Vedantham : ( 07/11/2012. )

 NDM: Does a Vedanta teacher have to be enlightened?                         Swamiji: You know there are two types of teachers, those who are in the process of knowing and sharing the knowledge, and those who know. Therefore no Vedanta teacher worth the name will teach without knowing the text. So they will teach the text.                         So why should we judge whether he knows or not? If he knows, you will also know. If he is capable of teaching you – making you see – then he must be knowing. Otherwise he can’t make you see. So why judge? If he is ready to teach a text, you give the benefit of doubt to that person.             If somebody says, “I’m running classes in Oracle,” you join, assuming that the fellow knows. And therefore if somebody says, “I’m going to teach Vedanta,” you join, assuming that he knows. And if he knows, he will make you know. If he doesn’t know, then he will pull you into the whirlpool. (Laughter) Swami Dayananda Saraswati       To

NDM: There are many modern advaita teachers out there today. Some of them communicate by silence or by looking into others’ eyes. Is it possible to communicate Vedanta by silence?                         Swamiji: If Vedanta by silence, Kena Upanisad will be one page, empty. Brihadaranyaka Upanisad will be 50 pages total, empty – empty pages – by silence.                         If you ask a question, and I am silent and look into your eyes, what will you do? You have to look into my eyes. If I don’t blink, you have to close your eyes. Because you get embarrassed, you close your eyes.                         And then you have to think. Whatever question you asked disappears, or you try to find some answer, some something. That’s not an answer to the question. You get whatever answer you can get from your own interpretation. Each one gets his own answer.                   Somebody asks me, “What is God?” I sit there. (Then Swamiji sits still staring straight ahead for a l

Question from audience: If you see the whole creation is mithya [relatively real] – it has no substance – its substance is only in your self – and that you lend the substance to the creation – and it resolves into mithya – why do you need Isvara [the Lord]? Why is there a necessity to have Isvara?                         Swamiji: Mithya is Isvara [total universal Law and Order]. Mithya consists of all-knowledge, you know. This body is mithya. It’s nothing but knowledge. This whole body is a complex creation, so there is so much knowledge. There is nothing but knowledge here. And every cell is knowledge, every platelet is knowledge, and every organ is knowledge, every function is knowledge. It’s all knowledge. And so once knowledge is the thing, then mithya is only in terms of reality, and that reality is all-knowledge. And so this whole jagat is knowledge. There is nothing more than knowledge, word and meaning. Word and meaning is knowledge. If you say, ‘chair,’ there is no cha

How is he going to know himself as Brahman if that is true?                         “All that is here is me. I am the cause of this entire thing, known and unknown.” That’s an entirely different vision. Sarvatma bhava [the sense that I am the self of all].                         One fellow claims, “That is free from everything.” Therefore everything else is like a banana peel. The banana peel is not less real than the banana that has gone inside.                         One fellow threw a banana peel outside and then ate the banana. He had his suit on with new shoes, went out and came back; he forgot about the banana peel he had thrown on the driveway. He stepped on it. (Laughter) He went down sprawling, and the banana he ate came out. Therefore, I always ask the question, “Which is more real, the peel or the banana?” (Laughter)             Mere negation has the danger of dissociation. The modern Vedanta is like our dealing with garbage. (Laughs) So you have an underwo

 NDM: How about through intuition – intuition or insight?         Swamiji: Intuition is not a means of knowing. Intuition can give you a hunch and a feeling, maybe this is right. But then afterwards you have to prove this is right.         Every research scholar has some kind of intuition, and he assumes that this must be the truth. This must be the reason for a given phenomenon. He has a hunch and that is intuition. Intuition is nothing but a conclusion without having all the leading steps of reasoning. So the human mind is capable of doing that. And one gets a window through which one sees the whole thing. Then he doesn’t know the reasons for all that. Then afterwards he works for it and finds out the reason, and proves what he thought was right was right. That is research. But it’s not a prama?a [means of knowledge]. You have to prove.         Therefore, what is it that divides wishful thinking from intuition? Wishful thinking and intuition – what is the line that diffe

NDM: What about through reading books? Would you have to have the teaching orally, like through listening, or could you get the same teaching through just reading?                         Swamiji: First it has to be direct exposure then afterwards you can use books and things like that. And these days you have got all of them available. And it’s direct teaching.             But we have a traditional way of teaching that makes sure you are on the track. We have enough material so that they can keep you engaged looking at the same thing. So the books are like a mirror, word mirror, and you look at yourself. To see myself I need the mirror. It’s a word mirror – handled word mirror. And if it is mishandled – not properly handled – then the mirror can be concave or convex, and you get a distorted version of yourself.                         Already you had one and then now you have another (laughter). NDM: An Indian sage once said, “No learning or knowledge of scriptures is

NDM: Is it possible to become fully enlightened without the traditional Vedanta training?                         Swamiji: We don’t need to have the traditional Vedanta training. But Vedanta is a teaching – there is a method in the teaching because I am solving a problem that doesn’t exist. When I am solving a problem that doesn’t exist I have to follow a method. It is like therapy.                   You cannot write it in a book. You can never make someone a therapist by giving him a set of books. The therapist himself has to undergo hundreds of hours of therapy first because there is no medicine, there is nothing, nor does the therapist really solves the problem. He makes the person talk and sometimes points out, “This is not your fault.” Shifts the attention, shifts the whole blame from the person to another. That is what the therapist does. The therapist doesn’t really do anything except make the person see – validates the feeling, “If I were a child, I would have the s

NDM: What are your thoughts on the teachings of Nisargadatta?         Swamiji: I don’t know much about his teaching. As long as what he says is meant to remove my confusion that I am That – if that confusion has to go, what will make that confusion go – that should be the teaching. If that is the teaching Nisargadatta or anybody else is okay. If it further brings about confusion then there is no teaching, there is some talking. (Laughter) NDM: What are your thoughts on the Direct Path of Atmananda Krishna Menon?         Swamiji: It is the same, you know. Same answer. Swami Dayananda Saraswati   Arsha vidya gurukulum temple hall

 NDM: How about a means – the means is different from the path?         Swamiji: Yeah, that’s why I’m saying if there is no path, then the only problem is not knowing. So I am the seeker, I am the sought. What denies me what I seek is myself in terms of my ignorance, and therefore I have to shed my ignorance. And no ignorance goes away without knowledge, because the opposite is only knowledge.         So you are not denied of the self. You are denied of the knowledge of the self. And knowledge is opposed to ignorance. Self is not opposed to ignorance. Self is not opposed to ignorance or knowledge. Self will sustain both. (Laughs)      Swami Dayananda Saraswati   Arsha vidya gurukulum temple hall To be continued  ...

Self is not different from self-realization. Self is self. If I don’t know what that self is, how am I going to come across myself? I am what I am. If I don’t know what I am, how am I going to suddenly recognize myself?         I cannot come across myself accidentally. If I am ignorant of myself and I commit a mistake about myself, to correct that mistake I have no clue. And therefore in life, you may accidentally – it means without expectation – come across something. A lot of discoveries are just made without any planning.         Penicillin was discovered by that man not with a deliberate search for penicillin. He was doing some research on some bacteria, and he was growing this bacteria for his research, and he found all of them were dead. Then he tried to find out why they were dead and he found a formation of fungus. Being a scientist he thought, ‘Is this fungus the reason for their death?’   Swami Dayananda Saraswati Arsha vidya gurukulum temple hall To be c

Interview - Part-1. NDM: What are your thoughts on contemporary advaita teachers who say that self-realization is an accident, it happens for no reason, that there is no path, method, or means to do this, that all of these things only reinforce the seeker?         Swamiji: I cannot be an accident. If self is myself, I’m not going to be an accident or incident or an event. I am already there. Why they should say an accident? That’s a wrong thing to do. An accident is an incident, the cause of which you don’t know. That’s called an accident.         It’s an incident. If you are not able to figure out the causes of the incident, then you are constrained to call it an accident. Otherwise it’s not an accident. It’s an incident in time and space.  If there is a road accident a cop comes there, and then he has to find out who is the cause for this accident. Then he begins to search for the cause. Then when he finds the causes, the accident reduces itself into an incident. These a

1.Introduction :  Swami Dayananda Saraswati is a contemporary teacher of Vedanta and a scholar in Sanskrit in the tradition of Sankara. Swamiji has been teaching Vedanta in India for more than five decades and around the world since 1976. His deep scholarship and assimilation of Vedanta combined with a subtle appreciation of contemporary problems make him that rare teacher who can reach both traditional and modern students.     A teacher of teachers, Swami Dayananda taught six resident in-depth Vedanta courses, each spanning 30 to 36 months. Four of them were conducted in India and two in the United States. Each course graduated about 60 qualified teachers, who are now teaching throughout India and abroad. Under his guidance, various centers for teaching of Vedanta have been founded around the world; among these, there are three primary centers in India at Rishikesh, Coimbatore, Nagpur and one in the U.S. at Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. There are more than one hundred ce

In spite of his multifarious activities and intense Sadhana, he founded, under the guidance of Gurudev, the Yoga Museum in 1947, in which the entire philosophy of Vedanta and all the processes of Yoga Sadhana are depicted in the form of pictures and illustrations. Towards the end of 1948, Gurudev nominated him as the General Secretary of The Divine Life Society. The great responsibility of the organization fell on his shoulders. From that very moment he spiritualized all his activities by his presence, counsel and wise leadership. He exhorted all to raise their consciousness to the level of the Divine. On Guru Purnima day, the 10th of July, 1949, he was initiated into the holy order of Sannyasa by Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. He now became known as Swami Chidananda, a name which connotes : "one who is in the highest consciousness and bliss". In November 1959 Swami Chidanandaji embarked on an extensive tour of America, being sent by Gurudev as his personal repre

In June 1936, he disappeared from home. After a vigorous search by his parents, he was found in the secluded Ashram of a holy sage some miles from the sacred mountain shrine Tirupati. He returned home after some persuasion. This temporary separation was but a preparation for the final parting from the world of attachments to family and friends. While at home his heart dwelt in the silent forests of spiritual thoughts, beating in tune with eternal Pranava-Nada (mystic sound of the Eternal) of the Jnana Ganga (river of Knowledge) within himself. The seven years at home following his return from Tirupati were marked by seclusion, service, intense study of spiritual literature, self-restraint, control of the senses, simplicity in food and dress, abandonment of all comforts and practice of austerities which augmented his inner spiritual power. The final decision came in 1943. He was already in correspondence with Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj of Rishikesh. He obtained Swamiji's