Mind : ( 24/10/2012. )

Fundamental Urges: ---------------------------- What are the fundamental urges of the individual? Hunger, libido and fame. Hunger is the foremost among the instincts which limit the individual to a circumscribed field. "I must feed my body – I must feed every member of my family" is an instinctive feeling. Here an individual need has been recognised in other individuals with whom a particular individual has identified himself. There is also the desire for fame, power, respect and honour. No one wishes to be censured or degraded. Everybody wishes to retain self-respect, self-esteem. This individual characteristic is transferred to the family. No one wishes that one's family should be censured or be inferior. "As I am honoured, my family, too, should be honoured and exalted." These individual characteristics are, again, transferred to the community. "My community should not be censured, my community should be fed well." The same feeling is tra...

Our So-Called Enjoyment : -------------------------------------- We are living in a fool’s paradise. Our so-called enjoyment has been merely a kind of titillation of the nerves and the sense organs—”a scratching of what itches us”, as it is sometimes said. When the nerves are tickled, it looks as if we are enjoying something, but it is not enjoyment. We are mistaken thoroughly, because after the tickling of the nerves, there is a fall of the strength of the nerves and we feel worse than we were before. After enjoyment, whatever be the nature of the enjoyment, we feel more miserable than before the enjoyment came. We want to cling more and more, so we want more and more repetitions of the same kind of enjoyment—the same contacts, same possessions, same quantity, same songs, etc.   We are under the erroneous notion that the repetition of the tickling of the nerves would be enjoyable, but the nerves will get exhausted by being tickled constantly, and they will go on reactin...

THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE : --------------------------------------------   1. THE STUDENT STAGE-- --------------------------------- The supreme value of the student period is incalculable. Student life is the most precious life. The way in which you utilize this period will decide the nature of the coming years that lie ahead of you. Your happiness, your success, your honour and your good name all depend upon the way in which you live now. In this present period, my dear student, you are preparing your future. Remember this.   I wish you to be great. The world has put its faith in you. Your elders keep their hope upon you. Now is the time for you to wisely mould your life, your character, your physical health, your entire nature in any way in which you make up your mind to do so. And you must do this now.   It is like the laying of the foundation for an important building you wish to construct. If this building is something very important to you, then just...

      1.  At the end of the mantram Rishi, the teacher, pray the Lord,     2. O Creator, may students of Brahma-vidya come to me from everywhere Svaha!     3. Thou art the refuge!     4. Beam upon me!     5. Come to me!!     6. In this mantram the Rishi's philosophy is beautified with poetry; even the objective sciences have been given out by them in majestic verses.     7. This being the case, we find here in the mantram two brilliant flashes when the Upasaka  requests the Lord on to him students from far and near, 'as water gushes downwards' is a simile  that can complete only with dynamic picture brought before us by 'as months flow into and merge with years'     8. In Rishis expressiveness, grandeur and charm they can stand a favourable comparison with the best in any literature.     9. The rest is clear. ...

Note: Read the following with "May I become superior among the rich"and "Every saint has a past; every sinner a future."   1. The moment we correct our thinking and redress the mistake in the evaluations of things in the world, we know how to redeem ourselves from the sins and walk the path of virtue.     2. But, the difficulty felt by the practitioners is that  they are not completely independent of the reactions of their past mistakes.     3. Every action and every thought leaves the impression upon the mental world, and every following thought and action has a tendency to repeat itself.     4. Thus, having made one mis-judgement, the flow of thoughts thereafter has an irresistible tendency and irrepressible urge to flow in the same direction, pushing the injustice more and more into positive criminalities and low animalism.     5. The only way we can redeem ourselves from our mistakes is to correct...

          "SUCCESS IN LIFE" :   HOW TO LEAD A SUCCESSFUL LIFE   Please try to understand the correct implication of the term “successful life”. When you talk of success with reference to life, it does not merely mean succeeding in everything that you undertake or do; it does not merely mean succeeding in fulfilling all wants or getting whatever you desire; it does not just mean acquiring a name or attaining a position or imitating fashionable ways and appearing modern or up-to-date. The essence of true success is what you make of yourself. It is the conduct of life that you develop, it is the character that you cultivate, and it is the type of person you become. This is the central meaning of successful living. Such successful life is one that succeeds in producing an ideal individual. Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtain but in terms of what you become, how you live, and what actions you do. Upon this po...

1. In order to become thus pure in living, the individual must gasin a clean and divine heart, and the method by which one can purify oneself and keep that bright shine in the inner world is now discussed.     2. Sin is that which covers the true effulgence of the soul. In Sastras sin is not considered as some positive blemish, but only as a mistake in judgement; it is not the commission of an injustice, but an omission of the right.     3. Thus our scriptures forbid us from hating the sinner, but insist that we must hate the sins.   4. This positive philosophy is the meaning of all scriptures in the world. "Every Saint has a past; every Sinner a future."      Taittiriya Upanishad: Chapter-1, Section-4, Mntram-3.

    1. The meaning of this heading: "Let me not only be a mere mule carrying the weight of gold, but an intelligent master of fortune who is able to bless the world with the riches that have come to me through the Grace of the Lord.     2. In so doing, he becomes, in fact superior to those who are wealthier than himself. Wealth in itself is no mark of nobility or glory to man. It becomes so only when he comes to serve the society, and there by himself, with his wealth.     3. Therefore, when a true Hindu acquires wealth to spend it in maintaining seekers during their stay with him, indeed, the wealth is spent in the right direction, and the culture of the land maintained and preserved thereby.        Taittiriya Upanishad: Chapter-1 ( Siksha Valli),  Section-4 ( Necessity of Intelligence and Wealth), Mantram-3.     

 Unaffected by Adversity: 53. When your mind is no longer concerned with the results promised in the Vedas it remains steady and becomes established in the Self. This leads to Self knowledge. 54. Arjuna said, “Oh Krishna, will you please describe a person of steady wisdom, one whose mind is not disturbed by anything and abides in the Self? How do such people interact with the world?” 55. Krishna replied, “When a person gives up desires as they appear in the mind, Arjuna, and remains happy with only in his or her Self, he or she is a discriminating person. 56. The one who is unaffected by adversity, who doesn’t yearn for pleasure and is free from longing, fear, and anger, is one of steady wisdom.     Bhagavadgeeta: Chapter-2, Slokam-53-56.

  1. To every one of us the finite alone is the land of our known experience.   2. We all know that the finite world of matter is inert, perishable, decaying, and therefore, using opposite words, such as, Intelligent, Imperishable, and Undecaying, Rishi Trisanku is helping to convey to us the 'otherness' of the Infinite  from what we know and experience in ourselves at present--- in our ego-centric mis-understandings.   3. In order to show this Infinite, all that the Rishi can do is, as it were, to stand at the frontiers of the finite and, with a pointing finger, indicate the Infinite in the language of contrast.   4. Hence the final explosive expression by which the choking experience in the bosom of the great Rishi seems to burst out in expressing his lived bliss of Perfection.   5. Hence the declaration "Intelligent, Imperishable, Undecaying am I,"   6. To remember, thus, our Real Nature, as lived and experi...

        Nirvana Shatkam By Adi Sankaracharya Mantram- 1 to 6. 1. Mano budhyahankara chithaa ninaham,  Na cha srothra jihwe na cha graana nethrer,  Na cha vyoma bhoomir na thejo na vayu,  Chidananada Roopa Shivoham, Shivoham.    Neither am I mind, nor intelligence ,  Nor ego, nor thought,  Nor am I ears or the tongue or the nose or the eyes,  Nor am I earth or sky or air or the light,  I am Shiva, I am Shiva, of nature knowledge and bliss   2. Na cha praana sangno na vai pancha vaayuh,  Na vaa saptha dhathur na va pancha kosa,  Na vak pani padam na chopastha payu,  Chidananada Roopa Shivoham, Shivoham.    Neither am I the movement due to life,  Nor am I the five airs, nor am I the seven elements,  Nor am I the five internal organs,  Nor am I voice or hands or feet or other organs,  I am Shiva, I am Shiva, of nature knowledge and bliss   ...

      Note: Please connect parts1, 2, 3, with this 4th part..     1. The sceptic cannot, and will not understand the benefits accrued by such a realisation, since, to him life without contentions is profitless.   2. There are people amidst us, according to whom life has a meaning, and a purpose only so long as we have a fair chance of reaping our moans of the morning hours, hated thoughts of the mid-day hours, and chances of fighting tooth and nail all through the evenings!   3. They cannot appreciate, nor can they live the quieter joys of the pregnant moments of peace, or of the tranquillity of the inner poetry, or of listening to the warbling notes of joy and cheer, that come out from the bosom that is at rest, from a soul that is at peace with itself.   4. As an answer to such gross creatures who may suspect the futility of this consummation of evolution, the Rishi Trisanku, declares 'I am the power and wealth.'...

        1. The Conscious Life-Spark within ourselves or the Purity of the individual concerned is untouched by animalism since Awareness, as such, is only the illuminating principle presiding within the being.     2. Good or bad, sin and virtue are conditions of the mind and the qualities of the thoughts.     3. But the Consciousness that illuminates these conditions or qualities within ourselves should certainly be untouched by and separate from these objects illuminated; for it is a law in nature that the illuminator is always separate from the illuminated.     4. Example :   (a).The Sun's rays may bless both crime perpetrated or a divine ritualism performed,   (b).It may illuminate at once a bin of filth at one end and a pan of rose water at other place.   (c). The illuminator, the sun, being separate from these objects, neither of them could condition the light o...

    1. Necessarily, therefore, 'my glory is as high as the peaks of the mountains,     2. inasmuch as wherever there is the thrilling glow  of pulsating life felt,     3. it is only the 'throb of my glory,'      4. it is 'the song of my fame' in effect says great Rishi 'Trisanku.'     5. This passage should be read with earlier 'I am the stimulator of the tree of Universe.'         

1.When we get more and more acquainted with the entire Vedik literature, the scriptural connotation in which the term 'tree' is used becomes clear.     2. In ancient Bharatham ( Even today in certain parts of Bharatham ) worship of  plants and trees are common, examples: Banyan tree, Pupil tree, Neem tree, Koovala tree, Tulasi, Lotus, Thechi, Pitchakam, Mantaram, Turmeric and so on.....     3. It is the tradition of Hindu thought from  the early days of Vedas to consider the entire Universe in the form of a tree.       4. This is mentioned in all Upanishads, Srimad Bhagavadgeeta, and other texts also.....   5. The finite world of plurality is conceived of as an Asvattha tree because a banyan tree, can be considered relatively immortal due its long days of existence,      6. again, there is no single tree which can be otherwise quoted which has such a large number of branch...

      1. Behind the phenomenon of nature there is a Divine law giver who strictly executes the law---     2. He, ever standing, as it were, just behind nature with a raised whip, threatening them with total annihilation at the simplest disobedience.     3. This idea is brought  out by the Sruthi in order to establish the Supermacy of the Spirit over the matter, and also its dynamism conclusively proves that this Spirit is not a non-entity, but an existent Reality which can be courted and experienced as full Bliss ( Paramandham), Omnipotence and Omniscience.     4. The Truth indicated earlier as "Satyam, Jnanam, Anantam,"though invisible, incorporeal, undefined, and abodeless, is the  source of all dynamic life and an Existent Principle.     5. Five main observations are made here by the Sruthi, such as (a). the movement of air, (b).  the rising of the sun, (c). the heat of the fire, (...

1. There is a silent rhythm seen imperceptibly  running through the endless variety of confusing movements.     2. Seasons, similarly, follow one after the another rhythmically.     3. Each object in the universe strictly conforms itself to its own nature.     4. There are natural laws which strictly follow all scientific observations.     5. The sun is never dark; the moon is never hot; fire is never cold!     6. A cow begets no lion; a tigress begets no bird.     7. The innumerable laws of instincts and emotions, observed among the vegetables animals and human lives are all strictly pursued everywhere in nature.     8. A law is always promulgated by a law giver, and wherever we find strict adherence to the law, it is because of fear of the law giver.     9. Similarly, if in nature we find the natural laws are irrevocably declared and strictly fol...

    1. O! Krishna, what is the basis of the priorities and values of people who perform rituals according the scripture? Is it the three gunas? 2,3. Sri Bhagavan said: People’s priorities and values depend on whether their minds are sattvic, rajasic or tamasic. People are little more than their priorities and values. 4. People in whom sattva predominates worship for knowledge of God and the purification of the mind. Rajasic people worship to gain certain things in the world. Tamasic people worship out of fear or to achieve ignoble ends. 5,6. Those of sunless dispositions are riddled with pretension and self importance, motivated by passion and longing, lack discrimination and perform physically harmful religious disciplines not enjoined by the scriptures. Not only do they violate the dharmas of the body they injure themselves spiritually. 7. The way one eats, performs religious rituals, disciplines one’s self and gives charity depends on the predominance of a ...

1. Faith, is not that ridiculous intellectual tyranny of one over a community or a caste, though such a silent and dumb following of a prophet or a revelation is generally considered now all over the world as 'Faith' so that the priest class may conveniently trade upon the ignorant laity!      2.  In Vedanta, 'faith' is essentially the inward courage in us to live consistently attuning ourselves to the ideal that we have ourselves intellectually grasped.     3. In short, we may understand 'faith' is something  like self-confidence in ourselves.   4. It is very well known that even in our ordinary life our success depends not only upon the chances or upon our qualifications, but mainly upon our confidence in ourselves.     5.  Without a certain amount of self-confidence we cannot live even an average life successfully.     6. On who has lost completely his own confidence in himself is a ...

1. In the anatomy of the intellectual-man in us, as described in the Upanishads with Faith ( Sradhha) as Head,   2. Righteousness (Rtam) and Truth ( Satyam)  as Sides,   3. Yogam as the Trunk,   4. And total Intellect ( Mahah) as the lower limbs,   5. the attempt of the Rishi is to bring out at one stroke, through a clear-cit caricature, the essential scientific details about the intellect ( that were available then) to the memory of those vigilant students of that time.   6. Unfortunately today we, having none of those preliminary knowledge, come to despair at the vulgarity of such rude statements that the intellectual-man in us has an anatomy  and a shape!  ( contd...next..)        

1. Anantam is translated as Infinity.   2. A+Antam = Anantam, here Antam means end or last, 'A' means negative or not, hence anantam means no end ie Infinite.   3.  Since by the word Satyam, Brahmam was indicated as the Real, the substratum from which the entire world of the finite had, as it were, emerged, it has become the cause of the phenomenal  world.   4. The cause from which effects arise (as pot or ornaments from mud/clay, or gold) is generally inert and inorganic, and as such, the doubt may arise that the Supreme is an inert and an unintelligent principle ( like mud or gold).   5. To remove such a hasty conclusion, it is insisted that Satyam, though the cause of the world, is Intelligence itself.   6. This Consciousness that is the substratum of the created world may itself end one day, is yet another doubt that can possibly come in the mind of the uninitiated.   7. To refute this idea and to show  that Pu...

1. Jnanam   is generally translated as knowledge, But, in order to know the inspired meaning of the Rishies, we have to seek a fuller understanding of this term.     2. Knowledge is of two kinds : (a) Unconditional Knowledge, and (b) Conditional Knowledge.     3. We generally experience in the world only knowledge of things. Herein knowledge is conditioned by the things known. These conditional-knowledge bits change from place to place   and from time to time, since the objects that pure knowledge happens to illuminate are different from one another.     4. Example : When Ganges water is poured and kept in different types of bottles, the shapes of water conditioned by the different bottles should necessarily be different since the bottles are of different shapes. But this does not mean that water has any definite shapes at all.     5. Similarly, though the knowledge bits conditioned b...

1. Satyam is generally translated as 'Truth.'   2. In itself this translation is mum, and does not express any idea.   3. In the Vedanta, Satyam, is that which is the changeless substratum for all change and modification.   4. Examples: a). The post is the 'truth' in the ghost-vision; b). the rope is the 'truth' behind our mis-understanding that it is a serpent or a dry twig or a crack on the surface of the earth, or a streak of water.    5. Therefore, the superimposition, the ghost, is declared as 'false,' while, relatively of course, the post is considered as 'Truth.'   6. In the life we are watching an endless variety of change : a). time changes, b). season changes. c). individuals keep on changing in their body, mind and intellect.   7. Nothing is permanent even for a moment; in the general and continuous state of flux, there must be a changes possible upon it. That Satyam is Brahmam.   8. The screen ...

1. The oneness of the created world and the creator is nowhere in any other philosophy so beautifully brought out and so perfectly conceived as it is here.     2. It says that the pluralistic world, finite in nature pain-ridden in experience, imperfect at every stage when we try to grasp it from the level of our body, mind and intellect, is itself nothing other than the Supreme, perfect--full of vital, experienceable Bliss-essence(Rasa).     3. Life itself throbs with Reality, and the pain imperfection in life, in our ignorance and stupidity.     4. Any temple can become as dirty as a dustbin if we misuse it-- as scandalously do in many of our temples.     5. Similarly, in our irreverence to life and non-recognition of the divinity in human beings, we breed mutual hatreds and enmities which molest the social security and the beauty of life.     6. The Supreme is full of Rasa(essence) of  Brahma...

1 . Individual intellect is rooted in the Mahat-tattva, says the Upanishad.     2. Mahat-tattva is the concept of  the total mind or intellect.     3. How the individual intellect is conditioned by the Total;-intellect is very well experienced at every moment by every on of us, although rarely are we conscious of it.   4. Take the example of a young man sitting in his house, rather restless because of his capacity to watch as many movies as he wishes to, or because he has not yet come to possess a radio all to himself.   5. Compared to his grand father's generation, we can say that this young man has started worrying for a thing over which our grand fathers never thought of complaining or grudging.     6. The young man is now thinking in terms of his age, and to that extent we may say that he is a product of the thought of his times.      Taittiriya Upanishad: Chapter-2: Brahmana...

The Ignorance of the Mind (Continued): --------------------------------------------------------------- How all these things that are contrary to the facts are possible is explained by the phenomenon of the mind itself. The mind can construct situations which are contrary to reality and which create an imaginary problem. This imaginary problem, when continued for a long time, becomes a kind of truth. Often a lie which is uttered many times takes the form of truth. We go on telling a lie a thousand times, and then people imagine that it is a fact. Likewise is this work of the mind. It constructs an imaginary circumstance or environment around itself as it does in the analogy of the dream. The mind goes on doing it again and again for days, months and years together. It is a matter of lies and more lies, and we get habituated to this way of thinking and think it is the only thing possible and that there is nothing else.   The only thing that seems to exist for us is this w...