Should devotees do sandhya as a daily sadhana as per their family tradition?

Transcript

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Hare Krishna. So, should devotees do Sandhya after their Upanayanam if that has been done in their family or their caste or their tradition in the past? Bhaktivinoda Thakur in Chaitanya Shiksha Amrit talks about how devotees may participate in three kinds of festivals. This is devotees heart is in festival centered on Krishna, that’s directly Vaishnav festivals.
But sometimes if there are other festivals such as just celebrated widely in society, even if devotees don’t directly celebrate it, say like Diwali or Ganesh Chauth or Durga Puja, then devotees may participate in it for the sake of social harmony. They themselves are not devotionally interested in it. And internally we can see that the particular Devata being worshipped is actually Krishna being worshipped.
That Devata is getting the power from Krishna. And so we remember Krishna. And there are ways in which we can pray to that Devata to bless us so that we can become better devotees of Krishna.
And he says there are secular festivals like Independence Day or some other days. If that is what is expected for a person in society, then one can do that as a social obligation. Now as far as Sadhana is concerned, so these festivals come once a year or something like that, once in a few months.
That is okay if we need to do it. But as far as Sadhana is concerned, we are a part of the Gaudiya Vaishnav Sampradaya now. And we are practicing, especially we are practicing Bhakti and are doing our Bhakti Sadhana as given in the Gaudiya Vaishnav Sampradaya.
Then there is not much need to do other kinds of Sadhanas. So usually after our, in our tradition also, say we will get first initiation and then we will get second initiation and then also we will do Sandhya. And Sandhya, at that time, of course in our tradition Gayatri is not that, usually it takes around 5-7 minutes or something like that doing Gayatri.
It’s a particular way it is done. So now Sandhya Vandan is an important part of the broad Vedic tradition. But it is not necessarily part of Bhakti.
In the Vedic tradition, there is Karma Marga, Jnana Marga and Bhakti Marga. There is Karma Kanda, which is religious worship done for material gains. Then there is Jnana Kanda, which is philosophical analysis of speculation to try to go beyond matter towards impersonal liberation, usually.
And there is Bhakti, which focuses on devoting oneself to the Lord. Now, there is a prayer of Madhavendra Puri, in Shri Raghupada also quotes in the second chapter, Bhagavad Gita purport. He says, Sandhya Vandanam Bhadramastume.
He says, O my Sandhya Prayers, I offer my good wishes to you. What he means by that is, he gives a variety of practices like traveling to various holy places to bathe in the holy places or offering oblations in the fire, which were traditionally considered important Vedic duties. He says that I offer my obeisances to you.
He says, for me, I am simply remembering Govinda and that alone is enough for me. There is a gradual path for spiritual elevation, which may take many lifetimes, Bahunam Janmanamante. And that involves doing various rituals or practices, which are more of a Karma Kanda in nature.
And then there is a rapid path of spiritual advancement, that is the Bhakti path, which involves directly redirecting our love towards Krishna. And we as devotees are now following that direct path. So now, some of the forms from the Vedic tradition may also be taken by the Vaishnava tradition.
The Vedic tradition is like, you could say, a big circle. In India, say, one city is Delhi. Delhi is the capital, the most important city, but it’s within India.
So Vedic tradition is like India. And Bhakti is like the capital. Bhakti is like the ultimate purpose of it all.
Veda ishya sarvairaham eva vedyam. Krishna says, by all the Vedas, I am to be known. Sometimes these forms like Sandhya are adapted by devotees, but we do it with a devotional mood.
So, for example, when we do, after you get second initiation, when you will do Gayatri, at that time, we do chant the traditional Gayatri mantras, but along with that, there are other mantras also which are considered to be calm Gayatri, which are considered to be the Gayatri which is related with Lord Krishna, Lord Chaitanya, and which is more for intensifying our meditation on them. So, the mantra that is traditionally one of the Gayatri mantra that is often thought of as a meditation on Surya, but the Vaishnavacharya has explained that it is not just Surya, it is Surya Narayana. It is Surya gets his power from Lord Narayana and we are meditating not just on Surya, but on Surya Narayana.
So, we will do the Gayatri, we will do the Sandhya Vandan later when we get second initiation and we will do it in a way which we are going to do in our Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition. So, as of now, if you are following the sadhana of one tradition, then we just stick to that and even if we had some sadhana or some practices from our earlier birth tradition, we can be respectful to that, but that is also one way to rise up, to raise one’s consciousness, but that is not something which we need to practice at our stage. So, there is Adharma, there is Aparadharma and there is Paradharma.
Adharma is a religiosity. Aparadharma is material religion, that is Karma Kanda and Paradharma is spiritual religion, that is Bhakti. So, if somebody gives up Aparadharma and takes up Adharma, somebody just gives up all religious activities and becomes totally materialistic, then that is a contamination.
But if somebody is giving up religious activities and taking up Parabhakti, pure devotional activities, devotional sadhana, then that is actually a step up. So, for devotees, they are practicing Bhakti sincerely as well as possible under one’s circumstances, then there is no need to separately put time for doing Sandhya. You can just focus on the practice of Bhakti and by that itself we will get purified and eventually as we get initiated and then second initiated, we will also have the opportunity to do sadhana according to our tradition.
So, the idea is that different traditions or different communities, they have their different traditions and they’re all ways for elevation. But if we are practicing Bhakti sadhana, then we are on the way to the fastest elevation and that’s why we don’t need to split our time between Bhakti sadhana and some other sadhana.