Pearls of Wise

23/05/2018 Tuesday, October 24,1882 31. It was three or four o'clock in the afternoon.  The Master was standing near the shelf where the food was kept, when Balaram and M. arrived from Calcutta and saluted him.  Sri Ramakrishna said to them with a smile: "I was going to take some sweets from the shelf, but no sooner did I put my hand on them than a lizard dropped on my body.  At once I removed my hand.  (All laugh.) "Oh, yes! One should observe all these things.  You see, Rakhal is ill, and my limbs ache too.  Do you know what's the matter? This morning as I was leaving my bed I saw a certain person, whom I took for Rakhal.  (All laugh.) Oh, yes! Physical features should be studied.  The other day Narendra brought one of his friends, a man with only one good eye, though the other eye was not totally blind.  I said to myself, 'What is this trouble that Narendra has brought with him?' "A certain person comes here, but I can't eat any ...

23/05/2018 15 All the power of knowledge and wealth once made has passed away — all the sciences of the ancients, lost, lost forever. Nobody knows how. That teaches us a grand lesson. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity and vexation of the spirit. If we have seen all this, then we become disgusted with this world and all it offers us. This is called Vairâgya, non-attachment, and is the first step towards knowledge. The natural desire of man is to go towards the senses. Turning away from the senses takes him back to God. So the first lesson we have to learn is to turn away from the vanities of the world. How long will you go on sinking and diving down and going up for five minutes, to again sink down, again come up and sink, and so on — tossed up and down? How long will you be whirled on this wheel of Karma — up and down, up and down? How many thousands of times have you been kings and rulers? How many times have you been surrounded by wealth and plunged into poverty? How many ...

23/05/2018 Members read this edition very carefully :- to understand what is DHARMAM which leads you to our Bharateeya Sanatana Dharmam, This term 'Yajna' comes into high relief in this context of the great hymn to the Vedas, I made reference to. The central culture of Bharatavarsha, India, may be summed up in one term, 'Yajna'. You have heard this word uttered many a time. People perform Yajna. They perform Havan; they offer sacrifice, pour sacred ghee in the fire. But, this is only an outward expression, a symbol of the intention behind what is known as Yajna. The performance of a ritual is a spatio-temporal shape given to the inner idea expectation which is the Yajna. I am coming to the point, again. Your obligation to the world, as a whole, is the Yajna. You may ask me, why do you call it a Yajna? Why do you call it a sacrifice? Why do you say that my duty towards my nation is a Yajna? It is a Yajna because of an important factor involved in this p...

22'05/2018 5. The Western world is frantically adopting benefits of “the Hindu way of life”. All tertiary care centers in USA promote meditation, children in Netherlands and Dutch schools learn Gita compulsory, The Seton Hall University, a catholic University in USA made Gita study compulsory for all students irrespective of religion. The world has adopted Yoga into its heart in even the most fundamentalist Islamic countries. 14 Universities in Germany have Sanskrit courses, but the students wanting to learn is too many that they are wait- listed. Italy, Switzerland, UK are all teaching their children Sanskrit as it will be the language of tomorrow’s super computers.  It is high time Hindus wake up and realize that this tradition is ours and our children should not lose this valuable heritage to their Western counterparts when we tend to “fool” ourselves by blindly adopting the Western food and culture. I urge every mother to feed your child the HINDU PRIDE along with her b...

22/05/2018 3. Thus ‘life’ is a problem only when we know not how to meet the life’s challenges rising around us. When that ‘knowledge’ is revealed to us, we know the solution, and then the problem is no more to us threatening or despairing. Prince Arjuna of the Bhagavad Geeta represents in himself the confused and the desperate youth the world over. The Pandava Prince is painted in the Geeta as suffering from the universal disease of all young hearts the problem – phobia — to take things and happenings as problems where there are none and to feel terribly despaired of them. In the Bhagavad Geeta, the man making science of the Uapnishads is brought out of the forests to serve us where we are suffering — in the market place, in the slum huts, in the drawing rooms, in the commune, and at the barricades! The outstretched hands of Mother Geeta, ready and willing always to lift all intelligent young hearts from their dirt and filth, are today often ignored in our utter confusion of m...

22/05/2018 If we examine the mind’s process of knowing, we see that the individual first acquires perceptions through the operation of the sense organs. These perceptions are then received by the mind and, to the extent the mind has been organized through training or experience, they are filtered, classified and brought together to create patterns which then become the basis upon which the mind undertakes to build up its “knowledge” through inference, logic, analysis and synthesis. This entire process is necessarily partial and fragmented, based on ignorance, and subject to error at each step along the way. Even the greatest “knowing” of the mental consciousness is limited by the reliance on the senses and the fragmentation of the acquired knowledge into separated compartments with little, if any, ability to see the comprehensive and unified whole of which each of these elements is a part. The supermind cures these defects, as Sri Aurobindo clarifies: “The third character...

06/05/2018 Master's ecstasy at Vrindavan : "But one undoubtedly finds inspiration in a holy place.  I accompanied Mathur Babu to Vrindavan.  Hriday and the ladies of Mathur's family were in our party.  No sooner did I see the Kaliyadaman Ghat than a divine emotion surged up within me.  I was completely overwhelmed.  Hriday used to bathe me there as if I were a small child. "In the dusk I would walk on the bank of the Jamuna when the cattle returned along the sandy banks from their pastures.  At the very sight of those cows the thought of Krishna would flash in my mind.  I would run along like a madman, crying: 'Oh, where is Krishna? Where is my Krishna?' "I went to Syamakunda and Radhakunda in a palanquin and got out to visit the holy Mount Govardhan.  At the very sight of the mount I was overpowered with divine emotion and ran to the top.  I lost all consciousness of the world around me.  The residents of the place helped me t...

06/05/2018 If he is a thief and you tell him that stealing is the highest thing we can do, he will say, "That is a comfortable religion". If he is cheating, you have to tell him that what he is doing is all right; then he will accept your teaching as a "comfortable religion". The whole trouble is that people never want to get out of their ruts — never want to get rid of the old fish-basket and smell, in order to live. If they say, "I want the truth", that simply means that they want the fish-basket. When have you reached knowledge? When you are equipped with those four disciplines [i.e. the four qualifications for attainment discussed in Vedantic literature: discrimination between the real and the unreal, renunciation, the six treasures of virtue beginning with tranquillity, and longing for liberation]. You must give up all desire of enjoyment, either in this life or the next. All enjoyments of this life are vain. Let them come and go as they will....

03/05/2018 Members read this edition very carefully :- to understand what is DHARMAM which leads you to our Bharateeya Sanatana Dharmam, 6. The reason is something that appears to be beyond the investigating capacity of the psychological apparatus with which we are endowed today; and our education has not helped us. Our certificates, our degrees from colleges and universities have not taken us far. We have doubts, the very same misgivings that people had centuries back, and we do not sleep with a satisfied heart. We go to bed with a doubt, get up with a doubt and live our day with a doubt, and at the back of it there is a sense of insecurity gnawing into our vitals. The reason is not far to seek. We have been moving in the wrong direction, under the impression that we are advancing in civilisation, technology etc. We are fond of technological development and industrial revolution and scientific advancement. Very good, all this is well. But where does it take us? What is the...

03/05/2018 Bhagavad Gita for the modern life: 4. Today we will see the next fault of the egoistic consciousness called LOBHA or GREED. If we consider life about 50 yrs ago we have grown to lot more in technological advances, facilities and luxuries. As man moved from getting more…... to wanting more and more…..he has lost his ability to see what is “necessary necessity” and what is “unnecessary necessity”. Ranging from the most basic greed for food, our greed for money, power, fame, property, love, acceptance etc.etc…..is never ending. We even pray for these never ending demands hoping God will provide if we “bribe” HIM. This greed leads to breaking the law, dishonesty, cheating, using others, habitual lying, callous behavior, lack of remorse and a range of behaviors that remove us indirectly from DIVINE qualities. That is why Krishna says in BG 16:21 that lust, anger, and greed (Kama/ krodha/ lobha) are the three gateways to hell for sure. The suffering will come immediat...

03/05/2018 2. Such a dangerous concept was prevalent not only among the unintelligent and the uninitiated, but even the educated, and the well informed men of action themselves shared in this national misconception of their own life giving culture. Arjuna himself felt the need for renouncing the world and refusing to fulfil his duties towards the community in order to retire into the silent arbours of contemplation and meditation. This is against the very dynamic spirit of the Hindu culture, against the very national security of the country, against all the material welfare of our people. It is at such a time of a crucial cultural crisis in our country, the genius of Shri Veda Vyasa produced the Bhagavad Geeta all through keeping his pen faithful to the fundamental thoughts of the Upanishads, their sane conclusions, their demonstrated theories and their spectacular achievements. Here in the Bhagavad Geeta, we find a practical hand – book of instruction on how best we can reorg...

03/05/2018 10 It is this aspect of Yoga that acts as the preventive health system, the upstream aspect of the medical approach to human health, comfort and happiness. Thus upon the physical level, the body level, Yoga contributes to health both in a preventive as well as in a positively creative and constructive manner. Preventive by making you avoid those patterns of human behaviour and conduct that invite ill-health. So you avoid those pitfalls, those all too common weaknesses, indulgences and lack of self-control through all the senses. Then, through a system of physical postures, breathing techniques and relaxation, all combined together (this is known as the HATHAYOGA which is the basis or foundation of Rajayoga), you are able to bring about such an enhancement of Prana the positive effects of Prana in different places. Each Asana directs an abundance of Prana and concentrates it in some particular system of the inner physical man. The physical aspect of our human perso...

03/05/2018 The mental consciousness starts from perceived parts and, when it tries to build up a complete picture, it does so through aggregation of those parts. This is a weakness in the capacity of the mental awareness to grasp the transcendental and universal aspects of reality. It treats its own individual standpoint as something separate and divided from everything else, and thereby sets up an opposition and battle for the individual to survive and thrive as against the rest of the universe! Indeed, the mental consciousness also has no sense of the unity of the flow of Time and thus, tries to segment the unfolding manifestation according to the artificial divisions of time that have been devised for the practical operation of the social order based on the human mental capacities of organization. Sri Aurobindo elaborates: “Mind cannot arrive at identity with the Absolute even when by a stretch of the intellect it conceives the idea, but can only disappear into it in a swo...