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How Modi is elbowing Sonia, Rahul, Congress from India"s cultural memes 22.06.2015 There is a famous Zen koan: "Why did Bodhidharma go East?" In the manner of Zen koans - a koan is a kind of paradoxical statement or question that enables a new insight - there is no (correct) answer, but you are expected to meditate on it to see the insights behind the obvious, superficial facts. The facts are that, indeed, a monk named Bodhidharma (some say a Pallava prince from Kanchipuram, who he trained in Kalari Payat, and who had embarked from Kodungalloor/Muziris, circa 400 CE) did go East, and taught Han monks at Shaolin in China unarmed combat (whence kung-fu). |
Dr. Sreemati Mukherjee "Sri Sarada Devi: The Power of Love and Compassion" 22.03.2006 How can a nineteenth-century Bengali village housewife speak to the needs of a modern Indian woman, situated in the twenty-first century at the crossroads of culture, history, tradition and modernity? In a world that knows, perhaps, one of the worst crises in human values, what has Sri Ramakrishna’s wife, Sri Sarada Devi, to offer us? As I look around me, I notice a world where moral and psychological fragmentation, relativism of values, and the increasing complexities of urban existence make simple certitudes impossible. More>>> |
Dr. Usha Kapoor "Hindu Woman as Life Partner" 20.03.2006 Hinduism regards man and woman as the two halves of the eternal Being, each constituting a vibrant, existential part, quite incomplete in itself. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Prajapati, the primordial God, divides himself into two - man and woman, the symbols of cosmic polarity deriving sustenance from the same source. In the cosmic scheme man represents Purusha (the Person, Spirit) and woman Prakriti (Nature, primal Matter), both of whom unite to keep the world going. So goes the Vedic verse: ‘I am He, you are She; I am song, you are verse; I am heaven, you are earth. We two shall here together dwell becoming parents of children.’ More>>> |
Dr. Lekshmi "Transcending All "Isms" 11.12.2004 Man, manliness, man-making, man-making religion, man-making education, man-making theories, Naranarayana, Daridra-narayana - thus go the evervibrating mantras on the lips of a great sannyasin and yuga acharya, the like of whom the world has never seen before. Unlike other great spiritual illuminators, his object of meditation was neither a God enshrined in the temples nor the One far above the heavens; unlike other sannyasins, one very rarely saw him in crossed legs and closed eyes but with his eyes open, wandering, worshipping and serving the living God in and around him. That great yuga acharya is none other than Swami Vivekananda, the wandering monk who, by his life and teachings, has opened new vistas for an epoch-making humanism. More>>> |
Rada Krishna "Before You Visit a Hindu Temple" 08.12.2004 It was in the early 1950s, long before the advent of TV in India. I had heard the story of an Indian villager who came to a nearby small town. His ancestors had barely travelled outside his village for hundreds of years. He had little ability to read even his local language, but somehow managed to learn to recognize the English alphabets. His friend in the town pointed to a small church nearby and told him, ‘Go and see the temple in which the Christians worship.’ He went in and came out in forty seconds and said, ‘No, that is not a temple. I see no divine images, no flowers, no bells to ring, no light, nothing. I see a few rows of benches like in a school. That must be a classroom.’ His friend took him back to the church, walked over to the altar, pointed to the wooden cross and said, ‘There, that is the God’s image they worship. These are benches for the devotees to sit.’ More>>> |
Swami Satyamayananda "Sri Sarada Devi: Essence of the Infinite" 16.11.2004 God incarnated as Sri Sarada Devi in Jayrambati, in poor rural Bengal, on 22 December 1853. Of course, that was not the first time God incarnated for humanity and certainly that will not be the last time either. Can anyone understand God’s ways? ’Bhishma was none other than one of the eight Vasus, but even he shed tears on his bed of arrows. He said: “How astonishing! God Himself is the companion of the Pandava brothers, and still there is no end to their troubles and sorrows!” Who can ever understand the ways of God?’ (1) This descent of the Divine may be inscrutable to logic and philosophy, but it is immensely appealing to the heart. God’s incarnation as Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi has also opened to us a new vision of God, spirituality and sadhana, spiritual practice. Amazingly, one finds that Holy Mother was not so reticent about her real nature as Sri Ramakrishna was. This is a bigger appeal. For instance, here is a conversation between Holy Mother and her devotee. More>>> |
Dr. C.S.Shah "Faith, Priviledge and Spirituality" 15.11.2004 Until one gets true Knowledge, it is all faith, and all faith is ‘blind’. Without this blind faith, however, man does not strive to acquire true faith, or knowledge, as it is usually called. True Knowledge - that of the oneness of all existence - has no room for privilege, and, conversely, where there is a seeking for privilege, true Knowledge has not arisen there. Spirituality concerns itself with spiritual disciplines based on faith in the scriptures and the utterances of realized souls. Such faith may be called active faith as it activates one to practice, and this active faith leads to ultimate Knowledge. More>>> |
Swami Yuktatmananda "Fortitude" 03.11.2004 Vedanta extols titiksha, or fortitude, as one of the six treasures of a spiritual aspirant. The three consonants sa, sha and sha in Bengali are pronounced alike as sho, which means ‘forbear’. Sri Ramakrishna taught his disciples to ‘sho, sho, sho’ and said, ‘Je shoi she roi; je na shoi she nash hoi’, meaning ‘Those who forbear, live; those who don’t, perish.’ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, too, taught that forbearance is nobler than any other virtue. More>>> |
Pravrajika Sevaprana "The Power of Faith" 11.10.2004 We have all heard the old clichu ‘faith that moves mountains’, yet we know that just believing in something does not necessarily make it true. Real faith is based on truth, and it has tremendous power. Sri Ramakrishna says that during his sadhana he went through a period when everything he even thought about would just come true. One time he thought, ‘If this vision is true, the rock in front of me will jump three times.’ He says the rock did jump three times. (This is really hard for our Western minds to accept.) Even Mathur Babu once had an argument with Sri Ramakrishna, when Mathur said, ‘Oh, come on. You can’t go against the laws of nature. You can’t have, for example, a red and a white flower growing on the same branch.’ Sri Ramakrishna said, ‘Anything is possible for the Divine Mother. She makes the rules and she can also break them.’ Sure enough, in a little while he presented Mathur with a branch on which was growing a red and a white blossom. Jesus walked on the water and others saw it. It is said that Mohammed did not need to go to the mountain. The mountain came to him. What makes the faith of a Ramakrishna or a Mohammed different from the faith of other men? The words and actions of God-men are surcharged with power, because they are directly in touch with Truth. More>>> |
Swami Tathagatananda "Motherhood of God " 08.10.2004 There are good souls, calm and magnanimous, who do good to others as does the spring, and who, having themselves crossed this dreadful ocean of mundane existence, help others also to cross the same, without any motive whatsoever. (1)
The life of Sri Saradamani Devi, Holy Mother as she is reverentially referred to, is really an enigma. She could always be found engaged in all sorts of ordinary domestic work: scouring the floor, washing the vessels, cooking the food and serving guests. Even when she was a young woman of twenty-three, the simple, rustic, unassuming Sri Sarada Devi had the unique capacity to stand face to face with a dacoit at night in a lonely meadow. More>>> |
Swami Swahananda "The Inspiration That Was Swami Vivekananda" 05.10.2004 Swami Vivekananda’s ideas have been seen through various eyes, and new light has been thrown upon these ideas. In one sense, Swamiji is inexhaustible. In another sense, it can be supported that Swamiji’s core message is that man is the Atman, Atman is perfection, and perfection defies all types of limitations. The first thing about Swamiji that strikes me is his importance in inspiring us. His teachings are there of course, but his life is also there. He has left behind a sangha, an organization, a circle of devotees, to put into practice the ideas he gave. And a great man is more a principle than a person. But still, to my mind, his most important contribution is the inspiration he creates. More>>> |
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