Inspirational Sayings of the Great on Sandhya-Upasana

(II)

Brahmibhuta Sri Ramananda Sarasvati Svaminah

(Picked from The Hindu Ideal (1969), pp 129-40)

"Let us consider the grand old ideal and at the same time witness around ourselves the actual state of things. Where are our Brahmanas? Certainly we many of the Brahmanas of today have our treads on and we daily go through the farce of Sandhya worship. ... The Brahmana, having almost lost the inner light, the light which had made him Brahmana, would forget his own duties but would still preserve his dignity as Brahmana. ...

Our Brahmanyam hangs by a fine thread. ... He has considerably crippled his Brahmanyam within by failing to perform even the most necessary sastraic duties of his, in the proper manner. ...

You Brahmanas are the trusted custodians of the Vedas. ... You swerved from your lofty duty. ... Your consequent neglect of even our nityakarma, the necessary and compulsory portion of your daily svadharma has wrought so much confusion. ... It is very necessary and urgent that you Brahmanas should improve yourselves first. ... 

Our Brahmanyam will be secure in us ... will be safe and intact if we, each of us individual Brahmanas, keep up at least the minimum observance of the sastraic rules of acara, of our nitya and naimittika karmas. ... We must perform Sandhyavandanam and Madhyanhikam strictly in the mode prescribed. It is even enough if Gayatri is repeated ten times on each occasion. ... You are bound to come up if you only seriously engage yourselves in the right direction.

Forget not, you are the direct descendants of the mighty Brahmarsis of old. ... Fear not. No cloud of ignorance, mistake or perversion on the part of other, however dense and dark, can long stand before the mighty spiritual sun of your Gayatri Upasana.

Sleep not, wake up and work on. Isvara is always within you. Some say, Brahmanyam has fallen on evil days. It is not so. Brahmanyam is being rightly and strictly tested for its eternal preservation. ..."