Pearls of Wise

17/04/2019 1. Sharing of knowledge is far more empowering than giving of material wealth, says Swami Nikhilananda Saraswati Everyone should share their wealth. It’s a noble gesture. The scriptures talk about it. By all means keep aside some for your use, but know that you are essentially a trustee of your wealth. It is like a well in the forest where all animals come to drink. It does not belong to that land alone. 1. The Giving Habit : Daan, loosely translated as charity or philanthropy, helps you overcome greed, selfishness and possessiveness. The spirit of daan needs to be encouraged right from childhood. Earlier, parents would bring home a toy or a few toffees and ask the older child to share them with younger ones. Today, they buy separate toys and chocolates for each child, so that children have the goodies all to themselves. It may avoid quarrels, but it also creates an attitude that what is mine, is mine alone, and not to be shared. Giving should be accompanied b...

17/04/2019 2. Any form of desire is wrong. We cannot work on desires. We can only work on needs and necessities. There is a famous proverb that says, "Necessity is the mother of invention". So, is invention following desire or following necessity? Whatever necessity or need you have, if you act upon it, it is perfectly alright. In addition to that, any kind of a desire, which grows into greed and possessiveness, any kind of expectation, which goes on becoming unreal, will only constrict the mind. It will make the mind narrow. Tell me now: Is a narrow mind more effective or a mind that is broad and full-fold? So, if you want to have a healthy mind, a full-fold mind, a mind that can apply itself, what should you do? Should you keep on desiring? Expectation is not the way. Desire is not the way. Always have an assessment of what is to be done. Try to also arrive at the best means of attainment. And once you are decided on the means, start it, proceed with it and end wit...

16/04/2019 We all want prosperity, but our notions of prosperity are rather one-sided. We mistakenly equate material wealth with prosperity, material comforts with happiness, and live as their slaves. The prosperity of one comes at the expense of another; this leads to aggression and attacks against the affluent.   The greed for wealth results in people making compromises with their principles. Today, young people, in their aim to become billionaires overnight, burn out and suffer from depression, heart attack and so on by the time they are 40. Is this the prosperity that we are looking for? Prosperity without right knowledge will merely take us to destruction. Outer prosperity must not be at the expense of our inner riches. True prosperity is born when external affluence is backed by inner wealth. The vision of Vedanta is enshrined in the principles of six fold wealth, which are our inner virtues and values such as control over the senses, right discrimination, faith...

16/04/2019 1. There was a poet who once wrote: "You cannot pluck a little flower Without the shaking of a star." All life is one. There is one common consciousness which links the life of all beings into one great cosmic unity. There was once a Sufi mystic who was established in this state of cosmic consciousness. He was a gardener. One day a friend of his came to visit him. In the conversation that they were having he was distracted and the sharp gardening tool which he was using hit his leg. His friend was startled, for he saw, oozing out of the wound in his leg, not red blood but a thin, pale fluid. It was the sap of plants. This Sufi mystic was in an absolute rapport, a perfect harmony with all life. He was at one with the plants, He had entered into their very consciousness. His life and their life was entirely one. Many other stories could be told about mystics who have attained this state of absolute consciousness with all life. One such cosmic being wa...

15/04/2019 There are two kinds of desires, anabolic and catabolic. Anabolic desires are constructive, helpful and necessary for maintaining health and peace of mind. Catabolic desires are destructive in their nature. They throw the energy out. Any procedure by which we can conserve our energy is anabolic. Any process by which we deplete our energy and then become weak, that is catabolic. One must be able to very carefully distinguish between one and the other. Understanding is the judge, it is called Viveka-Shakti, capacity to distinguish between what is absolutely essential for living a normal life and what is irrelevant. This is a preliminary definition to the question "What is purity?". So purity is not like an apple that falls from a tree, it has shades of definition. You will not find any such clear description of this subject in any book, each one has to use one’s common sense. It is necessary to save life. Suppose you find a snake is wriggling encircled by fo...

15/04/2019 We were discussing the concept of creation in Hinduism. A lot of people consider Brahma- Vishnu- Maheswara as the equivalent of Trinity in other religions and say they are the creator- sustainer- destroyer. Though the fundamental Dharma may be same, Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswara should be understood not as people but the ENERGY PRINCIPLES that cause creation, sustenance and destruction. Like we discussed yesterday Brahma only denotes a creative mind from which the world of forms originate, Vishnu is the consciousness that sustains it and Shiva is the knowledge, by obtaining which, we let go of the material world. Today’s Lesson: It is important to know Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva or the principles of creation, Sustenance and Recycling exist in us. Only if we understand these principles and use them effectively in various situations of our life can we be productive individuals. There are times we need to be creative and make a world of our own. We need to sustain our ...

14/04/2019. In 1968, Swami Mitrananda’s (Acharya Chinmaya Mission Chennai) father got Pujya Gurudev’s autograph in the Holy Gita. Pujya Gurudev wrote: “Read five verses daily and meet me after three years.” Twenty years later, Swami Mitrananda gave the same book to Pujya Gurudev for his autograph during his yajna at Tirupati. He saw the old signature and asked, “Whose book is it?” When he told him about his father, Pujya Gurudev smiled and wrote on the same page: Son also, advice the same.” To the people sitting around, Pujya Gurudev said “This is our culture; the book should be handed over to the next generation.” In 1989, Swami Mitrananda joined the Ashram at Mumbai. On the day of his diksha in 1991, he showed the book to Pujya Gurudev. He wrote: “Father missed it, but son got it.” It has become a rare book with three signatures of Pujya Gurudev on the same page of the Bhagavad Gita Book. In chapter 6 of Bhagavad Gita it is said, the mind, through the practice of #concentrati...

14/04/2019 2. Why modern civilisation has despised religion is only because it understands by religion an outburst of the irrational spirit. The truth is far from this! Religion is the light that enlivens the most rational life, the manifestation of the eternal glow of intelligence that peeps through even the mightiest genius of the world. There can be no civilisation without religion, and there is no worth in religion if it is destitute of spirituality. That religion which aims at nothing more than a happy life in the world is only materialistic utilitarianism and not a solacing religion. Materialism is the crude product of a want of proper illumination and insight into the true essence and, hence, it is not worthy of consideration. An impure heart and conceited brain cannot understand religion. True religion begins when and where the intellect ends. Religion is neither emotion nor scholarship, but knowledge that is direct and immediate, a faith born not of practical ...

13/04/2019 3. ... The Yogi says, religion is practical if you know first why misery exists. All the misery in the world is in the senses. Is there any ailment in the sun, moon, and stars? The same fire that cooks your meal burns the child. Is it the fault of the fire? Blessed be the fire! Blessed be this electricity! It gives light.... Where can you lay the blame? Not on the elements. The world is neither good nor bad; the world is the world. The fire is the fire. If you burn your finger in it, you are a fool. If you [cook your meal and with it satisfy your hunger,] you are a wise man. That is all the difference. Circumstances can never be good or bad. Only the individual man can be good or bad. What is meant by the world being good or bad? Misery and happiness can only belong to the sensuous individual man. The Yogis say that nature is the enjoyed; the soul is the enjoyer. All misery and happiness — where is it? In the senses. It is the touch of the senses that causes ple...

03/04/2019 The development of the practical intelligence that can respond to impressions and can carry out the conventional patterns of the society is an intermediate step through which humanity passes as it develops beyond the instinctive behavior of the animal and begins to flex the mental capacities of which it is eventually capable.  The mind so organized is hemmed in on all sides and does not have a truly free and open intellectual activity.  Opinion, custom, prejudice, convention all act to circumscribe the intelligence within a narrow range.  Sri Aurobindo likens this to an imprisonment and asserts that this is just a stage which must eventually be overcome to achieve the true and destined realizations of a liberated humanity: “In the range of the mind’s life itself, to live in its merely practical and dynamic activity or in the mentalist emotional or sensational current, a life of conventional conduct, average feelings, customary ideas, opinions and pre...