Sannyasa - Part 7 of 20

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Tayumanavar, in one of his songs, refers to the three processes, ‘shravaNa, manana and nidhidhyAsana’.

Tirumoolar follows the ‘shravaNa’ word by *guru-vuru-cintittal* meaning the memorisation of the mantra taught by the guru. The Tamil word *uru* here means mantra-japa that is manana.

By thus memorising and repeating the mantra one is automatically led on to the next stage of ‘nidhidhyAsana’.

There is an old saying *sannyasya shravaNaM kuryAt* -- one should do the ‘listening’ part only after taking up sannyAsa.
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Sannyasa - Part 6 of 20

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Also there is a tradition that the new SannyAsi who is getting the dikshhaa must also get the additional mahAvakya that occurs in the ShAkhA to which he belonged before he took SannyAsa.

There is also a further tradition that first the PraNava ("Aum") is taught and then the mahAvakyas.

To hear and listen to such mahAvAkya teaching is what is called ‘shravaNa’ in Brahma-VidyA-shAstra.

The direct meaning of ‘shravaNaM’ is ‘hearing/listening’.In the Tamil Tirumandhiram Verse #139, Tirumoolar means by this word ‘Receiving the mahAvakyopadesha’.
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Sannyasa - Part 5 of 20

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That Guru takes care to dispense the mahAvAkya teaching only after checking the Sishya’s eligibility and after initiating him into SannyAsa.

That eligibility is nothing other than the progress, to a certain extent, in Viveka (Discrimination), VairAgya (Dispassion), shama (sense control), dama (mind control), etc. in the SadhanA-set-of-four.

The Vedas have 1180 shAkhAs (branches). Each ShAkhA has an Upanishad of its own and every Upanishad has a mahAvAkya. Though there are thus more than 1000 mahAvakyas, four of them, one for each Veda, have been held as important.

It appears from ‘Visveshvara-smRti’, which details the SannyAsa Dharma, ‘Nirnaya-sindhu’, an anthology of Dharma ShAstras, and from other authoritative sources for Dharma ShAstra, and knowledgeable tradition that at the time of SannyAsa dikshhaa (formal initiation) these four mahAvakyas are to be formally transmitted from the Guru to the initiate.

And there is also scope for the teaching of other mahAvakyas.
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Sannyasa - Part 4 of 20

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Moreover this is protected water. There is a watchman! Only if he allows you, you can draw water. That watchman is called the Guru!

The conglomerates of sound vibrations called mantras suck in several ways the Power and Grace of the Absolute, that is permeating the entire space and produce for us the many beatifics of this world and the world beyond.

Among such mantras the mahAvakyas that identify the JivAtmA with the ParamAtmA without any distinction are at the peak. The Acharya speaks of them (in Aitareya Upanishad Bhashya 1.3.13) as sounds that wake you up to Atma-jnAna, the advaita jnAna that lies dormant in the JivAtmA that is sleeping in Ignorance.

It is the Guru that trumpets the drum of the MahAvakyas, wakes you up, as it were, from your sleep, thus waking you up to Enlightenment.
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Sannyasa - Part 3 of 20

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To hope to obtain Brahman-realisation by just continuous thinking about it is like a man who wants to have a bath, starts all the way from digging up a well for the purpose.

But to reach the same goal through the mahAvakyas of the Upanishads is like drawing water from an already constructed well.

Of course you have to draw the water – not like opening a tap and using the downpour from it. The drawing of sufficient water from the well depends on the size of the bucket or the pail, the depth of the well and other factors.

The Samskaras of the individual influence the efforts to be made just as the smallness of the bucket will force you to draw water several times.

But when you compare this with the process of our digging up of a well – well, that is the comparison I mentioned.
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Sannyasa - Part 2 of 20

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Only after taking up SannyAsa one gets the eligibility and right to receive the teaching of the mahAvAkyas that the Vedas proclaim in forms like "This Jiva itself is Brahman".

Brahman also means Veda.

Since the Vedas which are verily Brahman themselves declare Jiva as Brahman the mahAvAkyas get that exclusive spiritual power.

Just by knowing well that Jiva is brahman and by meditating on that will not make that goal a fact of experience. That declaration has to be repeated as a japa through the conglomerate of the letters of these veda-mantras and has to be meditated upon as a regimen; that is what makes the goal accessible.

‘Accessible’ does not mean ‘easily accessible’! I only said it in a comparative sense.

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Sri Maha Periva on Aardra Darsanam

Tomorrow happens to be Aardra Darsanam - let us listen to the Divine discourse of Sri Maha Periva about this, and receive His blessings.