Pearls of Wise

Thursday, September 10, 2020.  ------------------------------------------------------- The earliest statement of the Nature of Reality occurs in the first book of the Rig-Veda: Ekam Sat-Viprah Bahudha Vadanti. "The ONE BEING, the wise diversely speak of." The tenth book of the Rig-Veda regards the highest conception of God both as the Impersonal and the Personal: The Nasadiya Sukta states that the Supreme Being is both the Unmanifest and the Manifest, Existence as well as Non-existence, the Supreme Indeterminable. The Purusha-Sukta proclaims that all this Universe is God as the Supreme Person – the Purusha with thousands of heads, thousands of eyes, thousands of limbs in His Cosmic Body. He envelops the whole cosmos and transcends it to infinity. The Narayana-Sukta exclaims that whatever is anywhere, visible or invisible, all this is pervaded by Narayana within and without. The Hiranyagarbha-Sukta of the Rig-Veda declares that God manifested Himself in the beginning as the Cr...

  Wednesday, September 09, 2020. 7:07.AM. Grief over any matter is born of ignorance. There is a difference between concern and grief. A person weeps because of the loving relationship with or personal attachment to the departed or simply because of the social expectation to cry. If the deceased lived an unrighteous life, there could be concern about his fate. For just this reason, rituals for a better situation in the after-life of the departed soul are prescribed. Even if a good person dies, there can be cause for grief, because in the absence of their wise counsel we fear for ourselves.  There could be various reasons to grieve for one who has passed away, but why mourn for the living? Those who are alive can cause anxiety in many ways; sometimes we cry out of love or attachment.  Many a time, people grieve over fear of events that have not taken place. It is interesting that at twenty, a man neither cares nor worries about what the world thinks of him. At thirty, he w...

Tuesday, September 08, 2020. 06:45. AM. For those of you with sufficient time and interest, we would suggest that you click on the Teachings and Sadhana links on the top of this page and go through the contents. You could also go through the links to the teachings of Swami Sivananda, Swami Chidananda, and Swami Krishnananda and see all the tremendous teachings they had in regard to spiritual practice. For those who lack the time to go through all we've provided, the following is a short encapsulation of the sort of information you will find in those pages. The foremost spiritual practice may be almost the simplest-just be interested. Be interested in your own life, that is, what proceeds past you in your outer life and also the phenomena of your inner life. Be interested in your experience, but also your response to your experience. Be interested in discovering the truth about the nature of your own being. Be interested in knowing who you are in all circumstances, and esp...

Monday, September 07, 2020. 05:45. AM. “Dharyate anena iti dharmah”. That which supports is dharmam. That which supports, maintains, nourishes, harmonises, brings together, and unites the inert and the sentient, the individual and the society, nation and the world is dharma. The very substratum of the entire creations is called dharma. The common factor, the essence of countless imaginable creation is dharma. The other names synonymous in meaning in the Vedas are Brahman, Atman, Paramatman etc. Therefore one of the names of Maha Vishnu in the Vishnusahasranaam (thousand names of Vishnu) is Dharmam. The word Dharma has a wide range of meanings and hence called Parma (Supreme) Dharmam. Let us delve further into this word. ###There are three aspects to life :- # l)The experiencer of the world called the ‘jeeva’ or the individual, ##2) the experienced world or jagat. The individual could not have created himself or another individual or the world. Neither did the world creat...

Sunday, September 06, 2020. While to some extent desire and consequent burdens are quite usual with household life, the fact remains that this plight robs away the very purpose and fruition of the householder. The question is: Do you like such a plight? If you do not, the straight answer will be: be free of undue desire and the burden it fetches. Learn to live in peaceful harmony and welfare. Desire of any nature always constricts the mind. Such constriction disables the mind to express itself fully, healthily, and harmoniously.Understand this mental truth and always think of avoiding desires and the consequent torments. In reality, it is not desire but something else far higher that should verily work in the human. The truth about it will be known only through right exposure and enlightenment. To have a child is to be happier. With the child and the consequent involvement, if the very objective of happiness is adversely affected, is there not something wrong in our attitude?...

Saturday, September 05, 2020. 07:41. AM. The Teacher should be perfect morally, clean ethically, and divine in all his thoughts and actions. The perfect Master's purpose and devotion is to provide an ideal example for the students to follow.⠀ - Swami Chinmayananda⠀⠀ ⠀ Today we offer grateful salutations at the feet of our Guru Parampara. We wish our Swamins, Swaminis, Brahmacharinis and Brahmacharins. all our Sevaks and Sevikas across the globe - and every teacher, every parent and all teacher-figures, a Blessed and Blissful Teacher's Day! For without a teacher, life would indeed feel directionless! Thank You for providing us with a direction in both the material and spiritual realms. ⠀ End. ================================================================

Saturday, September 05, 2020. 07:15. AM. The disastrous war, Mahabharata ensues where we see the two forces finally facing each other on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Out of the four political methodologies prescribed by the scriptures, Sama, Dhana, Bheda, and Danda, the fourth one i.e., Danda is the last resort. This is typical of people who perform impulsive actions under the influence of their emotional mind rather than their rational mind. The inevitable consequence of war is total destruction. Overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotions, blinded by rage, Man commits acts of violence. A world free of hunger, violence and fear can only be realized with the cumulative efforts of each and every one of us – a world envisioned by the ancient Rishis of India, “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.” In the Mahabharata epic, Duryodhana refuses to agree for any sort of compromise with the Pandavas.  His refusal to give up his greed alone results in the tragic war. This indeed is an inval...

Friday, September 04, 2020. Sri Aurobindo provides here in a brief compass the step-by-step description of the nature of the supra mental consciousness and the evolutionary transitions that underpin its development. We generally look at things from our fragmented and isolated mental viewpoint.  This viewpoint, however, is flawed and limited.  The reality of our existence goes far beyond our sense of individuality and its acceptance of its centrality in the creation.  Just as our view of the sun revolving around the earth is flawed by our earth-centric senses, so too our view of the universe revolving around the individual personality is flawed by our ego-centric viewpoint. The emergence of the supra mental consciousness shifts the standpoint to the universal level and we see that all beings, forces, events, processes are participants in a universal creation and manifestation and that the individual ego is an incident but not the central lynch-pin of that manife...