Vedanta in Daily life

 Quote from the True charm and power of Vedanta

 

Vedanta in Daily life

 

Then as we approach perfection the ways of our living become better and better, and by experience, we come to know that the best way of living is not to follow the dictates of a narrow and limited will, but to obey the universal Will, we start at first with a tiny little weak and thin thread of will, which grows stronger and stronger as we rise higher and higher in the scale of our life. Then gradually by passing through different stages of manifestations we gain more and more experience and begin to see how the thread of the individual will is connected with the universal Will, and slowly understand their relation, and ultimately realize that our will which we have so long thought to be ours is not ours, but part and parcel of that one universal will which is moving the universe from the minutest atom to the  biggest solar system, and our bodies are nothing but so many small instruments through which that all-pervading Will is expressing itself. But as long as we do not realize this and think that our will is a separate will and is not related to the universal Will. We believe that by following our imperfect will we shall gain the highest benefit, but the result is suffering misery and sorrow which we experience in our everyday life. This idea of separation or mistaken notion makes us think that we are free, while in fact, we are bound hand and foot like a slave, and consequently, we do not seek freedom. How can we seek freedom when we do not know that we are bond? First of all we shall have to examine our own nature whether we are free or bound, and then we can search for liberation if we really need it.

Paryushan Parva, time for self-purification

By Dhanpal Solanki Jain

For both Shvetambar Jains, who observe Paryushan Parva over eight days, and Digambar Jains, for whom it lasts 10 days, this annual Jain observance is a time for introspection, reflection and purification. It is the most appropriate time for all to get uplifted through fasting, meditation, soul-search, awakening, self-study, courage and compassion and forgiveness for all beings. Paryushan Parva is observed during the Chaturmas, also called Varsha Yog. ‘Chaturmas’ literally means ‘four months’ in Sanskrit, during the monsoon when Jain monks and nuns stay in one place and are available to the community for instruction and guidance.

 

Paryushan is when, to improve karmas, adherents perform 12 kinds of austerities, including fasting. They also do swadhyay, and self-study.

 

The purpose of Paryushan is to stay close to your soul, reflect on your shortcomings, seek forgiveness for wrongdoings, remove internal corruption, and vow to live an ethical way of life. Daily recital of Bhaktamar Stotra, Navakar Mantra, meditation and prayer helps one look within and reflect on the teachings of the Jain tirthankars for guidance.

  On the fourth day of Paryushan, it is customary for Murtipujak Shvetambars to read from the Kalpa Sutra, a scripture which recounts the life of Mahavir, the 24th tirthankar, the 14 dreams his mother had before his birth, followed by the story of his birth, life and liberation. It also recounts the lives of other tirthankars and the rules of Paryushan.

 

Jainism is the Sramana tradition of India. Mahavir led a socio-spiritual, non-violent reform movement. He rejected superstitious practices, blind faith, caste system, gender bias, sati and discouraged animal sacrifice. He encouraged ahimsa, compassion and scientific temper. Furthermore, he did not preach, but practised his philosophy, and promoted a radical economic, political and social justice movement based on complete equity.

 

Mahavir regarded all species of flora and fauna as integral to a composite moral community. He emphasised the concept of jivdaya, animal care and aparigraha, non-possessiveness, to protect biodiversity from human greed and butchery. The fivefold Navakar Mantra is recited to offer obeisance not to God but to Arihants, perfected beings; siddhas, liberated souls; acharyas, masters; upadhyayas, teachers; and sadhus, renunciates. Jainism promotes rational, scientific, compassionate, courageous and ethical way of life based on complete equanimity and tranquility.

 

Rishabhdev, the first tirthankar, advocated women’s education and their liberation. Bahubali, the elder son of Rishabdev, said, “Do seva without discrimination” because all of us are experiencing dukh-dard, pain, agony and suffering. Without paropkar, selfless service, bhakti and puja remain incomplete. Bahubali promoted sports like wrestling and Hath Yog, to stay healthy, fit and active.

 

For Shvetambars, the final day of Paryushan is Samvastsari Pratikraman, time for confession and seeking forgiveness as well as being forgiving, enabling self-liberation. The ritual of seeking forgiveness from the teacher is widened in scope to include family, friends and all living beings. The culmination of confession is receiving forgiveness from all living beings and also forgiving everyone including oneself.

 The Jains seek forgiveness from everyone by saying ‘Micchami Dukkadam. ‘Micchami’ means ‘to seek forgiveness’ and ‘dukkadam’, dushkrut, means ‘bad deeds’. So, the meaning of Micchami Dukkadam is – if any of my thoughts, words and deeds have hurt you knowingly or unknowingly, I seek your forgiveness.

 

IF HE EXIST

 I drive joy there was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting 7 precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting 7 minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste 7 minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 7minutes joy that I derive 4m.-

 

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Vedanta in Daily Life

 

Quote from the True charm and power of Vedanta

 

Vedanta in Daily Life

  
This highest aspiration of the individual soul is fulfilled when it realizes its spiritual oneness with the divine Being, and that spiritual oneness is the central idea and ideal of Vedanta. Vedanta teaches that there si one existence one reality, one truth one God, one life, and one sprit. All these differentiations and distinctions which we perceive with our sense, are factitious and unreal. They are all on the surface. Go below the surface and there you will find the undercurrent of one spirit, and when that one spirit is properly realized we understand that we are inseparable parts of that one stupendous whole. We must love, we cannot help loving and through that Divine love we realize the highest ideal of our lives. A student of Vedanta who recognizes that spiritual oneness sees that one universal Spirit is manifesting through all-living creatures and all human beings, and therefore, he loves all human beings, and also he loves all animals. The most practical result of this love, or the recognition of oneness, is that a student of Vedanta never injurers or kills any living creature, because he knows that there is one life that the difference between and animalcule and a human beings is only in degree but not in kind. The same life force is expressed in so many ways. Wherever the humanitarian ideas of Vedanta are preached. There prevails compassion for everybody. There prevails compassion for poor animals there hospitals and built , not only for men, women and children but also for lower animals there is to be found the desire to take care of the poor suffering brothers ,. Therefore, student of Vedanta does not necessarily kill any animal for food because he says: “When I cannot give life to any living creature, what rights have I to take it? Let it stay on and live: it has its purpose to fulfill; I must not interfere” And having this ideal in his mind be does good to all and would rather give his own life then take the life of others. Such a should is great blessing to humanity, as also to all living creatures.

 

The practice of this ideal will bring the most wonderful result which are morally and spiritually perfect. Therefore we should teach our children to love all creatures for even the lower animals possess life and feelings. From our childhood, we have been taught that lower animals have been created for our food. Now, we must change that idea and teach out children that the lower animals are also fulfilling certain principles of life and are on certain grades of evolution and in course of time; they will rise to the plane of human beings and will reach perfection. Therefore, we must be kind to them. Thus in practical life we should learn compassion and that compassion, when properly carried out  will lead to Divine love and realization of the Supreme.

 

Mysticism can link finite with infinite

 

By Shri Shri Anandamurti

 

Since the dawn of civilisation, one often-asked question is about salvation of human beings. The supra-psychic existence that remains in close proximity to a corporeal framework, and uses that very corporeal framework as the only medium of its own emittances and emanations, can attain salvation. As per ancient scriptures, Shiv states that even having a corporeal structure one can attain salvation, if one changes the idea of microcosm into macrocosm.

 

Possibilities and potentialities of attaining salvation lie in the very existence of the supra-psychic being. What is infinite in macrocosm is finite in microcosm, but potentialities are the same. So, what is required is to develop one’s finite attributes into infinite ones through the process of mystic approach.

 

What is mysticism? Mysticism is a never-ending endeavour to find out the link between finite and infinite. And when that link is established, Shiv-vakya comes true, that is, Shiv-vakya materialises.

 

Para And Apara

 

In Brahmn Vandana, while ascribing so many attributes to Brahmn, it has been said that He is Paresha. What is Paresha? Para and apara are two counterparts of each and every existence.  Para and apara are two portions – two counterparts of the same entity.

 

The seen portion is called apara and the subjective portion is para. Now, what you see or do with the help of your sensory, motor organs or that external object, in the first phase, is apara and your sensory and motor organs are para – the para counterpart of that apara. And in the second phase, the next interior phase, those gates or organs are apara and the mind is para. Then in the next inner phase, your mind is apara and the unit spirit is para. And in the final phase your atman, your unit spirit, is apara and He is the Supreme Para. He is the Lord of all Paras. Hence, he is called Paresha.

 

Best Existence

 

So, when one withdraws one’s propensities from the objective world towards subjectivity, one attains that Paresha.  One becomes one with that Paresha, and therein lies the secret of sadhana. So, the Supreme Entity is Paresha and is also the Prabhu. ‘Pra’ means ‘Prakrsta’,  that is the ‘best’ and ‘bhu’ means ‘being’. Prabhu, therefore, means ‘the best existence’. It is said that He is Sarvendriyagamay – He cannot be achieved by any indriya. What are indriyas? There are five motor indriyas, five sensory indriyas and the 11th one is the mind. Mind is also an indriya; that is why the Vedas too say, ‘That is’, where all the expressions of indriyas, where all the inferences fail and where mind too fails, that is Supreme Subjectivity. When that mind along with indriyas is withdrawn and placed into Him, then it is param sthiti, supreme stance. In that stance, there is no fear. Sarvendriyagamay Satya – it is the Supreme Truth, that is, where ‘sat’ is fully established, it is called ‘satya’. And what is ‘sat’? Sat means ‘that which undergoes no metamorphosis’. So, in this universe of ours, that Paresha, that entity, is the only satya. He cannot be your mental object. While meditating on the Supreme, you cannot accept Him as your object, because everything is His object. He is the Supreme Subject. So, what is necessary – and herein lies the charm – is that while doing japa and dhyana, you should think that He is seeing you, you are His object.

 

IF HE EXIST

 I drive joy there was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting 7 precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting 7 minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste 7 minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 7minutes joy that I derive 4m.-

 

ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7th heaven moment of the week India won second  t20 scoring 227/7               

Vedanta in daily life

 

Quote from the True Charm and Power of Vedanta

Vedanta in daily life

The teaching of Vedanta drive away the fear of death, because they say that death, because they say that death cannot attack our souls. The teachings of Vedanta say that we are immortal by our birthright, we are children of that universal Spirit and therefore, we are beyond death. Fear of death will never trouble the mind of a student of Vedanta . “As we throw away our old worn-out garment, so the soul throws away the garment of the old body at the time of death and manufactures a new one, according to its thoughts and deeds. What a great consolation is this that we are no longer dependent upon the freak of an anthropomorphic God and we have not been created out of nothing by the sudden whim of a Creator, but our souls existed in the past and shall exist after death, our own actions, and we are responsible for our future happiness and misery . We are not going to eternal perdition, nor are we born in sin and iniquity. Thus the teachings of Vedanta take away all fear of death and make us happy and centered in our earthly career. What can be moiré beneficial to us in practical life.

Celebration of colours

The Speaking Tree, Spirituality, ET

by Anou Lunia Singhvi

After a stark winter, the intoxicating spicy scents of ‘tesu’, the flower of the Palash tree, announces the arrival of spring. Humans follow nature, celebrating the season’s beauty and abundance.

 

The spring-time bounty is the foundation of Pushpayurveda, the lost science of using flowers to treat disorders of the psyche. Ancient seers seamlessly merged the salubrious with the spiritual, and from time immemorial, youngand old smear one another with colourful powders and soak each other in sweet-smelling flower water, transforming applying colours and throwing flowers into dynamic meditation, lifting the psychological tenor of the individual and catapulting it to sublime bliss of the universal.

It is said that in the Sat Yug, Prahlad, son of demon king and self-proclaimed god, Hiranyakashyapu, was given capital punishment for refusing to accept his father’s godhood. The boy stayed true to his belief in God and emerged unscathed from the fire that was meant to set him ablaze. Instead, it burnt his invincible demon aunt Holika, marking the triumph of good over evil.

In Dwapar Yug, gopis expressed their affection and devotion through their springtime Raas Lila with Krishn. Their husbands, the gopas, expressed their jealousy by staging a symbolic fight with their wives, encouraging us to embrace all emotions.

Through Holi, we understand the need to discard negativity by using the white, hot heat of ‘will’ and the positive aspects of the ever-changing emotions.

 

IF HE EXIST

I drive joy There was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting ten precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting ten minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste ten minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 10 minutes joy that I derive 4m.-

ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7^th heaven moment of the week India win final one day by 7 runs

         

Vedanta in Daily Life

Monday, 29 July 2019

Quote from the True Charm and Power of Vedanta

Vedanta in Daily Life

It has asked again and again whether the teachings of Vedanta sublime though they are, can be applied to our practical everyday life, Some people have an idea that being a philosophy, Vedanta must be speculative like any other philosophy of Europe and America and must give a few grand theories which can never be carried into practice. Such statements would be true if Vedanta were simply a philosophy and not a religion.

In order to become a religion, the teachings of Vedanta must be intensely practical because where theory ends there is the beginnings of true religion. Vedanta give not only the principles of the highest philosophy, but also teaches the practical methods which are necessary to make it a religion. If the ideals of Vedanta do not cover the whole field of life, if they do not enter into every plane of our thoughts, nay of our very existence in home life , in social and business life, in moral and spiritual life, then we must reject them as mere theories of a speculative philosophy and must not call Vedanta a religion. The ideals of Vedanta however, are so broad and universal in their scope that for the last four thousand years, men and women living in retirement in caves and forests as well as those holding the most responsible positions in society and in the state, have successfully harmonized their lives with those ideals and have proved them to be intensely practical.

Holy month of Shravana

The Speaking Tree |  India, Spirituality | ET

The month of Shravana is considered auspicious and Mondays are particularly special, when the devout flock to Shiva temples to offer prayers, Bilva leaves and milk. Recitations of Shivamahima stotra, verses singing the praise of Shiva and the Panchakshari mantra are listened to with reverence.

The Shivalinga is a miniature representation of our egg-shaped universe. By venerating the Shivalinga, we are paying our respects to the entire cosmos, seeing it as an embodiment of auspiciousness and divine consciousness. The Shivalinga inspires us to perceive and realise the truth that service of the world encompasses all living beings, and in such service lies the path to salvation. This is the essence of Shivalinga worship.

The term ‘Shivalinga’ is composed of two words, Shiva and linga. One of the meanings of the word ‘Shiva’ is auspiciousness. Whoever worships the Shivalinga with an understanding of its true meaning and knowledge of its true principle, will be blessed. The word ‘linga’ also refers to that in which everything ultimately dissolves or merges. The linga is that form, from which the cosmos arose and into which it will dissolve eventually. The Shivalinga symbolises the universe rising from Brahmn.

The supreme truth, which is attributeless, is beyond name, form and individuality. The Shivalinga represents all this in a tangible form. Scientists describe the shape of the universe as ellipsoidal or egg-like, referred to in Indian spiritual tradition as andam or brahmandam.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

But, if He exists?

I drive joy There was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they argued that he was wasting ten precious minutes on something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting ten minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste ten minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 10 minutes joy that I derive 4m.

ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7^th Heaven moment of the week  in PKL Tamil Tal won by 7 got  , in f1 Hamilton won 7^th Hungarian gp