“Let the world bother about its reality or falsehood. First find out about your own reality. Then all things become clear” – Sri Ramana Maharshi
A small tribute to the sage of Arunachala on his 138th birth anniversary (jayanthi).
Dharma is perhaps the most important term in the culture and spiritual philosophy of India but also perhaps the most difficult to understand. It is roughly understood as the law that upholds or the law of life. This explanation by Swami Krishnananda (Divine Life Society) illuminates its real meaning.
The famous Danish physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Laureate Niels Bohr said, “I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.” Bohr as well as other physicists like Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg were avid readers of the Vedic texts and observed that their experiments in quantum physics were consistent with what they had read in the Vedas. The 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was so impressed by the Upanishads that he called them “the production of the highest human wisdom”.
The Kena Upanishad begins with enquiry into the Self and contains the most profound wisdom and direct pointings towards Brahman, the Absolute.
The ‘light’ has always been associated in Indian culture with wisdom and joy, with our higher Self – such references can be found in the Upanishads, ancient mantras and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras to name a few.
Shruti Bakshi delves into the meaning of Diwali – from the traditions associated with the five days of Diwali, to the deeper spiritual significance – in the very first LWP Digest released at this auspicious time of Diwali.
Sri Aurobindo’s words on the limitations of science and metaphysics in explaining the world. As he writes, “Metaphysics seeks to tell us What the Universe is and Why it is; in other words to explain the Inexplicable; but the end of this process is inevitably a juggling with words which must repel all clear-minded thinkers”. The approach of Hinduism is altogether different.
Should we be happy to remember our birth day or sorry for it? These wise words of Sri Ramana Maharshi (or Bhagavan as he was called by his disciples), show a different perspective and make one think about whether being reborn into ‘samsara’ life should really be a celebration or rather be a reminder for us to enquire into our real nature.
“Brahma’s lie marks the first act of fundamentalism on the planet. The flower is punished for bearing witness and offering tacit support to the fundamentalist impulse. To claim a limited end to a limitless process, to reduce the infinite to the finite, to draw borders across the borderless, to make measurements of the unfathomable – this is the beginning of the human impulse to create certainty where none exists. It is the birth of pain, of suffering, of delusion.”
– Read more of the excerpt from the book Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.
In 1893, Swami Vivekananda gave some of the most powerful speeches in history at the Parliament of World Religions. The speeches were an instant hit in America and still remembered the world over today. The article includes the text of his September 11 opening address at the conference.
What’s the connection between Vivekananda, Tesla and ‘akasha’? Professor Subhash Kak explains, describing some of the earliest attempts at searching for a scientific basis for Vedantic concepts.
“Religion is what we do with ourselves when we are alone. In every one of us is a secret shrine where no one could intrude, to which we must retire as often as possible and discover what our true self is as distinct from the appearance we present to the world outside. Most of us are self-deceivers and constant examination alone can save us….”
5 September has been celebrated as Teacher’s Day in India since 1962 in honour of the great scholar and philosopher Dr S. Radhakrishnan who became President of India in 1962. In this excerpt from this essay ‘My Search for Truth’, Dr Radhakrishnan gives valuable advice not only for teachers but all people in general.
Shruti Bakshi discusses the difference between information, knowledge and knowing and when knowledge becomes overrated and divisive. The highest Truth does not reveal itself unless we abandon everything we believe we know as the truth.
Are there limits to our reason or is reason all we must rely on?
Swami Vivekanda said: “The really difficult part to understand is that this state, the Absolute, which has been called the highest, is not, as some fear, that of the zoophite, or of the stone. That would be a dangerous thing to think. According to these thinkers there are only two states of existence, one of the stone, and the other of thought. What right have they to limit existence to these two? Is there not something infinitely superior to thought?” Read more in the article.
Part 2 in this two-part series in which Professor Subhash Kak explores the deep historical connections between India and Europe in art, astronomy, civilisational ideas, language, literature and mythology. Here Professor Kak looks at some examples from Graeco-Roman art wherein Indic elements appear prominent.
Vedanta and Plato. Mahabharata and Homeric poems. Venus and Vena. Kupros and Shukra. What’s behind the fascinating parallels?
Professor Subhash Kak delves into the deep connections between India and the Graeco-Roman world which show up not only in language, but civilizational ideas, philosophy, mythology, astronomy and art. This is Part 1 in a two-part series.
Newsletter #6. Guru Purnima blessings and understanding what or who a Guru is.
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