
God gives value for the spiritual knowledge contained in the religion. Religion is the external cup and spiritual knowledge is the internal material supplied to the customer in the hotel. The customer pays for the internal material and not for the external cup. The sweet Payasam in the cheap ceramic cup will have high payment. The cheap drinking water given in costly golden cup has no payment at all. The customer takes the material only and not the container. Similarly, the spiritual knowledge alone follows the soul from birth to birth and not the religion. When the external body is left over here, the soul raises up in a new energetic body. The soul in the new energetic body is associated with the spiritual knowledge...
[Crystal Clear Demarcation of three philosophies i.e., Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita] Shankara preached Advaita Philosophy to four disciples directly and those four disciples must have understood His philosophy to the best because they heard Shankara directly. Those four disciples must have become God (Brahman) and should not have served anybody as slaves because God will not serve anybody since He is served by all. But, the four disciples served Shankara like slaves. When Shankara asked Padmapada (one of the four disciples) to bring the washed and dried saffron clothes from the other bank, Padmapada obeyed the order of Shankara more than a slave and walked across the river without fearing death by drowning...
Each limb of the elephant in its figure is contributing to the totality of the diagram. But at the same time, the limb has limitations of its size and should be in its proper place. Both the aspects of contribution and limitation are equally important. You cannot increase the size of the limb enormously to occupy the whole page and say that the limb itself is the elephant. No doubt, the elephant is incomplete without the limb and hence, it is contributory. The proper place of legs is below the body of the elephant. Due to attraction and over appreciation of the legs, you should not draw the four legs above the body. The whole problem lies with the person, who can draw the leg only...
[A devotee asked Swami about ‘Aakasha Deepam’, which is said to guide the devotee after death to the abode of God if it is lit in this month of Kartika.]
Swami replied: “If this oil lamp lit by you has such power, let it prove a small fraction of its power now itself. You lit the lamp here and go outside in the darkness. Let this lamp show you the path outside”. If this lamp cannot have even such small power while it is burning, how can we believe that it has power after a long time when it does not exist? Everything in the creation happens according to Science only. The rules of Science are broken only by the will of God. Unless you please God and get His grace, such miracles will not happen...
Hindus are spending lot of money on ritualistic functions like marriage etc., in which the major item is serving expensive varieties of food. The receivers of this food are mainly relatives and friends invited based on your blind passion for relatives and your attitude of business to friends. The donation of food is ‘Annadaanam’ and for any donation, the receiver must be an eligible person, selected not based on relationship or friendship. The eligibility is due to the spiritual knowledge and devotion of the person to God. Otherwise, you are giving food to un-deserving receivers, who may be your relatives and friends. In Mahabharata, the sage Vyasya told that donation to deserving person brings good fruits...
There is a misunderstanding that women were suppressed in Hinduism without independence. People quote Manu Smruti in this context, which says that woman should not be independent (Na stree svatantryamarhati…). But, the same Manu says that women should be worshipped to please God (Yatranaryastu pujyante ramante tatra devatah…). Both these contradict each other. If you do not give even basic independence to somebody, how can you worship him or her? Will you worship a person without independence, put in prison? This means that the first statement of Manu is misinterpreted. The actual meaning of first statement is that women should not move independently without escort because...
[Reply to Dr. Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam (Balaji).] All bad qualities are created by God with a positive sense alone. When we misplace these qualities,...
[Reply to Dr. Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam (Balaji).] Your question contains the answer. You have to do something practically to get the grace of God,...
[Reply to Dr. Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam (Balaji).] The feeling of stress as stress is the important point. You take lot of strenuous steps to get a...
[Question by Dr. Sheshadri Thiruvenkadam (Balaji).] The true knowledge is the only solution to remove the hindrance caused by any factor. Truth is...
The essence of the Gita relates to the basic attitude of the spiritual aspirant, which decides the direction i.e., whether you are proceeding towards God or away from God. The external projections are immaterial. If you compare Kannappa and Ravana, the external projections are quite opposite. Ravana used to take bath in all the seven seas, early morning, and used to worship Lord Shiva with all the pure Vedic rituals. Kannappa never took bath and used to worship Lord Shiva with all prohibited customs. But, the basic attitudes were quite opposite. The fundamental attitude of Ravana...
[Krishna Ashtami Day at Bhimavaram] The essence of the message of Lord Krishna to the human beings is the Bhagavat Gita. Sage Vyasa wrote all the eighteen Puranaas and Maha Bharatha, but still he was not having mental peace. It is surprising to see that the Sage Vyasa did not get peace even after composing the Gita!! The reason is that the theoretical knowledge does not give any fruit unless it is practiced. Arjuna was not the best example of practice of the Gita. Even on the eighteenth day, he did not get down from the chariot in spite of the instruction from Lord Krishna. He was treating Krishna as a driver only...
The five parts (Pancha Koshas) are to be analyzed carefully to understand that Awareness is neither the unimaginable God (Mayee) nor His unimaginable power (Maya). The straight reason is that the awareness is an imaginable item. The pure awareness can be easily understood in the state of meditation. When all the thoughts are dissolved, the awareness alone remains and this state is called as self-meditation. In this state, the self or the awareness alone remains. Shankara filtered all the five parts or sheaths (Koshas) and the final filtrate is this pure awareness or self of human beings. In this state, the awareness is aware of itself. The subject (Jnata) and object (Jneya) disappear...
Today our country is facing a very serious problem. The poor man does not receive the fruits of the schemes implemented by the Government, so the poor are becoming poorer day by day. This is the reason of the unrest and tension in the minds of majority of the public since the majority is poor. Every political party, which is voted to power, tries to serve the poor by implementing good schemes. But, the fruits of every scheme are filtered by a screen called corruption. The authorities involved in the implementation of the schemes snatch away the fruits, so the rich become richer day by day. All the wealth is concentrated with the minority of the public, which is involved in the implementation process. Sometimes, even the Government...
There is only one God as per the Veda (Ekameva Advitiyam Brahma…) but the awareness is in multiple bits called as living beings. There is only one Ajay but the red shirts are several. If there is only one red shirt like one Ajay, the constant association is valid in both directions. It means, wherever there is Ajay, there is red shirt and wherever there is red shirt, Ajay exists there. Similarly, if there is only one bit of awareness like one God, we can draw the logic of saying wherever there is God, there is awareness and wherever there is awareness, there is God. In such case, we can say that God is awareness and awareness is God. But, in practical experience (Anubhava Pramana), the awareness is discontinuous...
Propagation of knowledge is the greatest task and hence, it is done by God only directly. To satisfy an intellectual is very difficult. To convince the greatest genius like Mandana Misra, it requires super-intelligence and so God alone can do it. No intellectual human being can convince another intellectual human being. Therefore, God Himself incarnated in human form as Shankara. To propagate devotion and service, such incarnation of God is not necessary. Developing devotion through praise and songs is easy work. Therefore, Adisesha, the most beloved servant to God, incarnated as Ramanuja. Propagation of service is still easier and hence, another devoted angel, Vayu incarnated as Madhva. Vayu is in constanant...
[Guru Purnima Message] GURU means the preacher, who removes ignorance-darkness by emitting knowledge-light. The field of the context is important here. If you are ignorant of mathematics, a teacher may remove your ignorance about mathematics by teaching mathematics. Such a teacher cannot be called as Guru. Guru is the preacher, who diverts you towards God by removing your ignorance about God. This is the most important field for any human being because it is the basis of every aspect of life here as well as there after death. The final knowledge of God is to know that you are always ignorant of God because God is unimaginable or ever unknown. Thus, to know the ignorance about God is knowledge. Whatever you know relates to the item...
The soul is an imaginable item. It is a part of creation and creation is imaginable. The soul taken as basic inert energy can be seen by eyes with the help of powerful scientific instruments. The soul taken in the form of special work or transportation of information by special neuron cells can also be visualized. Thus, the soul taken in any form is visualized and hence, it cannot be the unimaginable God. The Veda (Drushyatetvagraya…) and the Gita (Pashyanti Jnanachakshushah…) clearly say that the soul can be visualized by Scholars or Scientists. God is beyond space and hence, can never be imagined even by intelligence (logic), which is highest faculty of Knowledge. The human imagination can never go beyond space. Since God is the generator of space...
[A talk given by Swami at the inauguration function of Montessori Engineering College and College of Pharmacy, Vijayawada.] Today, several people speak about the various ways to develop our country. All are forgetting one basic concept. The progress of a country is like the improvement of strength of a normal healthy person by giving various tonics. But, if the person is a patient of cancer, what is the use of talking about strengthening him without looking into the treatment of the cancer? Any number of tonics given to such patient becomes useless. Similarly, our country is not a normal healthy person to plan about the improvement of progress through several schemes. Our country is a patient suffering with the incurable...
[I heard that somebody refused the propagation of My divine knowledge based on the reason that this knowledge is the personal version of Myself.]
Examine Logically To Arrive at the Truth: The Gita was told by Krishna only. The Bible was told by Jesus only. The Quran was told by Mohammad only. Buddhism was preached by Buddha alone. All the Brahma Sutras and Puranas were the personal version of sage Vyasa only. Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva preached the three schools of philosophy as their personal versions only. Each Sukta in the Veda was told by a single sage only and thus, the entire Veda is a bundle of personal versions only. God told the scripture...
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