Bharatheeyam : ( 08/11/2012. )

03/03/2017.  Chapter 13 : Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy -5.  Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. I. The epics and the Puranas, the great heroic poems, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and the Puranas, or for that matter, Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, whatever be the name that we give to these epic approaches, all these are enrapturing, poetic exclamations of moments of rapture, when there was a flash of insight from the bottom of the soul of the poet concerned. II. These are the poems which we call the epics, and this is why we are moved when we read them. Our hair stands on end, our emotions begin to be in a state of turmoil and we begin to tremble and shake, and we are forced to assume the role of the personalities portrayed in the epics. III. We begin to move with those specimens of individuality which the epic poems describe. That is the power of the poet. IV. The greater is the force of poetry, the...

24/02/2017. Chapter 13 : Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy -4. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. No one can do two contrary things at the same time, and one cannot have a conflicting desire operating at the same time in one's own mind. But this is what is happening. If this did not happen, we would not have been what we are today. Man exists because of the existence of this conflict in his own mind pulling him in two different ways – one urge moving in one direction and another in another direction. So man is divine and also un-divine at the same time. We have a divine aspiration beckoning us towards the Centre, though it is invisible to our eyes. There is also in us an equally powerful urge, perhaps, which drives us outward towards the objects of senses, in the direction of the activities of life, forcing us to entangle ourselves in the social norms and the calls of life. Which is unimportant – the calls of life, or the aspir...

15/02/2017. Chapter 13 : Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy -3. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. . The epic language describes this dual warfare of the pull and the repulsion as the battle between the divine and the un-divine powers. The divine forces are those factors, impulses and aspirations which urge everything towards the Centre, and the un-divine ones are the opposite ones which compel everything to be driven away from the Centre. There is this double urge in man, in everything and in all Nature, nay in the whole of creation. Everything seems to be moving in two directions at the same time, an impossibility to understand and explain. How can one thing move in two directions at the same time? This exactly is the mystery of life. We are 'impulsive' towards two different directions. 'Impulsive' is the only word, because it is an irresistible urge or desire that we feel within ourselves to do two things at...

09/02/2017. Chapter 13 : Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy -2. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. When a careful attention is paid to the processes of nature and the history of human life, one observes that nature outwardly and man inwardly have to confront situations which can be best described as a series of conflicts. Every day is a conflict before us, an opposition, a confrontation and a question which demands an answer. Our struggles throughout the days and the nights of our life are our attempts to answer the question of life which is the great enigma or mystery. Life poses a problem which man has not succeeded in solving with all his intellectual endowments. The deeper vision of life, which one may call philosophical or mystical, spiritual or religious, has revealed the basic or the foundation features of creation as a movement towards and a movement away from a Centre. This seems to be the secret behind and an answer t...

02/02/2017. Chapter 13 : Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy -1. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. 1. In the history of language and literature, the most outstanding works are the epics of the various nations.  In Bharatham, we have the Itihasas and also the Puranas. Here, in this type of poetry and expression, the soul rises to the maximum of its virility and portrays in the most majestic manner the picture of creation. The intention of these poets,  is to describe in soulful language and in picturesque style, the processes of creation, the comedy and the tragedy of evolution and involution, the story of the life of man which is painted sometimes with the optimistic colours of comedy and sometimes with the pessimistic ones of tragedy. Life is both, and it can be pictured from two different angles of vision. The central motif of all the epics of the world hinges upon a conflict which gets resolved in the end. Somehow, the...

26/01/2017 Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-17. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. Dipavali means the line of lights. 'Dipa' is light, and 'Avali' means line. So, Dipavali, or the festival of the line of lights, is the celebration of the rise of Knowledge. It is also the celebration of the victory of the Sattvic or divine elements in us over the Rajasic and Tamasic or baser elements which are the real Asuras, the Rakshasas – Narakasura and others. The whole world is within us. The whole cosmos can be found in a microscopic form in our own body. Rama-Ravana-Yuddha and Tarakasura-Vadha, and all such epic wars – everything is going on inside us. This Dipavali is thus also a psychological context, wherein we contemplate in our own selves the holy occasion of self-mastery, self-subjugation and self-abnegation, leading to the rise of all spiritual virtues which are regarded as lustre or radiance emanating from Self...

19/01/2017 Chapter -12. Yajna – Quintessence of the Culture of India-16. Deepavali message given on the 25th of October, 1973. 1. So, the sum and substance of the message connected with Dipavali is : - that it is a three-day festival beginning with Naraka Chaturdasi, a day prior to Amavasya; then the main Lakshmi worship day, which is Amavasya itself; and the third day which is Bali Padya, connected with the honour bestowed upon Bali Chakravarti as a devotee of Bhagavan Narayana. 2. It is also an occasion for spiritual exhilaration, a lighting-up of all darkness, socially as well as personally, outwardly and inwardly, for the purpose of allowing an entry of the Supreme Light of God into the hearts of all people. Swami Krishnananda To be continued ...