Advanced E- Vedanta Course

Answer Lesson 13

Daniela Badea, Registration

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Advanced E- Vedanta Course Answer Lesson 13

Questions
I. Write short notes on
1.

Vrata

2.

Tirtham

3.

Dana

4.

Astamtirtibhrt

5.

Karma-yoga

II. Answer in detail

1. How is japa a very powerful method to attain both citta-suddhf (purity of
mind) and citta-ekagrata (single-pointedness of the mind)?
2. Explain the art of practising vicara (enquiry).

Vrata

The term vrata denotes a religious practice to carry out certain obligations with a view
to achieve divine blessing or to increase the will power in order to discipline the mind.
Etymologically, vrata, a Sanskrit word means to vow, or to promise, and it is about a
religious promise made in front of a diety or God. Vratas might include a promise not to
drink or eat food till finishing the daily worship, fasting on a certain day of the week or
month, chanting a certain number of japa each day, practising celibacy, giving up meat
or other favourite food for a duration and so on.
Vratas make the mind to take a breack by denied certain habitual pleasures and
comforts. If this restrictions are undertaken by understanding their meaning and scope,
vrata became 'sublimation' and is a healthy spiritual aid, but if the denial is enforced
without correct understanding of its purpose, it will lead to suppression, which does not
have effect on spiritual pursuit.
Hence it is important to educate the mind by practising vratas, it contribute in becoming
your own master, to have self control. The vrata is meant to engage in higher spiritual
pursuits and in remembrance of the Lord.
Tirtham - or place of pilgrimage
The term 'tirtha' in Sanskrit means: 'taranti anena iti ttrthatn - that which helps you cross
this ocean of ignorance and confusion'.
The greatest 'tirtha' is the company of the noble and enlightened. The pilgrimage is
different then spiritual tourism, this is a special occasion to purify our mind and heart,
and we should seek saintly people who live there, sit at their feet, and learn from them,
have satsang (company of the good) with Mahatmas is a great purifier indeed!
Dana or Charity
To give something away without expecting anything in return is charity (danam), we can
give money, time, knowledge and physical help, as well as emotional comfort through
kind words. The God of my heart is the one indwelier in the hearts of all, if an individual
fails to recognise God in the hearts of all, but worships It elaborately only as an idol, then
is not considered as the higher type of devotee. Worship of a deity in an altar or temple
is a good beginning but one has to grow beyond this, and embrace entire creation as a
divine manifestation of the Lord. The understanding that the Lord alone pervades the
whole universe becomes the foundation of true charity.
To live consider other needs as much as important as ours, or mybe more important then
our personal needs, release us from the suffocating selfisliness and attachment to
ourselves.
The real meaning of charity is described in the story of Ekanath that recognise Lord
inside of a donkey dying of thirst and waste on him the Ganga puja water that was
carried during 7 years of difficult pilgrimage from Kasi( Varanasi) to Ramesvaram.
Dispite everyone dissuasion, Ekanath did not keep the water for the deity of
Ramesvaram and gave it to the thirty animal, seeing in it the Lord Itself thirty, being
courageous and sure that he is not making a mistake by wasting the holly water for a

donkey. For him the Lord lives in all, later the God voice confirms that was the Lord there
and the water was not wasted at all. For Ekanath the pilgrimage was ended there, its
purpose achieved, even was no temple, no idol, no ritual.
Worship of the Lord need not be a specific action performed at a special time. Every
action in our lives can be asserted to Him, in each action we should have humble and
devotional attitude while performing the very duties we are engaged in.
To have the same equally reaction in success and failure, honor and dishonor, and to
believe that when we are doing our duty (svadharma) we are serving the Lord alone,
using all our qualities , that are nothing then His Grace upon us, is also the worship of
the Lord.
Astamurtibhrt

The Lord is described as 'astamurtibhrt' - endowed with an eightfold form, and can be
contemplated as being endowed with eight aspects - the five elements: space, air, fire,
water and earth, the sun, representing all luminaries, the moon, signifying all planets
and satellites and the jiva or individual -standing for all conscious beings. These eight
aspects of the Lord constitute the whole creation itself.
In his composition Upadesa-sara, Ramana Maharsi explains that the best yajna - worship
of the Lord is the service of the world itself. The term 'yajna', which can be translated as
'worship',was limited understood as being only a rituals where piously we make ofrands
to the fire incantating the Vedic chants, invoking the blessings of various deities.
The workship can be done in various modalities, based on each one karma, all ways have
the merit of increasing the devotion and concentration on Loard, helping the devotee to
develop an intimate relation with the Lord, which, in turn, will conduct to mental
purification,
For example the daily prayers and rituals are also very helpful, due to the fact that we
passing all steps in ritual, we rebuild an alive God, we rebuild the ancestral, sacred
moments, where the Gods were parts of our day to day life.
We start the ritual by given a warm welcome to the Lord -avahanam and a welldecorated place to sit -asanam, His Lotus Feet are reverentially washed -padyam, also
His hands -arghyam, we offering something to drink -acamanam, a ceremonially bathedsnanam. Also we offering a ritualistic bath with sacred materials -abhisekam, gifting
beautiful clothes -vastram, adorned with ornaments -abharanam and perfume -gandham,
worshipped with choice flowers -puspam, shown the sacred lights arati, and so on.
All this time the devotee is employed in serving the Lord, his speech is engaged in
chanting the mantras; his sense organs are also effectively occupied: the eyes see the
beautiful form of the Lord and the various items for puja, the ears hear the chanting, the
nostrils inhale the fragrance of jossticks, the fingers are busy with the various aspects of
worship and even the tongue is quiet, knowing that after the worship it would be
rewarded with tasty prasada.

Karma- yoga
But not only the rituals can be considered as worship of God. Every action in our lives
can and should be divinised by our prayerful attitude while performing the very duties
we are engaged in. To have in our life an equal atitude about success or failure, honour
and dishonour and do the duty svadharma, with the feeling, bhavana, that through our
knowledge, talents and strength we are serving the Lord alone is also the worship of the
Lord. All those that do their jobs, as doctors, teachers, mothers with doveotion and in the
name of God, using all their talents and skills are doing workship to Lord, karma yoga.
To a mature devotee the world itself is a vast temple, serving it with the attitude of
serving the Lord is the true workship of the eightfold form. To see all forms as being the
Lord Itself is the highest form of worship, coming from a profound knowledge, from an
authentically self contend of the impersonality. Serving this shining being we realize our
freedom, we indulge in the most luminous and peaceful consciousness, that turn our
state of individuality into a different way of living, unlimited, impersonal, a
straightforward consciousness.
The Lord is the substratum of this universe; He is omnipresent, all-pervading and all
these forms that conceive the world, are like clouds on a clear sky, their ephemeral
existence revealing, basically That consciousness, That continuous presence, That
absolute existence, shining in an unending beatitude springing from Itself.
II
1.
How is japa a very powerful method to attain both citta-suddhi (purity of mind) and
citta-ekagrata (single-pointedness of the mind)?
Japa is the repetition of a mantra, or the name of God. One should not think that a
mantra is just a collection of words; it is in fact a manifestation of God in the form of
those sounds. To chant, or speak a mantra is to invoke the divine in a very real and
tangible way. In this way we associates ourselves with that aspect of divinity invocated
by mantra, practicing our mind becomes purified through constant remembrance. To
repeat the name of God helps to quiet the mind and leads us to a deeper understanding
of his own divine nature.
According to the interest and predisposition, there are many mantras to be chosen if the
devotee is not already initiated in a mantra by a guru, such as: "Om Namah Sivaya,"
"Om Namo Narayanaya," "Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya," "Om Sri Ram Jai Ram,"
etc.
Japa is the most used spiritual practice due to several reasons :
- Japa removes whatever defects and imperfections the sadhaka may have and replaces
them by all sattvic, positive and constructive qualities, and steadies the mind and makes
it introspective. This being a pre-condition of Atma Viveka, the aspirant should have
already some qualities, such purity and steadiness of the mind;

- Japa protects the sadhaka from downfall in time, even he is advanced.

- Japa is an accepted way of approaching Divinity in all religions, it is the most
commonly practiced sadhana and is followed universally.
Mantra is a Divine formula which if repeated will ultimately lead to Divine consciousness.
Mantra is a collection of letters scientifically arranged and energized by constant
repetition. These symbols were handed down through the technique of initiation to
qualified disciple, that later on, he/her re-alive the experience of their Sage-guru based
on purified will, firm faith and determination. Ultimately became one with that
consciousness which is Sat-chid-ananda. Mantra is a means of awakening the hidden
Consciousness in us.
A mantra is Divinity. The mantra and its presiding deity are one. By constant repetition of
the mantra, the sadhaka imbibes the virtues and powers of the deity that presides over
the mantra; he becomes transformed actually into the divinity itself. Mantra should be
taken as the manifested form of the Supreme Being, a form assumed by the Lord Himself
as shabda or nada (sound).
In this confused times, practice of japa removes the impurities of the mind, destroys sins
and brings the devotee face to face with God. Just as fire has the natural property of
burning things, so also the name of God has the power of burning sins and desires. Japa
purifies our heart, steadies the mind, burns sins, annihilates attachment, roots out all
desires, removes delusion, gives supreme peace, unites the devotee with the Lord,
brings God-consciousness, and bestows eternal Bliss.
Japa forces the mind to move towards God, during japa all the divine qualities steadily
flow into our mind from the Lord, Japa fill the mind with sattva, eradicating all kinds of
evil thoughts and inclinations.
By constant thinking and meditation on God, the disposition of the mind is purified and
divinized. The sound vibrations of a mantra generate the image of the Lord, we can get
the vision or darshan of the Lord. If we constantly think of the Lord, we will become
identical with the Lord, abiding in Him forever.
It is better to have japa at the same time and the same place every day, preferable early
in the morning when sattva vibrations are more predominant. I had learned that we have
to think and visualized Lord inside the heart as if He is there in front of us listening and
looking to our prayers full of mercy and grace.
In the beginning, we use a mala(rosary) and do japa verbally, in time we can do it inside
the mind(ajapa), and only when the mind is agitated we can go back to verbal japa. For
sure, we should not renounce to our japa sadhana because we are not able to
concentrate, we need to find a way to calm down our thoughts and to perform our duty.
In fact we should not see that as a duty, is more, as we feel thirsty about that spring of
peace and tranquility, full of inspiration that is created in the presence of the God, when
we are doing japa. Gradually in us will grow this need, and the wish of doing mantra will

come in a natural way, not by duty, our mind will change little by little and we will not be
able to leave without feeling the presence of God.
2.

Explain the art of practising vicara (enquiry).

Likes, dislikes, desire, anger, passion, ambition, jealousy and the like are all impurities of
the mind, which often keep accosting the seeker on the spiritual path. As spiritual
seekers, we become frightened of them and want to get rid of them immediately. For
instance, if we are troubled by anger we ask with impatience: "How can I get rid of
anger?" This very impatience helps anger to escape our attention. We become
preoccupied with the solution and forget to study the actual problem per se.
'Vicara' is the enquiry into the problem. Awareness and knowledge are the very essence
of this path of vicara. In this method, instead of asking how to get rid of anger, greed,
jealousy and the like, instead of labelling the emotion as 'bad', 'negative' and so on,
instead of being frightened of it, instead of trying to run away, we objectively enquire
into the emotion - what is it, where does it come from, what are its expressions, and
what are its results? In other words, one becomes intensely aware of the mental
modification in its totality without labelling it as 'bad', 'negative' and so on, or trying to
hastily get rid of it. Knowledge born out of such complete detached awareness of the
mental modification has the capacity to destroy that mental modification once and for
all. That knowledge by itself has the power to put an end to mental impurities is evident
even in our day-to-day life, for when we are truly aware of and knowledgeable about the
deadly nature of a poisonous snake, there never arises a tendency to reach it or
entertain it in any form. Knowledge is indeed a great purifier!
Presently, we are not able to get rid of our mental modifications such as selfishness,
desire, anger, greed, lust and so on for the following reasons. First, we are not fully
knowledgeable about these mental impurities. When they express themselves, we are
aware of them only temporarily, but have no real understanding of them. Secondly, we
do not really comprehend the consequences of allowing these impurities to persist. Many
a time, erroneously we feel that there is nothing wrong with these impurities. Our excuse
is, uAfter all, we are only human beings\" We try to justify all our weaknesses by claiming
that no human being is perfect. Sometimes, we tend to consider our vices as virtues! We
justify anger by saying, "Without anger nothing gets done in this world! If I didn't get
angry, everybody would take me for granted!" We justify greed as a means to prosperity
by insisting that dissatisfaction with the status quo alone goads us towards progress.
However, these are just excuses to prolong the existence of our weaknesses. Thirdly, we
have begun to enjoy many of our negative tendencies. People even brag about their
temper and how others shudder when they are in a rage!
This vicara or the path of enquiry, characterised by an intense objective perception of all
our subjective weaknesses, can be practised by these simple steps enumerated below:
(1) Be intensely conscious of the impurities of the mind when they arise.
(2) Do not label them as good or bad, positive or negative; never justify or glorify them.
(3)
Understand them in totality and see their implications and consequences. If these
three steps are practised, one will see that all the impurites of the mind will cease to

exist altogether. Even if we overcome one mental impurity this way, we will find that
soon all the others also are saying goodbye to us!
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O God of all Gods, you alone are my mother, father, kinsman, friend, the knowledge
and wealth. You are everything to me.