Pearls of Wise

5. There are certain minor instincts which are less powerful than those of self-preservation and self-reproduction, but which, nevertheless, exert a great influence on the personality and subject it to involuntary actions. The self-assertive instinct is one among these. This instinct is meant either to compensate for one's sense of inferiority, or to preserve one's thwarted power, importance and distinction (many times merely imagined), or to expand one's ego by adding to it qualifications from outside (though this addition is purely artificial). It is the inherent tendency to preserve the complex of one's psycho-physical organism. The gregarious instinct is another, which manifests itself in love of company of the group to which one 'belongs'. This is the instinct of identification of the group with one's self. Metaphysically, this appears to be an unconscious expression of one's love for one's larger social self or organism which compri...

4. The master who narrated this incident to the disciples said, "Such should be your determination, my child, such indeed should be your spirit, if you would plumb the depths of the ocean of Satchidananda." So remember the perseverance of Lord Buddha. Perseverance is a abhyasa. Abhyasa is persistent effort. In Patanjali’s Raja Yoga, there is a sutra which says, "If you want to be established in perfect concentration, you must apply yourself persistently, not allowing yourself even a single break." Only by practicing ceaselessly with keen, unflagging interest over a protracted period of time will you ever become established in deep concentration. Lord Krishna also said to Arjuna that perseverance would be absolutely necessary for him to bring the mind under control. He first told Arjuna to fix it, how to make it sharp and one-pointed in order to still the thoughts. And Arjuna listened carefully. "This is all very well for you to say, Krishna. But fo...

2. A leader who holds an opinion without listening to others will be restricted by his own thinking and limited knowledge. Such restricted thinking may benefit him for a short period of time, but he will likely exhaust his ideas very quickly and lose the respect of the people around him. The best leader is one who listens to others. Listening is an art. It is not merely hearing. Very often we hear others, but the ideas they are trying to convey don’t register in us. Sometimes the best ideas come from simple listening. Leaders can get ideas from listening to staff members, children, even taxi drivers. A good listener will always progress in the world, and will be appreciated by others. When you are talking, you want to be heard, and if nobody listens to you, no matter how brilliant your idea, you will not be able to share it. Humility is reflected in listening, but it is also very important to know how to listen. A good listener immediately processes informati...

Sivarathri is a festival of self- sacrifice for universal protection. This is demonstrated by Shiva consuming Kalakoodam which otherwise would have demolished the world. In today's society vote bank politics and destructive religious ideologies create Kalakoodam. The need of our time is to change the concept of "one God" to "God of self". We have to sacrifice our ego to make others happy. We don't need to chase God for salvation. Let God manifest through us. Let sharing and respect be your style and happiness the result. Love God a lot but love others too. In fact, it is God’s love which will fill our relationships with others full of love. This is the triangle of spirituality. Take from God and give to others and also love others to bring them closer to God. Develop the practice of being peace in silence. Thoughts of fear, doubt, and uncertainty pollute our inner peace. In silence, when you are quiet and calm, you will find solutions. ...

1. Humility does not mean keeping your head bowed down or being a scared mouse. It is not false modesty either, secretly feeling pleased with oneself whilst showily claiming, “Oh, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything. Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda pointed out a great truth in this connection; He said, “Humility is a strange thing – the moment you think you have it, you’ve lost it!” Truly, humility flowers when we are ready to appreciate other people’s efforts and not hinder the progress of others. Today, whether in the business field or in any institution – including most families – most people are ready to talk, but rarely to listen. If they do listen, more often or not it is because they are forced to. We can see this in family life as well. When everybody is ready to give an opinion but nobody is ready to listen, how can there be harmony? Swami Cinmayananda To be continued  

1. Devotee.: Is not Grace the gift of the Guru? Maharishi.: God, Grace and Guru are all synonymous and also eternal and immanent. Is not the Self already within?  Is it for the Guru to bestow It by his look? If a Guru thinks so, he does not deserve the name. The books say that there are so many kinds of initiations – by hand, by touch, by eyes and by mind. They also say that the Guru makes some rites with fire, water, japa, mantras, etc., and call such fantastic performances Initiation, as if the disciple becomes ripe only after such processes are gone through by the Guru. If the individual is sought he is nowhere to be found. Such is the Guru. Such is Dakshinamurti. What did he do? He was silent; the disciples appeared before him. He maintained silence; the doubts of the disciples were dispelled, which means that they lost their individual identities. That is wisdom  and not all the verbiage usually associated with it. Silence is the most potent form of w...

2. The Sociology of Caste : . In modern societies, occupational diversity, increased social mobility, loosening of family ties and economic expansion have led to the replacement of the traditional determinants of caste by economic status as the sole determinative of social difference. We now have economic classes – the upper, the middle and the working – that are in no way less hierarchical than the traditional caste or the ranked feudal order. What differentiates the modern class from its medieval or ancient counterpart is the theoretical lack of exclusiveness and the individual as the unit of stratification. Unfortunately, in practice, not many individuals manage to rise from the lower ranks of society to its higher echelons, and so class divisions are not as labile as one would otherwise expect them to be. Marxism represents a modern ideological attempt at developing a classless society. However, the inevitability of class struggle and the rule of the proletariat as ...

THE RAMAYANA : 3. Swami Vivekananda (Delivered at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, January 31, 1900) And this is how he became a poet. One day as this sage, Valmiki, was going to bathe in the holy river Ganga, he saw a pair of doves wheeling round and round, and kissing each other. The sage looked up and was pleased at the sight, but in a second an arrow whisked past him and killed the male dove. As the dove fell down on the ground, the female dove went on whirling round and round the dead body of its companion in grief. In a moment the poet became miserable, and looking round, he saw the hunter. "Thou art a wretch," he cried, "without the smallest mercy! Thy slaying hand would not even stop for love!" "What is this? What am I saying?" the poet thought to himself, "I have never spoken in this sort of way before." And then a voice came : - "Be not afraid. This is poetry that is coming out of your mouth. Write the life ...

The birds flew up to the water’s edge, and demanded of the sea that their nest be restored to them.  The sea continued to murmur and the waves to break. But there was no answer. Then the birds decided, "The sea has no business to take what does not belong to it. The sea shall give up what is not its own. We shall empty the sea. We shall regain our own." Then the father bird flew back to a clump of grass, and plucked one tiny blade, few out to sea, scooped up a few drops of water, flew back to the sands, shook the drops of water to the shore, and returned to the sea. This process, back and forth, flying out to sea, dipping and scooping, flying back to land, shaking water on the shore, again, and again he repeated. Then, exhausted with hunger, he gave the blade of grass to the mother bird and foraged for food while she continued the process. The birds didn’t look at the sea. They didn’t try to calculate its depth or its magnitude. They concentrated fully upon the ...

Sexual love or beauty has thus a reference to a need extending beyond the individual and so it is stronger than any other form of love known on earth. If anyone, however, is to know that the meaning of the self-reproductive urge is not the pleasure or the good of oneself, but is only a service done to a more powerful nature which makes use of everyone as its drudge, no one would indulge in the fulfilment of this urge. Hence nature covers the consciousness of the individual and steeps it in the delusion that the purpose of the urge is the pleasure of the individual, by preventing the discriminative understanding from functioning in it. This illusion is called the 'instinct for sex', and this is the pleasure derived thereby! These self-expressing energies in individuals have a common source, an original form and their sum is constant at all times; it never decreases or increases; only it sometimes gets distributed in unequal proportions due to disturbance of equilibriu...

5. True religion is love. True religion unites all in fellowship. Sages call upon man to see good in all, but our endeavour should be to see God in all, for only then will we be able to see the good in all. Let man be taught truth, purity, love, contentment and selflessness. Let there be a living faith in God in the hearts of men, for it is the very essence of the spirit of true religion. In this faith alone, lies the hope of our victory. Having achieved this, the main task is all but over and such humanity in whose bosom the divine flame has been kindled up will spontaneously direct all endeavours towards the materialisation of all these ideals. May the world be free from the fear of war and destruction, from the fanaticism of religious intolerance, racial prejudices and hatred, from the delusion of fostering civilisation through enslavements, from the self-righteous pride of charity and doing good to others, from ungodliness and the diabolical dialectics of materialism. M...

Happiness is the very nature of the Self; happiness and the Self are not different. There is no happiness in any object of the world. We imagine through our ignorance that we derive happiness from objects. When the mind goes out, it experiences misery. In truth, when its desires are fulfilled, it returns to its own place and enjoys the happiness that is the Self. Similarly, in the states of sleep, samadhi and fainting, and when the object desired is obtained or the object disliked is removed, the mind becomes inward-turned, and enjoys pure Self-Happiness. Thus the mind moves without rest alternately going out of the Self and returning to it. Under the tree the shade is pleasant; out in the open the heat is scorching. A person who has been going about in the sun feels cool when he reaches the shade. Someone who keeps on going from the shade into the sun and then back into the shade is a fool. A wise man stays permanently in the shade. Similarly, the mind of th...

A man does not feel restless for God until all his worldly desires are satisfied. He does not remember the Mother of the Universe until his share of the enjoyment of 'woman and gold' is completed. A child absorbed in play does not seek his mother. But after his play is over, he says, 'Mother! I must go to my mother.' Hriday's son was playing with the pigeons, calling to them, 'Come! Ti, ti!' When he had had enough of play he began to cry. Then a stranger came and said: 'Come with me. I will take you to your mother.' Unhesitatingly he climbed on the man's shoulders and was off. Those who are eternally free do not have to enter worldly life. Their desire for enjoyment has been satisfied with their very birth. For the Kaliyuga the path of devotion described by Narada is best. Where can people find time now to perform their duties according to the scriptural injunctions?  Nowadays the decoctions of roots and ...

Thinkers in ancient India gradually came to understand that that idea of separateness was erroneous, that there was a connection among all those distinct objects— there was a unity which pervaded the whole universe— trees, shrubs, animals, men, Devas, even God Himself; the Advaitin reaching the climax in this line of thought declared all to be but the manifestations of the One. In reality, the metaphysical and the physical universe are one, and the name of this One is Brahman; and the perception of separateness is an error. To all women, every man except her husband should be as her son. To all men, every woman except his own wife should be as his mother. When I look about me and see what you call gallantry, my soul is fixed with disgust. Not until you learn to ignore question of sex and to meet on a ground of common humanity will women and men really develop. Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not und...

When the soul departs from body after death, it takes with it a load of character or Gunas by the activities so far gone through. This principle is key to understanding the apparent uncertainties of life and the lack of perfect correlation between input and output. At the same time, this principle of cause and effect teaches us that we ourselves are responsible for what happens to us, whether or not we understand how. It follows that we can change what happens to us by changing ourselves; we can take our destiny into our own hands. It also encourages ethical action with the realization that every action will have equivalent impact whether in this life or later. This separateness is fed by our ego and attachment to senses. Ego creates a false impression that we are separate. The more we feed the ego (“I am the doer”) more the sense of separateness grows. Senses take us further away from self and towards attachment by making us a slave of desires. Gita puts it b...

 All life is one. The world is one home. All are members of one human family. All creation is an organic whole. No man is independent of this whole. Man makes himself miserable by separating himself from others. Separation is death. Unity is eternal life. Cultivate cosmic love. Include all. Embrace all. Serve all. Recognise the worth of others. Destroy all barriers, racial, religious and natural prejudices that separate man from man. Cease to find fault with others. Realise your unity with all. God the supreme Redeemer, redeems us through religion with the help of His messengers the saints and seers, who are the incarnated expression of His redeeming power and grace. Salutations and prostrations to the supreme being, the eternal source of all existences. Salutations to the one universal God, who is the source of all religions and the goal of all aspirants. One should be a living embodiment of religion in practice. One should be a personification of religion idealis...

How then am I to work? How will I prepare for my performances in the world outside? How can my behaviour, my daily contact in life be improved? Who amongst us does not wish to become something better than what we are? We lose our temper, sometimes even with our mother and father and it is not that we are disloyal and disrespectful to them, but perhaps at home no one takes you seriously. You start to despair. ‘No one seems to understand me, I am unhappy, a hundred things disturb me. Emotions gurgle out, I make a mess of my life, I make myself a dirty, filthy and ugly individual, I have no patience. What is in me that is repelling others?’ These unwanted qualities are known as ‘negative qualities’– our immoral or unethical actions. The modern psychologists term them as negative ideas. When negative ideas are expressed in one’s character, others get repelled from that person. If one can bring out into expression the fragrance of one’s positive qualities, then peo...

Having recognized the difficulties of overcoming the natural tendencies of the vital plane, with its focus on fulfilment of desire, one may recognize that this is not the only possible line of development; rather, that a higher evolutionary development is possible whereby the vital is brought under the influence of a higher mental and spiritual capacity and thereby is able to mitigate the natural tendencies of the vital in its pure expression. Sri Aurobindo observes: “It is open to the vital man to lift himself beyond the conceptions and energies natural to the desire-soul and the desire-plane. He can develop a higher mentality and, within the conditions of the vital being, concentrate upon some realisation of the Spirit or Self behind or beyond its forms and powers.” Because this is taking place in relation to the vital being, the need for total abandonment of the active life is removed and there develops a relation between Purusha and Prakriti that does not involve total qui...

Other than inquiry, there are no adequate means. If through other means it is sought to control the mind, the mind will appear to be controlled, but will again go forth. Through the control of breath also, the mind will become quiescent; but it will be quiescent only so long as the breath remains controlled, and when the breath resumes the mind also will again start moving and will wander as impelled by residual impressions. The source is the same for both mind and breath. Thought, indeed, is the nature of the mind. The thought “I” is the first thought of the mind; and that is egoity. It is from that whence egoity originates that breath also originates. Therefore, when the mind becomes quiescent, the breath is controlled, and when the breath is controlled the mind becomes quiescent. But in deep sleep, although the mind becomes quiescent, the breath does not stop. This is because of the will of God, so that the body may be preserved and other people may not be under the impress...

Towards a Casteless Bharatham ( India ) –2.1 Swami Satyaswarupananda Sri Ramakrishna Mission. 2.1 2. The Sociology of Caste : 1. Caste is essentially about social divisions and gradations, about the formation of classes and ranks based on differences in lineage, occupation or wealth. In recent times, Louis Dumont’s book Homo Hierarchicus has popularized the concept of human beings as essentially hierarchical in their social formations. It has been argued that social hierarchy is an inevitable outcome of basic biological differences between humans – both as individuals as well as groups – and these differences are often accentuated by environmental modifiers. That such gradations are natural is supported by their existence amongst a wide range of social animals. Ants, termites and bees provide a striking example of organized division of function and labour. The queens, nymphs, workers, soldiers and drones amongst these insects have very specialized roles and t...

THE RAMAYANA : 2. Swami Vivekananda (Delivered at the Shakespeare Club, Pasadena, California, January 31, 1900) 2. The eyes of the robber were opened. "That is the way of the world — even my nearest relatives, for whom I have been robbing, will not share in my destiny." He came back to the place where he had bound the sage, unfastened his bonds, fell at his feet, recounted everything and said, "Save me! What can I do?" The sage said, "Give up your present course of life. You see that none of your family really loves you, so give up all these delusions. They will share your prosperity; but the moment you have nothing, they will desert you. There is none who will share in your evil, but they will all share in your good. Therefore worship Him who alone stands by us whether we are doing good or evil. He never leaves us, for love never drags down, knows no barter, no selfishness." Then the sage taught him how to worship.  And this man left...

1. Introduction : 2. Achaaryaath paadam aadatthe paadam sishya swamedhayaa paadam sa brahmachaaribhya sesham kaala kramena cha This is an important advice given in smruthies. It means a person can get only one quarter of knowledge from Achaarya - the teacher, another quarter by analyzing self, one quarter by discussing with others and the last quarter during the process of living by method addition, deletion, correction, and modification of already known aachaaraas or new aachaaraas. Aachaaraath labhathe hi ayu: aachaaraath dhanamakshayam aachaaraath labhathe suprajaa: aachaaro ahanthya lakshanam Aachaaraas are followed for the psychological and physiological health and long life; Aachaaraas are followed for prosperity and wealth; Aachaaraas are followed for strong family and social bondage and following the Aachaaraas give a fine personality, dharmic outlook and vision, says our dharmasaastra. In India everyone followed Aachaaraas for the above mentioned psycholog...

3. Even the urge for self-reproduction may be explained in terms of the urge for self-preservation. It is really the will-to-live of the individual of the species to be manifested in the physical universe that asserts in what is termed the self-reproductive urge. The parent becomes the medium of the self-manifestation of a new individual, which is the intention of the physical nature. The lower nature of any 'specific' individual has no control over this instinct, because it is the intention of the 'general' nature or the species which exceeds the natural powers of the former. The will-to-reproduce is only the will-to-live of the would-be member of this physical universe. The fulfilment of this will-to-live is not really the good or the delight of any individual, but is only an execution of the orders of the lower diversified nature, the fulfilment of the purpose of the species as a whole, which is wider than any individual in comprehensiveness. The wil...

5. "Do as you would be done by. Do unto others as you wish others do unto you."  This is the whole of Dharma. Attended to this carefully, you will be saved from all troubles; practise this in your daily life. Man should cultivate unlimited love. All patriotism, love of one’s nation, one’s own race, one’s own religion should never be allowed to be factors to encourage disunity, discord, hostility and superiority-complex. The love of your country and personal freedom should all the more emphasise that how much sacred is the other man’s love for his country and his personal freedom. Sri Swami Sivananda To be continued  ...

 2. The grandeur of life is in dedicating it to a noble cause. If you do not win, it does not matter. It is a small mind that is always thinking of winning. Let the mind think greatly, grandly. Life should be lived nobly, based upon lofty sublime principles, with a wide vision. In the Upanishads, there is a naïve, but wonderful little story about a pair of birds who built a nest on the sea-shore, close to the waves. The birds were sand-pipers. They had three beautiful little eggs laid in their nest that where beginning to hatch, when, one day, while they were away getting soft things to line the nest, there came an extra big wave, rolling in from the sea, right up to the place where they had hidden the nest among the dunes. In one lap, it swallowed the nest and swept it out to sea: eggs, nest and all. The birds came back and could not find the nest. The reeds and the ruses were all wet, all white, all covered with foam. And the sea murmured.  ...