Bharatheeyam : ( 08/11/2012. )

ANDAL : The remarkable girl who would marry none but the Lord  :- Andal is one of the most extraordinary personalities in religious history. She is known in her native tongue of Tamil as an Alvar, one who is "immersed" in the depths of enjoyment of God, the  omnipresent mysterious One. Tradition reckons 12 Alvars, of which Andal is the only female. Between the fifth and ninth centuries, in the Tamil-speaking region of South India, these saints revitalized the Indian religious milieu, sparking a renewal of devotional worship throughout the subcontinent. Traveling from place to place, from temple to temple, from holy site to holy site, they composed exceedingly beautiful poetry to their Divine Beloved, Vishnu, as an expression of their love for Him. Anyone can see why their poetry was so attractive; at once both impassioned and philosophical, their words cut across all barriers of caste and class, attracting all to their faith. In doing so, they sculpted a new relig...

Meditation is prescribed as a balm to remove all the stress and strain of life. It is in fashion these days and every other person claims to be practising or propounding some new and original technique. It is therefore important to understand what the Scriptures and Realised Masters say about meditation. The guru, sage Yajnavalkya, teaches his disciple, his own wife, Maitreyi. He instructs, "The Self should be realised. For that, one should listen, reflect and meditate." Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4. Even though the Truth, the Self, is self-evident, we are unable to realise the same due to gross obstacles like dullness of the intellect (buddhi mandyam), attachment to pleasures (bhogasakti), objects (vishayasakti) and so on. There also exist subtler obstacles like non-comprehension of the existence or the nature of the Self or unavailability of the right means (pramana asambhavana), doubts regarding the Self (samshaya or prameya asambhavana) or a habit, accumulated fro...

I invoke Sri (Lakshmi, who has a line of horses in her front, a series of chariots in the middle, who is being awakened by the trumpeting of elephants, who is divinely resplendent. May that divine Lakshmi grace me. I hereby invoke that Sri (Lakshmi) who is the embodiment of absolute bliss; who is of pleasant smile on her face; whose lustre is that of burnished gold; who is wet as it were, (just from the milky ocean) who is blazing with splendour, and is the embodiment of the fulfillment of all wishes; who satisfies the desire of her votaries; who is seated on the lotus and is beautiful like the lotus. Lakshmi is the Goddess of wealth and prosperity, both material and spiritual. The word ''Lakshmi'' is derived from the Sanskrit word Lakshmi, meaning "goal." Lakshmi, therefore, represents the goal of life, which includes worldly as well as spiritual prosperity. In Hindu mythology, Goddess Lakshmi, also called Sri, is the divine spouse of Lord Vishnu and...

An orphan - he does not know who his father is, or who his mother is. He has been cared for all these years in an orphanage. He comes out with nobody to support him, to call his own, nobody to love him and none to love. Such a person will try to get money somehow, by fair means or foul, just to feed himself. He will plunder, burn, shoot and kill, if necessary, to achieve this end. Why does he do so? Because he has no self - respect. On the other hand, an individual who belongs to a family, knows who his father and mother are, and who knows the tradition and the family - even when he is starving, he will not think of stealing, but rather of some constructive way of creating comfort. He may, under the pressure or the urgency of the need, come down a little, but there will always be a limit set by himself, thus far and no further. Why? Because I belong to that family, I respect my father – a kind of restraint comes upon him. The quality of your behaviour will depend upon the respec...

Monday, Oct 07, 2013. SAYINGS ON THE BHAGAVAD GEETA : Dr Annie Besant Among the priceless teachings that may be found in the great Hindu poem of the Mahabharata, there is none so rare and precious as this "The Lord's Song." Since it fell from the divine lips of Sri Krishna on the field of battle, and stilled the surging emotions of the disciple and friend, how many troubled hearts has it quietened and strengthened, how many weary souls has it led to Him! It is meant to lift the aspirant from the lower levels of renunciation, where objects are renounced, to the loftier heights where desires are dead, and where the Yogi dwells in calm and ceaseless contemplation while his body and mind are actively employed in discharging the duties that fall to his lot in life. That the spiritual man need not be a recluse, that union with divine life may be achieved and maintained in the midst of worldly affairs, that the obstacles to that union lie, not outside us, but within ...

Madan Mohan Malaviya : I believe that in all the living languages of the world, there is no book so full of true knowledge, and yet so handy as the Bhagawadgeeta... It brings to men the highest knowledge, the purest love and the most luminous action. It teaches self-control, the three-fold austerity, non-violence, truth, compassion, obedience to the call of duty for the sake of duty, and putting up a fight against unrighteousness (Adharma).... To my knowledge, there is no book in the whole range of the world's literature so high above all as the Bhagawadgeeta, which is a treasure-house of Dharma not only for Hindus but for all mankind. 

Saturday, Sep 28, 2013. SAYINGS ON THE BHAGAVAD GEETA : Aurobindo Ghose  What is the message of the Geeta and what is its working value, its spiritual utility to the human mind of the present day, after the long ages of transformations of thought and experience? The human mind always moves forward, alters its view-point and enlarges its thought-substance, and the effect of these changes is to render past systems of thinking obsolete, or, when they are preserved, to extend, to modify and, subtly or visibly, to alter their value. The vitality of an/any ancient doctrine consists in the extent to which it naturally lends itself to such a treatment; for that means that whatever may have been the limitations or the obsolescences of the form of its thought, the truth of substance, the truth of living vision and experience on which its system was built, is still sound and retains a permanent valid significance.  The Geeta is a book that has worn extraordinarily well, ...