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.
What is the significance of Sri Ramakrishna’s cryptic statement: যত মত, তত পথ, “As many faiths, so many paths”? It is possible to visualize a room with windows looking out at the vast expanse outside. The windows are small but the view they reveal is vast. The windows are many, but the view is one and the same. What do we learn from all this?
Death is inevitable. Do we have any choice in the matter? Yes, we do. Not necessarily about when to die, but how to die. The external circumstances of death are beyond our control. But the internal preparation for death is entirely within our control. Only if we know how to die well, we’ll know how to live well.
Dialogue occurs not only through personal conversations and encounters but also via letters and emails, essays and books. It happens both in real time and also spread over days, years, even centuries. It’s the exchange of ideas that is central to a dialogue, not when or how that exchange takes place.
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.
