Discernment helps us distinguish the right from the wrong, the good from the bad, the healthy from the unhealthy. When it is time to choose, we instinctively choose to attach ourselves to whatever makes us happy and detach from whatever makes us unhappy. Thus detachment is a natural follow-up to discernment. What does this mean to my life as a spiritual seeker?
Among all the uncertainties of life, there is only one thing absolutely certain—and that is, we will die one day. We plan for many things that may or may not happen. Do we have a plan for our eventual death? A death without any preparation can be a disaster. With preparation and planning, it becomes an art, which transforms the inevitable into an opportunity to be wise and free.
What is the thinking behind calling the Vedanta Society’s Sunday programs “Satsang” and “Antar Yoga”? What do these terms mean—and how are they related to spiritual life, and to our personal spiritual practice?
We all have insufficient information about others (sadly, often even about ourselves) to be able to judge accurately what kind of people they are—even more importantly, what kind of people they will be in the months and years ahead.
Our senses are designed to receive sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and touch from the outside. All we need to do is open our eyes and the world of color and form fills our being. Similar is the case with the other senses. The process is effortless and it feels natural. What is not natural is to turn our attention to the inside. Looking inside requires enormous effort and doesn’t feel natural at all.
This essay is a small tribute to the unknown spiritual seekers, who—like the legendary squirrel in the Rāmāyaṇa who contributed a few grains of sand in the construction of the bridge to Lanka—have done their part and moved on, leaving behind a subtle influence that is easy to miss by those in a hurry.
The more we do our duty because we want to do it—not because somebody is compelling us to do it—the more freedom we experience. A slave’s work gives no joy. The work we do must be out of freedom. The slave is bound. It is the master’s work that the slave does. The work must become ours, not someone else’s.
The older I grow, the more I am drawn to peace, even more than to happiness. When I am at peace with myself, I see clearly what makes me happy and what doesn’t—and this teaches me what I should do and what I shouldn’t do. When I am at peace with the world around me, I see clearly why there is suffering—and this teaches me what I can do to minimize the suffering.
When we speak about interfaith harmony, it is good to remember that the different faiths are always in harmony—it’s the people practicing those faiths that sometimes fail. Religions don’t fight with each other, but people do. The fights and quarrels, the violence and the wars—all of these happen due to lack of understanding as well as lack of practice.
Most of us have faced situations in life when we are confused and unsure about how to proceed. We have wondered: “What is my duty in these circumstances?” Often we just muddle through the confusion and use whatever justifications the mind can think up to determine the best course of action. What if we yearned for scriptural guidance in this matter? Do our ancient books have any useful insights that may help us figure out what our duty is?
No one knows what happens after death. We know what happens to the body, but hardly anything about what happens to the person. People who are curious about what happens after death are in no hurry to die in order to get that knowledge. When we are still living, we have the freedom to hope, to speculate, to imagine, to dream about what might happen after death.
No one is going to hold it against us if we are disappointed with the world. Life was messy even before the pandemic, but now it’s gotten messier still. While we try to figure out the best way to deal with our disappointments, it is helpful to remember that disappointments have the potential to kickstart a serious pursuit of spiritual life.
Sharing one’s reminiscences of a holy person can be complicated and tricky. How can anyone write about these things, not to mention how little we actually know—far less understand—the inner life of an illumined soul. Words, words, and more words. Can words convey anything at all? Perhaps. To some extent. Depending on whose words they are.
Every one of us is a walking, breathing miracle of life. Our misfortune is that we don’t feel ourselves to be fortunate when we are living. We understand the blessing of being alive only when we are faced with the imminent prospect of death. It is only then that most of us begin to question the value of our life’s achievements.
If someone tells me, “You are stupid,” I hear the sound, I understand what those words mean, and I hear this person tell me, “You are stupid.” That’s the ordinary type of hearing. But then, almost immediately, I also hear this inside me: “How dare you?” Or “Me, stupid? You moron, you are stupid.” Or, “Why do people think I am stupid? I am not stupid.” …
Every case of sickness or hospitalization or death is affecting a family, often devastatingly. Every job that is lost and every business that is shuttered is changing lives, often unalterably. It is essential to remind ourselves of this whenever we get lost in the web of statistical data. How can we retain our sensitivity even when no one personally known to us has been affected adversely?
Is there anything more that can be done? Those amongst us who take spiritual life seriously may want to ask themselves: besides the obvious and essential response to the threat of infection, is there also a spiritual response? What are the kind of thoughts a Vedanta student may have in preparation for a likely face-off with the virus—and what can a person do in addition to the necessary precautions already in place?
Have you ever thought of yourself as a river? It is a useful exercise. I sometimes think I am a river. I feel that is what we all are—millions of rivers, all flowing towards one destination, the ocean. As rivers we are all different from each other. When we reach the ocean, however, we lose our river-identity. …
