Sandhyavandanam

[Guest guest]

During Upanayanm, brahmo-pa-desham is givwn by the

priest. This is the mediattion mantra, Gayatri.

Om-bhoorbuvah-- .

Iti is also requirement for Shraadham, the ancestral

worship and participation in other brahmanic

rituals. Krihs

[Guest guest]

Mani wrote:

> It seems your position is that it is ok to do sandhyAvandanam without

> thinking of PerumaaL. I respectfully request pramANa-s from acharyas'

> writings in the Sri Vaishnava sampradAya. In the meantime, I will take

> Swami Periyavaaccaan Pillai's explanation over yours.

 

It appears to me that this discussion concerns the following questions:

 

[1] SHOULD sandhyAvandanam be done without thinking of PerumAL?

 

[2] CAN sandhyAvandanam be done without thinking of PerumAL?

 

[3] Is the act of sandhyAvandanam useful either way?

 

Obviously, the answer to [1] is NO. [2] is possible, by mindlessly repeating

the chants and going through the actions in a mechanical way. I think many

people feel that it is not sandhyAvandanam at all, if done in this way so

perhaps it could be called by some other name. But the source of disagreement

is mostly about [3]. Attempting to perform sandhyAvandanam (even mindlessly)

may be better than not doing it at all. However there is no doubt in my mind

that any/all of our AchAryas would agree that sandhyAvandanam is not just a

nitya-karma but bhagavat-kainkaryam as well and that we must all strive to

practice it as such. Likewise I am confident that our AchAryas would not

chastise someone if they admitted to not thinking about PerumAL while doing

their sandhyAvandanam. As NammAzhwAr said, "Poyyai sonnEn ... meyyai peRREn".

 

Regards,

-Srinath Chakravarty

email: xsrinath

[Guest guest]

Just wanted to join the conversation here....

 

If one can do sandhyavandana with proper mental attitude of meditation on

our sriyahpati it is the best way to do it. If one does sandhyavandana

mechanically, it is still superior to completely leaving sandhyavandana,

since if a person gets into the practice of doing it, one day he might try

to learn the meaning of it and try to do it in the proper way. In fact that

is exactly the way it really happens in practice. When a kid is about

11-12 years old, that kid can hardly learn the sandhya vandana mantras.

Then that kid has to understand sanskrit meanings and slowly combine

meditation with daily performance. This happens over years.

 

18-48 of gita says :

 

sahajam karma kaunteya sadoshamapi na tyajet

sarvarambha hi dosena dhumena agnirivavritaha

 

'natural activities (implying karmayoga) should not be avoided ( ie. one

should perform it) even though with imperfections.

 

Like how fire is enveloped by ashes, all activities are enveloped by (one

or the other type of) imperfections. (One should not leave this karmayoga

and switch over to jnanayoga...(path of meditation on atman) without

activities)

 

adiyen Krishna