jabdakhata

Courtesy Sanjib Maharaj - Swami Dheyananda of RK Mission Student's Home Belgharia “Where shall we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being? ... The only God to worship is the human soul in the human body… The moment I have realised God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him -- that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.”    – Swami Vivekananda Excerpt from the lecture  Practical Vedanta - Part II  delivered by Swami Vivekananda at London The theme of the Vedanta is to see the Lord in everything, to see things in their real nature, not as they appear to be.  Then another lesson is taught in the Upanishads: "He who shines through the eyes is Brahman; He is the Beautiful One, He is the Shining One. He shines in all these worlds."  A certain peculiar light,  a commentator says,  which comes to the pure man, is

courtesy Sanjib Maharaj  - Swami Dheyananda of Belgharia RK Mission Students' Home “There is only one life and one world, and this one life and one world is appearing to us as manifold. This manifoldness is like a dream… a time comes to the sage when the whole thing vanishes, and this world appears as God Himself, and his own soul as God… All this manifoldness is the manifestation of that One.”   – Swami Vivekananda    Excerpt from the lecture  Practical Vedanta - Part I  delivered by Swami Vivekananda at London What is there to be taught more in religion than the oneness of the universe and faith in one's self?  All the works of mankind for thousands of years past have been towards this one goal, and mankind is yet working it out. It is your turn now and you already know the truth. For it has been taught on all sides. Not only philosophy and psychology, but materialistic sciences have declared it. Where is the scientific man today who fears to acknowledge the truth o

Courtesy Sanjib Maharaj - Swami Dhyenananda from Belgharia Students' Home Excerpt from the lecture   Practical Vedanta - Part I   delivered by Swami Vivekananda at London We shall see how this Vedanta can be carried into our everyday life, the city life, the country life, the national life, and the home life of every nation. For, if a religion cannot help man wherever he may be, wherever he stands, it is not of much use; it will remain only a theory for the chosen few.  Religion, to help mankind, must be ready and able to help him in whatever condition he is, in servitude or in freedom, in the depths of degradation or on the heights of purity; everywhere, equally, it should be able to come to his aid. The principle of Vedanta, or the ideal of religion, or whatever you may call it, will be fulfilled by its capacity for performing this great function. The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to us.  If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and pra

Courtesy Sanjib Maharaj - Swami Dheyananda from Belgharia Students' Home Excerpt from the lecture   Practical Vedanta - Part I   delivered by Swami Vivekananda at London For you must always remember that  the one central ideal of Vedanta is this oneness.  There are no two in anything, no two lives, nor even two different kinds of life for the two worlds. You will find the Vedas speaking of heavens and things like that at first; but later on, when they come to the highest ideals of their philosophy, they brush away all these things.  There is but one life, one world, one existence. Everything is that One, the difference is in degree and not in kind.  The Vedanta entirely denies such ideas as that animals are separate from men, and that they were made and created by God to be used for our food. Oneness includes all animals. If man's life is immortal, so also is the animal's. The difference is only in degree and not in kind. The amoeba and I are the same, the differen

Courtesy - Sanjib Maharaj or Swami Dheyananda ji from Belgharia Students' Home Excerpt from the lecture   Practical Vedanta - Part I   delivered by Swami Vivekananda at London The Vedanta preaches the ideal; and the ideal, as we know, is always far ahead of the real, of the practical, as we may call it.  There are two tendencies in human nature: one to harmonise the ideal with the life, and the other to elevate the life to the ideal.  It is a great thing to understand this, for the former tendency is the temptation of our lives. I think that I can only do a certain class of work. Most of it, perhaps, is bad; most of it, perhaps, has a motive power of passion behind it, anger, or greed, or selfishness. Now  if any man comes to preach to me a certain ideal, the first step towards which is to give up selfishness, to give up self-enjoyment, I think that is impractical.  But when a man brings an ideal which can be reconciled with my selfishness, I am glad at once and jump at it. T

Courtesy - Swami Dheyananda (Sanjeeb Maharaj, Belgharia) Excerpt from the lecture   Practical   Vedanta  - Part I   delivered by Swami Vivekananda at London I have been asked to say something about the  practical  position of the  Vedanta  philosophy. As I have told you, theory is very good indeed, but how are we to carry it into practice? If it be absolutely impracticable, no theory is of any value whatever, except as intellectual gymnastics. The  Vedanta , therefore,  as a religion must be intensely  practical .   We must be able to carry it out in every part of our lives.  And not only this,  the fictitious differentiation between religion and the life of the world must vanish, for the  Vedanta  teaches oneness -- one life throughout.  The ideals of religion must cover the whole field of life, they must enter into all our thoughts, and more and more into practice. I will enter gradually on the  practical  side as we proceed. But this series of lectures is intended to be a basi

A leader is one who grows not at the expense of others, but take others long. A true leader is perfectly unconcerned about himself/herself, and is concerned about the welfare of his people. A true leader loves his/her people and does not differentiate or discriminate. A true leader is painstakingly righteous and would never allow personal compulsions cloud his/her sense of justice. A true leader will always do whatever it takes for the real long term benefit of his/her people and would never give in to short term temptations like popularity. For their long term benefit he/she would not even hesitate to take hard and unpopular decisions. He is, in the language of Sri Ramakrishna, a good physician. An inferior physician will merely prescribe medicines. A medium one will only request the patient to take medicines. A good one not merely requests, but will apply force if necessary, because he/she knows that it is in the best interest of the patient. A true leader does not enjoy power. He/

Kalyanananda and Nischayananda became legends. They extended their work, many more people came under their service ambit, the operations of the Sevashrama expanded, they began providing services among the community of scavengers and other backward people who did not have access to education, trained and educated them, provided clean drinking water to the locals and undertook many other philanthropic and charitable work. One great feature of selfless work is that it never requires any advertisement. Help always comes to sustain and grow the work and that happened for the Sevashrama work as well It is now one of the largest multi  specialty  hospitals in that region with more than 250 beds and catering to poor people from all over India. But two monks had sacrificed their body, mind and soul for this establishment. Yet they never  solicited  donations, never asked for name and fame, never sought to become great. Their only guiding principle was a strict adherence to their Guru’s philos

Life changed for three young men of Benares when in 1901, they read a poem of Swami Vivekananda in the Bengali magazine of Ramakrishna Order called Udbodhan. The peom, titled as “Sakhar Prati”, or “To a Friend” is almost a mini life story of Swami himself and mirrors his thoughts and actions. The last few lines of the poem run as follows From highest Brahman to the yonder worm, And to the very minutest atom, Everywhere is the same God, the All-Love; Friend, offer mind, soul, body, at their feet. These are His manifold forms before thee, Rejecting them, where seekest thou for God? Who loves all beings without distinction; He indeed is worshipping best his God. The three friends, Charu Chandra Das, Kedarnath Moulik and Jamini Ranjan Majumdar were greatly inspired and eagerly looked for an opportunity to serve the God in human form. The opportunity came soon. In Benares, many pilgrims who were poor and aged, had to suffer terribly in the hands of unscrupulous Brahmin pries

Western scholars and their Indian counterparts place a lot of importance on any charitable work conducted by western Christian missionaries in India. For instance Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa receives a lot of visibility, publicity, praises and donations and rightly so, because they have done great work, though not always selfless because of religious compulsions. However similar or better work done in a true selfless spirit by Indians and home grown saints and sages are often overlooked or disregarded. Neither media, nor Western scholars, nor people in the West are interested in the work. It is hardly surprising given that their viewpoints and prejudices would be coloured by religious and national affiliations and they would be hardly interested in a similar or even better work done by an Indian. What is surprising is that the Indian media and intellectuals tend to completely disregard the service and sacrifice of their own countrymen. There may be some other angles to t