Pearls of Wise

19/07/2018 18. All the sense pleasures belong to the brute. And the more the pleasure in knowledge comes, these sense pleasures fall down. The more animal a man is, the more he enjoys the pleasures of the senses. No man can eat with the same gusto as a famished dog. No man was ever born who could feel the same pleasure in eating as an ordinary bull. See how their whole soul is in that eating. Why, your millionaires would give millions for that enjoyment in eating — but they cannot have it. This universe is like a perfectly balanced ocean. You cannot raise a wave in one place without making a hollow in another one. The sum total of energy in the universe is the same throughout. You spend it in some place, you lose it in another. The brute has got it, but he spent it on his senses; and each of his senses is a hundred times stronger than that of man. How the dog smells at a distance! How he traces a footstep! We cannot do that. So, in the savage man. His senses are less keen th...

18/07/2018 In 1988, when Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda was giving a Yagna in Melbourne, a devotee had the chance to make an afternoon snack and she planned to cook spinach pastries for him. She washed the spinach six times to avoid any grit, bought the finest olive oil, the freshest filo pastry and ricotta cheese, and fresh herbs. She sweated over every detail and watched the pastry triangles bake until they were perfectly golden brown. Swamiji came out from his afternoon nap in the best of spirits. With a mischievous grin on his face, he watched her as she fussed over arranging the little pastries and stirring his tea. “What’s this?” he asked as he peered interestedly at the snacks. “Spinach triangles, Swamiji. It’s a Greek recipe,” she replied, heart in her mouth.  He ate one. “Mmmm,” he said. He ate another and then another. “Not bad delicious! You made these?” By this time, she was quite rosy with pleasure. “Yes, Swamiji.” He looked at her intently, “What’s i...

18/07/2018 3. A Great Warrior :- Lord Krishna was an undaunted warrior even from his twelfth year. He being annointed by Kubja and garlanded by Sudama, a flower-seller, entered the place of sacrifice in Dhanuryajna performed by Kamsa and broke the great bow. Kamsa sent an elephant named Kuvalayapeeda to kill Krishna. Krishna killed the elephant and entered the arena. Then he killed the chosen athletes of Kamsa, viz., Chanura and Toshalaka. Krishna got upon the platform on which Kamsa was seated, caught hold of his hair, threw him down on the ground and killed him. Krishna fought bravely with Jarasandha, emperor of Magadha and Kalayavana. Jarasandha, father-in-law of Kamsa was very much enraged when Krishna killed Kamsa. He invaded Mathura seventeen times; Krishna drove out Jarasandha every time. He fought with Bana, the thousand armed king of Sonitpur. Krishna’s son Aniruddha had secretly married Bana’s daughter Usha and was living with her. Bana was informed of this. He ...

17/07/2018 13. The enjoyment part of the sense perception process is not coincidental, it was put there. Otherwise, unless looking at something or hearing something or touching something or tasting something gave some little pleasure, you would not do it. Supposing a person gets conjunctivitis and opening the eyes becomes painful, the person closes the eyes. He does not want to open them because the very act of opening the eyes becomes painful. So, if the function of the senses were not accompanied by a little pleasure of the senses, man would not do it. The creator’s very objective in giving these would be thwarted. So he wants you to use these senses in order to perceive the world around you and to appreciate God’s beauty and to gain knowledge. Therefore, willy-nilly, He had to make the exercise of sense perceptions a little pleasurable. But man out of his perversions, failing to understand the reason for the presence of pleasurable sensations and sense processes, has missed...

17/07/2018 The action of the desire-soul of man, combined with the limited and fragmented experience of the mind, leads many to take the first experiences of a higher level of conscious awareness, in whatever form it may arrive, as something both extraordinary and final. Thus there are those who get some touch of the spirit who believe they have suddenly achieved the supramental realisation! Sri Aurobindo makes the point that these first touches, no matter how powerful and definitive they may seem, are still just stages along the path of increasing enlightenment, and they should not lead to a cessation of effort or any thought that the goal has been achieved. He also provides detailed differentiation between some of these gradations so that the seeker will have a reference point to understand what is taking place. One of the first stages of the action of supermind, stepped-down into the frame of the intuitive mentality, he calls “divine reason”. “It is as this divine reason tha...

16/07/2018 10. Satyameva jayate, is a great motto with which you are all familiar. And what is this Satyam, the Truth? Satyatvam badha rahityam said a great master. That which is 'uncontradictable', is the Truth, and if 'Truth alone triumphs', it is another way of saying that the 'Uncontradictable' alone triumphs. My dear friends, can I put you a question? Have you seen anything in this world which is uncontradictable? Everything is contradicted by everything else. There is supersession of values. Everything is transcended by something else. There is nothing in this world which cannot be negated by a subsequent occurrence or historical procession. It is because of this fact that it is said that there is no Reality in the appearance of this world. The appearance carries Reality, no doubt, the appearance of the world is a vehicle of Reality, but the structure itself is not Reality. We may make a distinction between Nama-Rupa-Prapancha (the world of names ...

16/07/2018 BHAGAVAD GITA FOR THE MODERN LIFE The  four Slokam-s ( BG - Chapter-1.: 20-23) describes the arrival of Arjuna into the battlefield. As he comes in, he tells Krishna to place his chariot in the middle of the two armies so he could see who he has to fight. His flag is described to “bear the monkey emblem” and he has lifted his bow showing his readiness to fight. He addresses the opposite side as the “wicked sons of Dhritarashtra”. These verses describe the mindset of a devotee who feels at the beginning of his spiritual journey that he will get rid of his negativities. He feels they are easily controllable and is proud of his abilities to stop them. Let us look at an example. Say you have a habit of lying, being jealous or gossiping. Or you are quick to blame others. You often feel these habits should be stopped. But you often find, knowingly or unknowingly you continue the negative tendencies. Instead of getting rid of it…..you find excuses and explanations to c...