Self Knowledge – the way to contentment
All beings have an intrinsic awareness of being which is necessarily the most immediate experience. No one ever entertains any doubt regarding his existence at any point of time. It is self evident and absolutely clear to all. All other perceptions through the senses and mind, come and go. They change and are subject to mutations. Complete uncertainty reigns over them.They are never reliable. Belief in them only ends in dejection, frustration and misery. Faith in sense pleasures and craving for them result only in addiction and deep dissatifaction. It is the breeding ground of all deseases – mental and phyiscal- the veritable road to hell. But the sole experience of ours- which is independent of all sense and mind- born perceptions – never changes – is itself immutable awareness.
Advaita and Religious Bigotry
Every religion speaks of religious tolerance, yet there are extracts in the holy scriptures of most of the religions expressing fanatical and bigoted views. Mostly they declare “ our religion is the only path to Salvation or heaven. Our saint is the only worthy, reliable guide on spirituality. The faithful followers of our religion are sure to be rewarded with paradise while the transgressors and heretics are sure to suffer the tortures of hell”. Thus goes the assurances and promises. Every religion claims that it alone is right and the only way. All others are doomed.
Pratyabhijna- Instantaneous Self Recognition
Pratyabhijna (Instantaneous Self Recognition) is the very inherent nature of the Self or Atman. In fact, like the Sruti in classical concert, this awareness shines in all splendour every moment of our life. It is ever present as substratum – awareness, continuous without any break in life and death, in all states, in all circumstances and situations. There cannot be any moment in anybody’s life when that person is not aware of himself- that he exists.
The Divine Panacea for the Grief of Bereavement
Human life is full of warm and cordial relationships and associations. We are born into a family; we have parents, brothers, sisters, grand parents, aunts and uncles. Due to our close association with others we develop friends. We marry and thus have spouses. We beget children and thus raise progeny. All relationships and associations are characterized by genuine affection and inherent sweetness. Each relationship is predominant during a particular period of our life.
Profound Silence – The Most Eloquent Exposition
Profound Sublime Silence, the very nature of the blissful ‘being’.
Transcendental substratum of all the clamour of the world.
Our true nature, absolute freedom, bereft of all limiting adjuncts.
In which the seers of absolute truth ever abide and revel.
That which always enchants the fortunate saintly and faithful.
The Saving Glance
Am I not Thy child, Your own inseparable part?
Yet I am fighting for crumb of petty fleeting pleasures !
Competing with ferocious, avaricious men for trivialities.
Wasting my numbered days in the mire of delusion.
What a pity! Are you content with my sad plight?
O, Mother of the world, brimming with great, unparallel AFFECTION for Thy children.
When will Thy holy Sanctifying Glance, Saviour of the sadhaka, fall on me?
And redeem me, make me Thine own, reclaim me
Absorb me into Thyself, freeing me from all troubles and turmoil.
When will I bask in the soothing moonlight of Thy glance?
That cools the scorching heat of ‘I do” and ‘this is mine’.
That grants succour from vortex of desires and ego.
The glance which ever revolves around Parameshwara.
I adore, cherish, admire and am fascinated, enchanted
by That divine Glance – The ever redeemer
The Unmanifest and its secrets
We perceive the mundane world and live in it. We enjoy and suffer, get excited and dejected, live and die in it. The lives of most people pass away in their struggle to live in the mundane world. They never care to enquire about the other world or life after death. They give it a passing thought on encountering some failure or bereavement in their lives. But some discriminative people seriously think of death and the after life.
A Death Worth Pondering
I stand with my hand poised over the door handle of my car, not remembering exactly how I got here. The last thing I remember is grabbing my keys and sunglasses from the cluttered shelf above my desk. After that, everything is a blur. I don’t recall the last minute of my life.
Why Suffering?
The Upanishads, the cream of the Vedas emphatically declare that Brahman is Infinite Bliss and that we are Brahman. Every being is Brahman which is of the very nature of bliss. But the state of the mundane world is quite contradictory. We see suffering, pain, misery and thralldom rampant everywhere. People suffer from serious diseases- both physical and mental, bereavements, poverty etc…etc. The list for causes of suffering and misery seems to be never ending. How is this suffering of the world to be reconciled with the emphatic statement of the Vedas that the world is full of bliss?
The Ultimate Exhortation of Vedanta- ‘To Be’
There is an ever present, spontaneous, effortless awareness in all beings. This awareness is a dense mass of existence- consciousness – bliss condensed into one. It is self- conscious sentience. That is it is endowed with self awareness which is absolute in nature. When in contact with the mysterious power called mind this very same consciousness cognizes the relative phenomenon of the world.
