Vedantham : ( 07/11/2012. )

1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World : Part-6. Everyone here is mentally healthy; it is perfectly clear. But the mental health that we are considering and referring to under the circumstances of the nature of the aspiration with which you have come here is something different from the normalcy of the mental operations of man. And if you like to call it so, you may say there is a supernormal condition of mental functions. It is this that can be the means of the fulfilment of your noble aspirations in the field of religion or spirituality, or on the path of God-realisation. An unhealthy mind is like a sick body, which will retard any progress in any direction—because sickness attracts attention immediately, and it will not permit the diverting of the mind in any other way. The sickness of the mind from a purely philosophical, religious or spiritual point of view is not that particular sickness which is treated in facilities for the psychopathologica...

1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World :  Part-5. This very difficult-to-understand situation of our own mental operations is perhaps the background of very bitter analyses which were ruthlessly conducted by psychoanalysis about the nature of man in this world. Medical examination is not always a pleasant thing to undergo. Very unpleasant it is, for various reasons. And even to find time to go deep into our own mental makeup is not a happy thing. When we go into the corners of the citadel in which we are living, we will not scent fragrance, and perhaps we will not find even a clean floor to sit upon. Within ourselves is a world of dustbins, cobwebs, and undiscovered, uninhabited abysmal niches which refuse to come to the surface, or into the daylight of understanding. There are corners in our own selves which we do not want to see. Are there not corners in your own room which you hide from visitors because they are not clean? There is a basket wh...

 1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World : Part-4. There is a very peculiar attitude that we develop towards our own selves which can be very safely defined by a single word: duplicity. We do not maintain a true relationship with our own selves. At the very outset, we manage to be untrue to our own selves in order that we may live in an untrue relationship with people. It is sometimes felt that in order to justify one falsehood, another falsehood may have to be heaped over it. A single falsehood does not stand on its own legs. We are acutely aware of something peculiar in our own selves which cannot stand the logic of nature or, perhaps, the will of God; and with this circumstance, we have to live in this world. We have been forced to accept that we somehow have to live in this world. We do not ask people, “Is it necessary for me to live in this world?” The question is already answered by our own selves: It is necessary. That it is necessary to live ...

                                                                     Swami Krishnananda : 25/4/1922 to 23/11/2001.  1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World : Part-3, So is the illness of man in general. The continuous consciousness of ourselves and people around us, with a consciousness attending upon it as an awareness of our peculiar adjustable relationship with people which keeps us perpetually aware of our personal relationship with others, keeps us also in a state of anxiety of an indescribable character. No one knows definitely what would happen to oneself the next moment, and there is an apprehension that something untoward may happen. While anxiety about the future may be permitted if nothing unpleasant is going to be expected in the future, it becomes intolerabl...

                                        Swami Krishnananda : 25/4/1922 to 23/11/2001. 1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World : Part -2. During this period of Sadhana Week, it is obviously your intention to gather a new strength into your own selves and return home as a rejuvenated personality, and not as a person who has attended a festival, a mela or a rejoicing—after which, generally, your energies are depleted. You go as a weakened person after a dramatic performance or a presentation which stimulates your vitals, stirs up your emotions, and agitates the cells of your body. Sadhana Week is not a dramatic performance. It is not an enactment by performers on a stage, and it is not your function to witness the presentations as if they are performances in a theatre. You have come with a different purpose, with personal difficulties which are eagerly waiti...

                              Swami Krishnananda :      25th of   April   1922     to    23th of November 2001. 1: The Circumstances in Which We Have to Live in the World : Part : 1. The normalcy of the physical body, which we call health, is also a state where we are buoyant with a new type of freedom. The greatest freedom is health, in which condition of freedom from every shackle we feel buoyant and often forget our own selves. The healthier we are, the less we think of ourselves. When an illness of any kind enters our body, we become conscious that we are. We begin to be aware of each limb of the body. An eye, an ear, a tooth, a finger, a toe, or any blessed part of our body attracts our attention when it is set out of tune with the normal function of the body. So is the illness of man in general. The continuous consciousness of ourselves and p...

This article was recorded by Ida Ansell in shorthand. As, however, Swamiji's speed was too great for her in her early days, dots are put in the articles to indicate the omissions, while the words within square brackets are added by way of linking up the disconnected parts.  (Delivered in San Francisco, April 5, 1900) Everyone's idea of practical religion is according to his theory of practicality and the standpoint he starts from. There is work. There is the system of worship. There is knowledge.  The philosopher thinks ... the difference between bondage and freedom is only caused by knowledge and ignorance. To him, knowledge is the goal, and his practicality is gaining that knowledge.... The worshipper's practical religion is the power of love and devotion. The worker's practical religion consists in doing good works. And so, as in every other thing, we are always trying to ignore the standard of another, trying to bind the whole world to our standard. ...

(Delivered in England) A sage called Nârada went to another sage named Sanatkumâra to learn about truth, and Sanatkumara inquired what he had studied already. Narada answered that he had studied the Vedas, Astronomy, and various other things, yet he had got no satisfaction. Then there was a conversation between the two, in the course of which Sanatkumara remarked that all this knowledge of the Vedas, of Astronomy, and of Philosophy, was but secondary; sciences were but secondary. That which made us realise the Brahman was the supreme, the highest knowledge. This idea we find in every religion, and that is why religion always claimed to be supreme knowledge. Knowledge of the sciences covers, as it were, only part of our lives, but the knowledge which religion brings to us is eternal, as infinite as the truth it preaches. Claiming this superiority, religions have many times looked down, unfortunately, on all secular knowledge, and not only so, but many times have ...

This article was recorded by Ida Ansell in shorthand. As, however, Swamiji's speed was too great for her in her early days, dots are put in the articles to indicate the omissions, while the words within square brackets are added by way of linking up the disconnected parts.  (Delivered in San Francisco, on May 29, 1900) Arjuna asks: "You just advised action, and yet you uphold knowledge of Brahman as the highest form of life. Krishna, if you think that knowledge is better than action, why do you tell me to act?" (Gita III. 1.)  [Shri Krishna]: "From ancient times these two systems have come down to us. The Sânkhya philosophers advance the theory of knowledge. The Yogis advance the theory of work. But none can attain to peace by renouncing actions. None in this life can stop activity even for a moment. Nature's qualities [Gunas] will make him act. He who stops his activities and at the same time is still thinking about them attains to nothing; he onl...

This article was recorded by Ida Ansell in shorthand. As, however, Swamiji's speed was too great for her in her early days, dots are put in the articles to indicate the omissions, while the words within square brackets are added by way of linking up the disconnected parts.  (Delivered in San Francisco, on May 28, 1900) The Gitâ requires a little preliminary introduction. The scene is laid on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. There were two branches of the same race fighting for the empire of India about five thousand years ago. The Pândavas had the right, but the Kauravas had the might. The Pandavas were five brothers, and they were living in a forest. Krishna was the friend of the Pandavas. The Kauravas would not grant them as much land as would cover the point of a needle.  The opening scene is the battlefield, and both sides see their relatives and friends — one brother on one side and another on the other side; a grandfather on one side, grandson on the other ...