Pearls of Wise

01/06/2019 The #greatness of Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda was when he had to bring the knowledge of the #Upanishads to the common man, he used examples they would understand easily. A veteran #devotee recalls that Gurudev made a great show of the way card players shuffle the cards; he would mimic it exactly and fan the cards and then say, "Please don't give up your vices." Everyone used to wonder struck! Then Gurudev gently said, "Even if you trust to leave the vices, you cannot leave them." He took the example of a spittoon and explained, "How do you clean the spittoon? You do not put your hand in it and clean it; you simply open the tap and the fresh water washes away all the dirt. Like that, don't give up bad #habits, but cultivate good habits. The bad habits will automatically go." The devotee was hardly sixteen then, he later served the Indian #Air Force yet remained a teetotaller, with no other addictions. That was the prof

01/06/2019 The next verse says Madhava and Arjuna seated in their chariots with its yoke of white horses, blew their celestial conch shells. (BG 1:14) When ego and other material desires disturb our world of calm and peace, the inner light, or Paramatma within us, tries to reset the inner world to Divinity again. In this verse, Krishna is described as MA…. DHAVA( meaning husband of Mother Nature or Prakriti). Only when our cosmic world is married to the spiritual world within us, true success in life, peace and calm prevails. Today’s lesson : A lot of people have misunderstood spirituality as sitting cross legged, chanting OM for hours without any progress made in their mental levels or the vibrations they give out. They remain angry, greedy, guilty, short- tempered, arrogant, jealous and competitive. They are quick to judge others as negative, never realizing their role in attracting negativity from others. Every person in this world is 99% positive. Only when we invoke th

31/05/2019. 4. What is the difference between men and animals? ... "Food and [sleep], procreation of the species, and fear exist in common with the animals. There is one difference: Man can control all these and become God, the master." Animals cannot do it. Animals can do charitable work. Ants do it. Dogs do it. What is the difference then? Men can be masters of themselves. They can resist the reaction to anything.... The animal cannot resist anything. He is held ... by the string of nature everywhere. That is all the distinction. One is the master of nature, the other the slave of nature. What is nature? The five senses.... [The conquest of internal nature] is the only way out, according to Yoga.... The thirst for God is religion.... Good works and all that [merely] make the mind a little quiet. To practice this — to be perfect — all depends upon our past. I have been studying [Yoga] all my life and have made very little progress yet. But I have got enough [result]

31/05/2019 The Upanishads clearly rank with the greatest spiritual and philosophical writings of mankind.  They have been revered for their beauty of expression and for the philosophical issues they address in a way that can benefit all, regardless of the particular religious or spiritual tradition one follows.  They are considered to be a universal body of expression of mankind’s highest aspirations and seeking for truth. While many have undertaken to translate the Upanishads, Sri Aurobindo’s work deserves a special place.  Sri Aurobindo brought more than just scholarly efforts to this work.  It is informed with experience and spiritual practice, which allows him to enter into the spirit of the Upanishads and communicate it to us. Sri Aurobindo has also added his own extensive commentaries to several of the key Upanishads, the Isha and the Kena, which together provide deep insight into the philosophy expressed in the Upanishads. The Upanishads were not originally written