upanishads
-Swami Vivekananda

In another place Swami Vivekananda says-

But India has to live, and the spirit of the Lord descended again. He who declared, “I will come whenever virtue subsides”, cam again, and this time the manifestation was in the South, and up rose that young Brahmin of whom it has been declared that at the age of sixteen he had completed all his writings; the marvellous boy Shankaracharya arose. The writings of this boy of sixteen are the wonders of the modern world, and so was the boy. He wanted to bring back the Indian world to its pristine purity, but think of the amount of task before him.
-Swami Vivekananda

And Swami Vivekananda Himself was the same as Adi Shankara (as emphasized above), just a few years older to Adi Shankara, which does not alter the significance.

For unwavering focus- Ramana Maharishi

For overall context- Swami Vivekananda

For leaving no stone unturned- Adi Shankaracharya

They are the three eyes of Shiva that melt our souls in love and wisdom, so the Brahman comes out of its shyness and shines forth like the fusion of a billion stars.

A


A 1916  Shantiniketan  puja


Klaanti aamar khama karo probhu,
Pathe jodi pichhiye pori kobhu.
Ei je hiya tharotharo  knaape aaji emontaro
Ei bedona khama karo, khama karo, khama karo probhu.
Ei dinota khama karo probhu,
Pichhon paane taakai jodi kobhu.
Diner taape roudrojwaalay  shukaay maala pujaar thaalay,
Sei mlaanota khama karo, khama karo, khama karo probhu.



song Red Sea 1912. Puja. RS
Tagore song prano bhoriye trisha

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