Bharatheeyam : ( 08/11/2012. )

06/11/2017. Chapter 17: Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy-13-14. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. So we have in this great epic of Skanda's incarnation, the 'Kumara Sambhava', the mighty portrayal of the adventure of the Spirit through the processes of Sadhana, spiritual practice, wherein we commune ourselves with the highest power that is conceivable, the energy of God Himself. We have to draw that energy forward and harness it to face this world. Then the power of externality gets transformed into the peace of universality. What happened to the Rakshasas – Surapadma, Simhamukha and Taraka? Those forces which were externalised and which were the desires impelling themselves outwardly in the direction of sense-objects, were transformed into the universal peace of creation. Peace reigned supreme. There is nothing called destruction anywhere. These demons were not destroyed in the ordinary sense of the term. You know the...

28/10/2017. Chapter 17: Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy-13-13. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. Religious adventure becomes more and more complicated as we proceed along with it further and further. In the earlier stages religion seems to be very simple, because it appears to be merely a question of going to the church or sitting before a deity in a temple or following a system of routine, a ritual, etc. But, when we enter into the heart of religion, it ceases to be any kind of routine. It becomes an inward adventure of the spirit. It is not a doing of something, but a complete reshuffling of one's personality and a transformation of oneself through a transvaluation of values, by a process in which we may have to submit to conscription the very same forces in the world which appear as our opponents at present. The world is an enemy and also a friend. The Bhagavadgita, again, gives an answer to this interesting question, how...

20/05/2017. Chapter 17: Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy-13-12. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. 1. Without going into the details of the whole story here, I would like to pinpoint only the significance of the occasion, viz., the impossibility to confront evil without the help of God, the power of Divinity. No one can face the world except with the help of God. Armaments, military and police are nothing before the evil of the world. No one can overcome it, and it shall continue. 2. So, the Skanda Purana says that the War-god was born from the universal contemplation of the great Creator Himself. The Samadhi-Bhuta Sakti or the energy born out of the great Samadhi of Lord Siva, whom we call Skanda, is the answer for all the evils of the world. The force of cosmic desire became a cumulative focussing weapon, as it were, and with a sixfold face the divine energy began to confront the multifaceted dark forces. 3. We have a sixfol...

18/04/2017. Chapter 17: Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy-13-11. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. They had to invoke God Himself. And I may tell you that the solution for all the evils of the world today is God only and not anything that man can do. Not I, not you, not anyone can solve the mystery of the evils of the world. Unless God is invoked, there is no hope. Lord Siva, the great Master of Yoga who was immersed in Samadhi, the abysmal universality of experience, was the only succour and the source of hope to the gods and angels, in the war depicted in the Skanda Purana. When this triple force, Surapadma, Simhamukha and Tarakasura, attacked the celestials from all sides, they did not know whom to appeal for help. They ran to Brahma, the Creator. He said, "There is only one solution, which is difficult to conceive, but there is no other alternative. The force, the energy, the militant expression of Lord Siva is the only ans...

10/04/2017. Chapter 17: Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy-13-10. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. What is this mystery? The mystery is not known to many. The truth is that while virtue is generally understood as the opposite of vice, we forget the fact that it is also the counter-correlative of vice. So, it has not got the strength to confront the vice. Vice or evil can be overcome by a power which is transcendent and not merely ethical and moral. The evils of the world are not afraid of mere morality and ethics. Mere goodness will not do. There should be Divinity in our personality, and Divinity is far superior to mere goodness in the form of an ethical behaviour and a moral conduct. Divinity is an integrating force, while virtue is only a counter-correlative of vice. There cannot be virtue unless there is vice. Because, if there is no evil at all, there cannot be any such thing called goodness. But Divinity is a different thing altoget...

01/04/2017. Chapter 17: Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy-13-9. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. I There cannot be so forceful an energy as desire, anywhere. Desire is the greatest power in the world. Of all the powers, desire is the strongest, because nothing can move without desire. Hence desire should be regarded as the impulse for any kind of movement, in any direction. II. The nature of desire is so complex that in a poem called the Kama Gita, in the Mahabharata, we are told that desire laughs at people who are trying to conquer it. Because, the attempt to conquer desire itself is a desire. This is the reason why it laughs. Sri Krishna sings this Kama Gita to illustrate the difficulty of conquering desire of any kind, unless proper means are employed. III. The gods were startled, and they were in a state of consternation when the demoniacal forces attacked them. The gods too had their own strength, no doubt. Virtue is sup...

24/03/2017.  Chapter 13 : Lord Skanda – The Concentrated Divine Energy -8. Skanda-Shashthi message given on the 9th of November, 1980. The religious history of this event commences with a magnificent portrayal of the great God Siva absorbed in meditation and deeply immersed in Samadhi, oblivious of what we may call darkness, evil or the centrifugal forces. God's absorption in Himself in the 'I am that I am' is the total cosmic opposition to the multifarious dark activities of the urges in the direction of the senses whose leader is the ego and whose colleagues are desire and anger. The greatest forms which this impulse of externality can take in us are these three. The ego is the centrality of the urge, the central dynamo, as it were, which pumps the energy necessary for the movement of this impulse outwardly. And, desire and anger are like the two arms of this adamant centrality of individuals. So, in a way, we may say that there are only two forces, ...