Vedanta Sandesh - Jan 2019 by Vedanta Mission

Monthly eMagazine of the International Vedanta Mission

Vedanta Sandesh

Year - 24

Issue 7

Jan 2019

A Very Happy & an Enlightening 2019

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Cover Page

The cover page of this New Year issue of Vedanta Sandesh is dedicated to a beautiful bird which comes to this part of the world in winters from Central Asia or Europe. It is the Ruddy Shelduck, which is locally called the Brahminy Duck (reveaking its sacredness by the Hindus), and also Surkhab or Chakwa. Its scientific name is Tadorna ferruginea, and is placed in the Anatidae family, which is the family of duck, goose and swans. In Tibet and Mongolia, Ruddy Shelduck is considered sacred by the Buddhists also. It is also a sacred bird in Slavic mythology. The Ruddy Shelduck is 58–70 cm long with a 110–135 cm wingspan. It has orange-brown body plumage (looks golden) and a paler creamish head. The wings are white with black flight feathers. It swims well, and in flight looks heavy, more like a goose than a duck. The sexes of this striking species are similar, but the male has a black ring at the bottom of the neck in the breeding season summer, and the female often has a white face patch. Its feathers are beautiful, giving rise to the idiom - Surkhab ke par nikal aaye hain', meaning someone trying to act special even though they are not. It is a bird of open country, and breeds on cliffs, burrows, tree holes or crevices distant from water, laying 6-16 creamy-white eggs, incubated for 30 days. This picture was clicked by Sandeep Kumar Priyadarshi, a cool designer & a lovely photohrapher from Bhubaneswar (Orissa).

CONTENTS

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Vedanta Sandesh Jan 2019 1.

Shloka 5

Message of P. Guruji

Tattva Bodha 9-13

Letter 14-15

Gita Reflections 16-20

The Art of Man Making

Jivanmukta 26-28

Story Section 29-31

Mission / Ashram News

7-8

21-25

32-61

10.

Forthcoming Progs 62

11.

Internat News 63

12.

Links 64 3

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Monthly eMagazine of the International Vedanta Mission Jan 2019 : Year 24 / Issue 7

Published by

International Vedanta Mission Vedanta Ashram, E/2948, Sudama Nagar, Indore-452009 (M.P.) India http://www.vmission.org.in / vmission@gmail.com

Editor:

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Swamini Samatananda Saraswati

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:io.kkZfnda loZa fogk; ijekFkZfor~A ifjiw.kZfpnkuUn Lo:is.kkofr"BrsAA

The knower of the truth, first negates all attributes like form & color and then alone realizes his/her truth. Thereafter, he revels & abides in his nature as infinite self-revealing bliss. Atma Bodha - 40

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Message from Poojya Guruji

Happy New Year As the new year starts, I sincerely wish the best for everyone in all possible ways. May you all be happy, healthy, wealthy and may you all fulfill your cherished dreams, in the coming new year. Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Niramayah. Such prayerful good wishes are very powerful & lovely thoughts. Good thoughts are like tonic and and they boost up not only our body & mind but also make our world a better & beautiful place to live in. They bring positivity and inspiration and thus are the best way to start our day or the year. One should however realize that for the prayers & dreams to fructify they need to be really powerful. Only strong, intense & powerful thoughts help us to

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carve out a better world. If the thoughts are not strong then they create conflicts because the dominant thoughts will have their way and when our thoughts get dominated then come the heartbreaks & sorrow. Our dreams & prayers should be so powerful that they invoke emotions. Thoughts which do not invoke emotions are loose thoughts and are not only meaningless & ineffective but also create conflicts & problems. So let us have thoughts which are powerful & intense. Let the prayers come out of the deepest recesses of your hearts, then they are very powerful tools to change our world for the better or even worse.

When thoughts invoke emotions and inspirations then something more

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happens. They start getting reflected in our speech. We will start talking about them, not only just telling others but even inspiring others. Talking about your good thoughts to your friends & relatives is a great thing to help your dreams become a reality, it is one step closer to the fulfillment of dreams. Talking should also be clear, confident and passionate, otherwise they will reveal your own doubts about the possibility of their fulfillment. When we not only dream & pray but also passionately talk about about our wishes, then comes the final step of doing something about our dreams. Yes, finally our thoughts need to translate into inspiring & confident actions. Karma alone is the tool which brings any situation in life. So lets go the full way - from thoughts, to emotions, to talking and finally the actions. Do whatever you deem practically fit to make your world a better place to live.

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May our New Year resolutions and prayers be strong & inspiring and not merely a light & loose thought.

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TATTVA BODHA

The Enlightened Ones

Swamini Samatananda

Tattva Bodha

nthepreviouseditiontheAcharyabroughtupthetopicof

the three types of Karmas which a Brahmagyani has transcended. So far we have discussed about the Agami Karmas. Now we will go on to understand ‘Sanchit karmas’.

lafpr deZ fde~\ vuUrdksfV tUeuka chtHkwra lr~ ;RdeZtkra iwokZftZra fr"Bfr rRlafpra Ks;e~AA “What do you mean by Sanchit Karmas? The sum total of all those karmas, which are of the nature of seeds, and which have been accumulated in our countless crores of earlier lives are together called as Sanchit Karmas.”

Sanatan Dharma is the only unique religeon which speaks

about the law of karma and its application in the transmigration of any living being. Our great Rishis have analysed and done great research on the ‘law of karma’. The continuity of life, and the kind of birth a person takes, the various situations

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we get, all depend upon the karmas a person has performed in

Tattva Bodha his various lives. No one knows when this chain of life began. All we can understand is that it may have started right from the time this creation came about. Another beauty of karma is that very uniquely only a human being has the privilege to polish his karmas and create new karmas. All other living beings only have the pottential to exhaust their earlier karmas good or bad. With this pottential a human being can either make his life or ruin it. Depending upon the law of karma a Jiva travels through a variety of lives of animals, birds, human beings and celestial beings too.

Having kept in mind this law of karma, Sanchit Karmas

are the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;total accumulated karmasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of all our earlier lives put together. Here the Acharya says all our accumulated karmas are countless and crores in number. This entire accumulation of karmas is our Sanchit Karma-a huge bank deposit of our past actions. In this karmic bank each karma is like a seed which has pottential to createa new situation. A seed is a very potent thing. It not only has the pottential to give rise to a whole new tree but the tree further gives birth to countless seeds which will grow into more trees and so on. So every seed has a pottential hid-

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den world in it, waiting to unfold. This same principle applies

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Tattva Bodha in the creation of the the world at a cosmic level and various situations at an individual level. Each seed is the the action performed by an individual Jiva and when this seed is ready to give fruits we recieve our karma-phala(the fruit of our action). The nature of the fruits we recieve comes to us in the form of situation, in the form of various types of bodies that we may get. If there is a predominance of meritorious actions then we may be born as a Devata or some celestial being. If we have performed more of sinful actions then we will be born in lower bodies like animals birds etc. If in case there is a mixture of good and sinful actions then we may be born as human being. This chain of actions-fuits of action and then action again goes on endlessly birth after birth until one realizes the sense of limitation and bondage involved. This is the cycle of ‘samsara’ which is a result of ignorance and wrong understanding of the Self. It is this ignorance and mis understanding which brings about a sense of enjoyership and a sense of doership. In this trip of endless seeking the balance sheet of our actions keeps going through transactions of debit and credit in life after life. In that too, the deposit of our actions waiting to germinate increases much faster than our actions which are debited. So at the end of the day we land up with huge bundle of karma phala files wait-

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ing to be cleared. Our Sanchit Karmas only keep on increasing.

Tattva Bodha

This journey of eternal seeking comes to an end only

when through the knowledge of the Self we come to see that I am Brahman and so is everything else. This is the only redeem-

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ing means to an otherwise endless cycle of seeking.

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Mail from Poojya Guruji Handling a Chanchal Mind Hari om !

Well, Arjuna also asked a similar question when Bhagwan Krishna was revealing the art & science of Meditation (in the 6th Chapter of Gita).

The question is common & universal and so also the answer. So I will briefly tell you what was the suggestion given by Gita. Lord Krishna gave two tips to Arjuna for reining and handling a vacillating mind. First was Abhyasa, and second, Vairagya. Let us take Vairagya first.

Vairagya implies an outlook & relationship of attachment & dependence with the things & beings around us. Even though superficially we may appear to have love for them, but if you watch closely then all these are basically for our needs, so basically it is all a self-centered attitude & relationship. With such an attitude others are just means and the end is just our personal convenience, comforts or pleasure. There is no love for them, but only for ourselves. Real love emanates from inner strength and the motivation is more to give rather than take. In V edanta Sandes h

attachment there is a basic insecurity and anxiety, while in love there is no such thing. When you have to give then it doesnt matter what are

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the possible situations. So Bhagwan suggests that please re-look at your relationships & attitudes and correct them. Dont leave things or people, but just try to selflessly love & serve. There is greater joy in that and there shall be no anxieties whatsoever. The disturbance of mind indicates our anxieties borne out of negative attitudes like attachment.

Second, he suggests that if you dont have any ego-centric aspirations then the problem is just that you have not done such an exercise earlier, so the solution is more simpler, just practice patiently and soon your mind will master this art & capacity. You should see that our various desires and thoughts are all formed by exposures we get and regular exposures create habits. So resolve to form a better habit.

Rest assured that basically mind is not our enemy, but rather a friend, just handle it lovingly and it can become a very good friend. All gyanis were one day agyani and all they did was to handle their minds lovongly & intelligently. So feel confident & inspired. Remember that every problem has a solution, like every lock has a key. Nothing is impossible. Just handle your mind lovingly and everything will soon be fine.

Love & om

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Gita Reflections

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iq#"k% izÑfrLFkks fg HkqaDrs izÑfrtkUxq.kku~A dkj.ka xq.klaxks·L; lnl|ksfutUelqAA (Gita 13/21) 16

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Attachment brings Probems (iq#"k%

izĂ&#x2018;frLFkks fg------)

Swamini Samatananda

When the Purusha gets attached with Prakruti, then it becomes an enjoyer. This attachment to prakruti is the

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cause of birth & death in diiferent bodies. Gita : Ch-13 / Sh-21 17

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Gita Reflections

n this very significant and famous sloka of chap-

ter thirteen Bhagwan Sri Krishna reveals how the Purusha who is immaculate and untouched comes to become a ‘Bhokta’ or an ‘Enjoyer’. How does the Purusha as though come to be a worldly being, a Samsari.

As the truth is revealed in the Vedic scriptures, that in

the begining, there was only purushah as Pure Self effulgent bliss. All names and forms are made of prakriti, of Ishvara’s power Maya. In fact both are are the contributing factors in any creation that is brought about. Purushah or Parmatma is the substratum and all modificatins and gunas are the presentation of prakriti, of Ishvara’s Maya. The substratum is pure consciousness, but when the Jiva is ignorant of this as his real nature, he comes to identify himself with the attributes of his body, mind and intellect and thus comes to see himself as a limited entity. Thus from this pure consciousness is born the Jivabhava- that is a sense of individuality with a sense limitation. A sense of limitation further goes on to translate itself with a sense of enjoyership and a sense of doership. Enjoyership is a sense of lack and expresses itself as ‘I want various

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experiences of joy’. This is the compelling factor for one to

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Gita Reflections perform actions to fulfill various desires. Once I am entangled in the network of desires then I am bound to perform actions helplessly to fulfill all the various desires. Thus here we come to see the entire biography of a sense of enjoyership (bhoktrutva), how it is born and how it binds the individual jiva. This is what is meant that the Purushah becomes prakritistha. The Purusha identifies with Prakriti, with Maya. When one is not able to discriminate between Purushah and prakriti-the two sides of the same coin. When one is not able to see the world as a presentation of Maya and the substratum that forms the basis of all creation, one imposes the limitations of Maya on Purushah. Modifications, changes, names and forms all come in the realm of Maya and all these dharmas are superimposed on the substratum, the pure consciousness. The purush sees the dharma of prakriti as its dharma. So the problem is basicaly ignorance and superimposition. just as we impose movement of train on the trees. Once we are able to discriminate we will be free from all bondages of enjoyership and doership. Thus it is very important to see Purush and Prakriti very finely, to discriminate between the atma and anatma. When this unholy union between Purush and Prakriti comes about this alone becomes the cause of the cycle of birth and death. So this vivek

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is very significant and it is liberating. Once we come to see this

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Gita Reflections truth then there is no problem with Prakriti either, it is only our perception that creates a problem.

There is no change in Param Purushah. He is pure, im-

maculate, untainted, and unaffected by any kind of modifications.

Freedom is nothing but freedom from a sense of doer-

ship and enjoyership. One is liberated from this unholy identi-

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fication between knower of the field and the field.

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The Art Of Man Making

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Gita gives Cure for Mental Despondency

P.P. Gurudev Swami Chinmayanandaji 21

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The Art of Man Making

e have already seen how on the bat-

tlefield of Kurukshetra tension was slowly mounting up. Duryodhana had already started showing signs of nervousness. At this moment Arjuna, with the confidence of a seasoned warrior, asks Krishna to drive his chariot between the two armies so that he may himself survey the enemy lines.

Krishna drives up the chariot and places it in front of

Bhishma and Drona-who are also the Pandavas’ teachers-and says, ‘Behold, O Partha! all these Kurus gathered together.’ This is the only sentence Sri Krishna utters in the entire first chapter. Yet it is an all-important one for herein Krishna may be said to be deliberately drawing Arjuna’s attention to the assembled Kauravas. It is an innocent sentence quitely uttered yet one which triggers off the entire Geeta with its clipped brevity.

Arjuna slowly swept his gaze over not only the Kau-

rava army, but also his own. He saw there ‘fathers, grandfathers, teachers, maternal uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons and friends too.’ Seeing so many friends, relatives and acquaintances, poised for war against each other, he probably for the first

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time, realized the tragedies of a total fratricidal war.

The Art of Man Making

His composure broke down. He was a man, it seemed,

defeated by the vagaries of his own mind. A feeling of compassion overwhelmed him. It is a human habit to glorify weaknesses such as this and extol them with high sounding names of virtues. Thus a rich man is often called charitable when he builds a temple with the secret ambition of perpetuating his own name in time.

All mental processes are unpredictable and complex.

All his life Arjuna had waited for just such an opportunity to oust the Kauravas in fair battle, where he knew their sly moves would stand no chance against his mighty prowess. But, when such a stand presented itself, it seems strange that he should have lost heart and found himself lacking the confidence to measure up to such a situation.

Arjuna’s self confidence, deserted him and, overwhelmed

with grief in sorrow and dejection, he said, *Seeing these my kinsmen, O Krishna, arrayed, eager to fight, my limbs fail me and my mouth is parched; my body quivers and my hairs stand on end.

He then enumerates the symptoms he feels. These very

same symptoms, modern psychologists would say, are charac-

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teristics of what they would call “anxiety-state neurosis.”

The Art of Man Making

‘Seedanti mum gaatraani’-my limbs fail me; mukham cha

parishushyati my mouth is parched; vepathushcha shareere memy body shivers all over; rom harshashcha jaayate-my hairs stand on end. Gaandeeva sramsate hastaat-the Gandiva-bow slips from my hand and tvak chaiva paridahyate-my skin burns all over.

These then are the symptoms characterising the state of

his mental break-up, for he adds, ‘I am also unable to stand and my mind is whirling around, as it were.’ (Na cha shaknomyavasthaatum bhramateeva cha me manah)

And for the next few verses he prattles on, giving con-

clusive proofs that he is in the grip of severe hysteria. At this stage, no modern psychoanalyst could have done better than Krishna. He just allows Arjuna to rattle on, to bring out all his pent-up, warped emotions, quietly listening, making no attempt to arrest the flood of Arjuna’s magnified dejection and his misplaced compassion for his friends and relatives. The ‘patient’ is himself giving an account of his physical and mental conditioning, pouring his sentiments into the quietely receptive ears of Krishna.

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It does not take much to diagnose Arjuna’s entire an-

The Art of Man Making ti-war tirade as eruptions of a hysterical mind, drowned in blind grief and despair. Here is escapism. An urge to run away from the problem in the face of it; an impulse to shirk the weight of responsibility; a mental shrinking from the thought of inevitable consequences. Arjuna is headed for a dangerous collapse of personality. He tells Krishna, *I see bad omens, O Keshava, and I see no good in killing my own kinsmen in battle. He tries to take shelter behind even superstitions, myths and beliefs-as long as they hide his confusions and perplexities and help him maintain a righteous front and regain what he can of his lost dignity.

Such mental shrinkage and cowardice in the face of grave

situations loot us of our own success. The cracks in Arjunaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mental make-up slowly widen and soon Krishna has a clear view of the shattered individuality in Arjuna.

At some stage in life, we all have to face such dire situa-

tions. Confused and worse confounded, thick mists of delusion rise before our mental eye. We seem to bump into blind alleys. We trip up on our own toes, we stumble and fall headlong into grinning traps of dejection and despair. We know not what to do and our clouded intellect offers, no line of right action. The treatment of such a natural, mortal illness of the inner mind is

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the theme of the entire Geeta.

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Jivanmukta Wandering In Himalayas

73 Trilokinath Excerpts from the Travel Memoirs of Param Poojya Swami Tapovanji Maharaj

Jivanmukta W

e had not much time to rest, for it

was imperative that we cross the pass before 11a.m. After 11 a.m. powerful winds would begin to sweep along the pass, making all progress extremely difficult. We moved forward as fast as we could. As we climbed higher around the plateau totally devoid of vegetation. We had ascended hardly two miles when one of the sadhus decided to retrace his steps. He had a sever headache and was terror-stricken at the prospect of scaling those high mountains. The rest of us put our faith in God and resumed our upward march, resting a little every now and then. By the time we had ascended four miles we were in a state of utter exhaustion So we sat down to rest and ate a little of the food which we carried. Now we were face to face with the dazzling peaks of snow. On seeing the white mass that stretched unendingly before us, the courage that the sadhus had mustered seemed to desert them. There is no doubt that it is dangerous to cross the pass without a proper guide. He who enters the snow without knowing the route is irretrievably lost, and naturally my mind was also agitated. True indeed are the words of wise men who say that prosperity is like wine, which goes to the head and makes man forget the Creator; adversity on the contrary sobers him and reminds him V edanta Sandes h

of God and His glory. People who preach atheism and who do

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Jivanmukta not recall God’s name to their minds even once a month, cry out in the hour of danger, “Oh God, my Lord, my good Lord, protect me!” Something in the mind induces man to cry out like this. Even that is God’s greatness and His mercy. Though at the back of everyone’s mind is the conviction that there is God and that His greatness is unbounded, it is like a precious gem in the dark depths of the mind, hidden by the tides of worldliness. When this surging tide of worldly pleasure ebbs away and leaves the mind high and dry, the gem of faith appears sparkling with its own bright luster. That generally happens only when a man has reached the rock bottom of despair. When he feels utterly helpless and hopeless, his heart at once flows out in a prayer, “Oh God, Ocean of Mercy, help me, save

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me, Oh Lord!”

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STORY Section 29

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Jayanta As a Crow

n Hindu mythology, Jayanta (“victorious”),

also spelled as Jayant, is the son of Indra, the king of the gods (Devas) and his consort Shachi. He resides in Svarga, the heaven, governed by Indra. He has a sister called Jayanti. He appears in various Hindu scriptures as fighting wars on behalf of the gods and his father. Jayanta also appears in the epic Ramayana and other lore, in which he disguises himself as a crow. This story of Kakasura vadha is a well known one. Jayanta, took the form of a crow and troubled Sita when Sita and Rama were in exile. Sita recalled that story and asked Hanuman to convey it to Rama as a token of her identity.

In the Sundara Kanda, when Hanuman meets Sita, she nar-

rates an incident that happened in the forest in Chitrakuta. The prince of Ayodhya and avatar of the Supreme God Vishnu, Rama is exiled to the forest with his wife Sita (an avatar of Vishnu’s wife Lakshmi) and brother Lakshmana. A fatigued Rama was resting alongside Sita, when a crow attacked her. The crow pecks at her twice on her feet. Rama is awakened by the stirrings and recognizes the crow whose claws were dripping in blood as the son of Indra. An enraged Rama, at the behest of Sita, unleashes the divine weapon Brahmastra (made of a grass arrow) on the crow, who flees in fear. The crow flies across the universe, but the weapV edanta Sandes h

on follows. Turned back by Indra, the gods and rishis (sages), the

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Jayanta As a Crow crow meets Naradji. Naradji explains to Jayanta that the Brahmastra was nothing but ‘Kaal’ himself. There is no refuge from the clutches of death or time. Every person who comes to the world can evade anything but not ‘Kaal’. So there is no point trying to escape the clutches of death or the flw of time per se. The only redemption from this is to seek the refuge of Lord of birth and death and that is Ishvara, Sri Rama. Only Bhagwan Rama can redeem a person from the clutches of death. Thus Jayanta the crow takes refuge in Rama and surrenders to him. The son of Indra requests pardon, but Rama says that the Brahmastra cannot be withdrawn. So, the son of Indra asks it to hit the crow’s right eye, and he is left half-blind.

Lord Rama is the Param Purusha Par Brahma Paramatma

and Sitaji represents his Maya Shakti who creates the world. Like Jayanta the crow, We all as individual Jivas too are attracted, curious and fascinated by the world created by the Lords Maya Shakti. And in our quest of exploring the world we get trapped in the cycle of birth and death. Even though birth takes place without inducing any kind of fear yet the fear of death is the highest form of fear which every living being tries to escape. Here we need to learn that the only way we can be free from the fear of death is surrendering at the Lotus Feet of the Lord. He alone can redeem

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us from the endless seeking of Samsara.

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Mission & Ashram News

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Bringing Love & Light in the lives of all with the Knowledge of Self

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