jabdakhata

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. The veiling power of Maya separates the witness from the mind body internally to let us think that we are mind body, whereas in reality we are mind-body-witness. The veiling power separates Brahman from the external universe. So all names and forms appear as distinct from Sachidananda and the witness appears as separate from the individual. In reality witness and individual are the same as Brahman and visible universe. In reality the rope is still the rope, we perceive it as the snake in the darkness out of ignorance. There is an interesting conversation between Sri Ramakrishna and Hari (Later Sw...

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. Brahman in Vedanta depicts everything external to the Self, the all pervading consciousness everywhere and the  and Atman is referred to the Self, but in reality both are same. Brahman is Atman and Atman is Brahman. There is no time, space or causation in Brahman/Atman. Atman is everywhere. Atman never comes and goes because all space is within it. It has no beginning and no end as all time is within it. It is not caused by anything - so not effected by causation. The Atman has five sheaths or coverings - the gross body made of food or annamaya kosha, the subtle body of vital forces, mind and i...

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. The question may arise that if we are pure consciousness in reality what is that which thinks itself to be ignorant? Pure consciousness is never ignorant. How then are we forgetting our real nature? The reflected consciousness is also known as chid-cchaya. There is no relationship between I sense and pure consciousness. The relationship which apparently exists is born out of error. Pure consciousness remains for ever, unending and unchanging. When the spiritual aspirant sees light, it is the light of the pure consciousness which is always shining. We are unable to see that light because our min...

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. Question is, how pure consciousness gets stained or impure? How is the pure witness consciousness maligned with disease, death, sins and all forms of decay? The answer is - the self that is reflected is never stained by the quality of the mirror. The quality of the mirror decides the quality of the image, i.e. the reflected consciousness or the individual. The pure witness consciousness is unaffected. The reflected consciousness gets identified with the mirror, so if the mirror is good the reflected consciousness thinks itself to be good. If the mirror is bad, the reflected consciousness think...

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. The analogy that can be provided is that of a ball of iron and the glowing fire. The ball of iron gets heated by taking the heat from the glowing fire. This ball of iron is the body mind (ego/individuality) while the fire it catches is the reflected consciousness. The fire from which it derives the heat is the pure consciousness. The other analogy is that of a mirror and the image. The mind body (ego/individual) is the mirror while the reflection is the reflected consciousness or the jiva, the individual soul. The pure consciousness is reflected and appears as the reflected consciousness.  ...

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. The pure consciousness is everywhere, also in external objects. Then the question that may arise is - How do we identify ourselves with our body, mind and senses and not with external objects? The witness consciousness is reflected in the mind just as sun is reflected in a pool of water or in any shining object. The mind borrows consciousness to illumine senses and the senses in turn illumine the bodies, just as moon borrows sunlight to illumine night (as if sun directly shines as the light of knowledge, as pure consciousness and that is called as day or enlightenment while moon illumines me...

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. There are four essential steps for practising Vedanta. They are called Sadhan Chatustaya or fourfold practices. They are Viveka or discrimination, Vairagya or dispassion, Mumukshatva or desire for emancipation and Shama damadi Shat Sampad, i.e. six fold treasures that include Shama or control of mind, Dama or control of sense organs, Uparati - adherence to ones duties or dharma, Titiksha or forbearance, sraddha or basic (not blind) faith based on reason on Shastra and Guru & samadhana or concentration. Vedanta is based on prasthan trayee, the three main texts of Upanishads, Gita and Brah...

Swami Sarvapriyanandaji's lectures are available on youtube. These are just the my personal interpretations and transcriptions of his explanation of the text of Drig Drisya Viveka. Actual Copyright of the lecture belongs to Vedanta Society of Southern California. Drig Drisya Viveka is a Vedantic test written by Vidyaranya Swami in 14th century AD. Its an introductory text on Vedanta. Three fundamental principles - differences between Drig or Seer and Drisya or Seen 1. There has to be a seer and a seen (subject & object). The seer and the seen are different. 2. The seer sees many but itself is one in relation to what is seen. The seen stands for multiplicity. 3. The seer is relatively unchanging while what is seen changes The eyes are the seer while external universe is seen with its forms, colours and shapes. Similarly all sense organs are "seers" and external universe is "seen" through them by touch, hearing, smell, taste. The mind is th...

Terror activities are a global phenomenon. Gone are those days when a few countries including India were victims of terrorism from across borders and everybody else would sit in their comfort zones and either empathize with or ridicule their claims. 9/11 in 2001 changed all that. Now every country on this earth is vulnerable from terror attacks and hence cannot sit comfortably. Everytime there is a terror attack in one part of the world its a grim reminder to others that their turn will also come. Nobody can now ignore the fact that terrorists are emboldened further and further by the success of their attacks to carry out another attack elsewhere. More innocent blood will spill and the usual reactions will come from all quarters - politicians, human rights activists, ordinary people. Some are angry reactions demanding the heads of all terrorists and finding who are behind all these, some will merely say terrorists have no religions, some will hold candle light vigils, some will appea...

Is Selflessness Practical? The selflessness of the business leader is also driven by another consideration. Any business model is a temporary endeavor. A temporary endeavor cannot result in a permanent or a lasting benefits, it can only cause a temporary outcome for all including the leader whose tenure is also temporary. Therefore for the sake of temporary gains if one puts ethics behind one would be having a long term personal integrity and reputation at stake. As Sri Krishna would have said in Gita -  akirtim chapi bhutani kathayishyanti te avyayam sambhavitasya chakirtir maranatatirichyate "People will say things of disrepute about you for eternity. Those who are of great repute, to them disrepute is worse than death" The leader who is selfless would never try to influence business outcome by following unrighteous means. In this case the leader is detached from the outcome and instead focuses on the means as well as compassionate enough to take ...

Ethics through the prism of “Selflessness” Project Management Institute (PMI) definition of ethics says that Ethics is the discipline of  “how to do it best.”   In Bhagavad Gita we surprisingly find a similarity  – “Work without attachment and desire is the art of doing things in the most efficient way”. By definition, the three components of ethics are: (a) Disposition - one's, customary manner of emotional response or temperament; (b) Character – moral strength, integrity, and fortitude; and (c) Attitude – a state of mind or feeling with regard to some matter. One or more of them are needed to comply with ethical norms and ensure successful business outcome and character is undoubtedly the most important one. But how are these components, esp. that of character, cultivated and inculcated? As discussed earlier, the key drivers behind unethical behaviors are fear, greed, weak monitoring (environmental) and passion. If we critically analyze we’ll fi...

Ethics is the backbone of leadership and forms one of the cornerstone of the philosophy behind good management. Ethics is not something which is rigidly defined. It has got a fairly flexible boundary and different project situations and even different cultural norms permit different ethical behavior. Therefore is there any thumb rule by which we can ensure ethical behavior under all circumstances? One of the key pillars in leadership is ethics and integrity. If we critically examine the term ethics in leadership context we find that it’s a term that is not very rigidly defined. It deals with the ideal behavior under different situations. Codes of ethics vary greatly in terms of the types of the activities and actions they cover and the degree of enforcement.   Wherever there is a conflict of interest there is a question of ethics and integrity. Broadly the key drivers for ethical problems are threefold – Fear, Greed and Passion. The first one is well known, fear is basically ...

It was left to Guru Nanaka and others to work out the philosophy of Vedanta on a practical level, but their work did not get universal acceptance. Instead they became sectarian and hence the broadness of the ideal did not get the necessary visibility. We’re fortunate to get a few selfless souls in the seventeenth and eighteenth century like Rani Bhavani in Bengal, Ahalya Bai Holkar in Maharastra and other exceptional people who took up service of living gods. But they were too few. Masses in general were submerged in great degree of ignorance and the advent of the new age found reaction in the form of social reform movements. Such reform movements wanted to cut the very roots, rather than cleansing the shrubs and growths around them. Uprooting the gigantic social tree was a Herculean tasks and hence these movements could not gain much traction, although they did help in paving the way for what was to come. Opening the gates of free and rational thinking was necessary before peop...

Service to mankind as a gesture of compassion is a hallmark of Christianity. The service is provided because this is what according to Christianity is expected of mankind by the father in the heaven. The service and compassion would also bring people closer to heaven and to Christ.  This was also the characteristics of Buddhism.  The notable difference between the two approaches is that Buddhists took up service merely for the sake of compassion and not for any heavenly rewards. However the concept of Seva that was formulated by Vedantic ideology and that was promoted by Swami Vivekananda in particular and few other great men in general, is very different from the concept of service. In ancient India “ishta purti” activities were undertaken as a sacrifice, in general desiring heaven by householders and royal sages. However there are instances where sages performed activities of services for the sake of it, because it was a social norm and best practice, because it was expect...

There is a certain Mr. Khan Who always blazes his gun He claimed one day In a vociferous way That assault on women is fun He justified his stance And did much song and dance Till the assaulters he supported were on run SHAME!!!

A lot of people on internet claims themselves to be liberal and yet I find that they are for or against some opinion or the other. That let me to think, what does the term liberal truly mean? Are all these folks “liberal” as the publicly claim themselves to be? Can we be liberal and yet unwilling to accept something? It does sound like an oxymoron. Liberalism by it very definition should mean respect for all, even hostile opinions and ideologies. The term Liberal is used in a very liberal sense. It should ideally mean an all-encompassing, all subscribing ideology that excludes none, has contempt for none and that is vast enough to assimilate and absorb even the meanest and vilest into its fold. That definition would certainly not fit our armchair liberals who are fighting a perceived battle with so called “intolerants”, “jingoist”, “nationalists” and others who do not share their opinion. It certainly does not mean those who use different yardsticks for judging one set of people ...

Not all are lost. There is still a sizeable proportion, notwithstanding the stance at the leadership and academia level, who eulogize Vivekananda and his ideologies and stand for it. Prof. Sankari Prasad Basu was one of the leading Vivekananda scholars, who did in India what Mary Louis Burke did in America, through his seven volume magnum opus Vivekananda and contemporary India (Bibekanda O Samakalin Bharatbarsha) and 2 volumes of Nivedita Lokamata on Sister Nivedita’s work and contribution towards Indian independence and Indian Renaissance. Other scholars, poets and literary figures include such names as poet Subramania Bharati, noted grammarian Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, social activist Anna Hazare, social activist Begum Sufia Kamal, scientists Basishwar Sen and Satyendranath Bose, philosophers and leaders Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, C.R Rajagopalachary, and many other eminent persons, who did leave indelible imprints through their own work and in...

Here are some facts and figures. “CIC pulled up NCERT because it reduced the content on Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Bose in its history books. The content on Swami Vivekananda, which originally stood at 1,250 words in the Class 12 history books, has now been reduced to only 37 words. Additionally, in the history books of Class 8, mention of Vivekananda was removed from the syllabus altogether (indiatoday.in, Jan 2016). The CIC order also mentions 36 other Indian revolutionaries who played a part in the freedom struggle against the British rule, but have not been given space in the textbooks. 37 history book pages were reserved for cricket and the history of fabric. (ibid)” Seems like a joke, but this is alarming. And precisely this has kept happening with school, college and university education in the past 70 years. It had happened during British Raj, but then education was mostly in the hands of Nationalist leaders who, even while working under tremendous pressure from Brit...

Mary Louis Burke, also known as Sister Gargi, a nun of the Vedanta Society, who is better known for her painstaking labour of two decades on research and new discoveries on Swami Vivekananda in America and the consequent work in 6 volumes, once made a very important comment in her introduction to one of the editions of Swami Vivekananda, New Discoveries. She said that if India forgets the teachings of Vivekananda, she will do so at her own peril.  Incidentally the warning bugle was sounded a hundred years back by a noted revolutionary, Jatindranath Mukherjee, popularly called Bhagha Jatin. Jatindranath was one of the architects of an international conspiracy to wage an armed revolution against Britishrule taking the advantage of the first world war. He was one of the most dangerous men sought by British, but his activities were unknown and his audacious plan would have succeeded in rattling the empire had it not been for a treachery of a Chek spy in America. Jatin and his men...

Alexander the great has been widely acclaimed for his conquests throughout the world. Western historians who wanted to have their own hero deified him and greatly exaggerated some of his achievements, esp. his achievements in India have been inflated by some of the Western scholars and their Indian stalwarts based on dubious historical records maintained by Greeks and also derived from their fertile imagination based on their own sense of superiority. However some other accounts of contemporary history exists which gives a completely different account of Alexander’s conquests, esp. that in India. After defeating Darius of Persia, Alexander set his eyes on India. Magnificent stories of India were prevalent at that time, of her vast treasures and golds and the strange behavior and customs of the people living beyond Indus, whom the Persians called as Hindus (people living beyond Indus or Sindhu). The stories of the gold attracted the Macedonian king. It would greatly help him in ex...