Dayananda- A fearless son of a great Tradition

Maharishi Dayananda Saraswati's name evokes a great deal of awe and admiration in me. He is a hero of Modern spiritual Hinduism who achieved much more than Swami Vivekananda but acknowledged much much lesser.

He arose when his country and the people were in both spiritual and monetary poverty. My single point of admiration for him is that he revived the true spirit of the Vedas almost single handedly. No one living in the current pseudo secular India can ever imagine his contribution to the country and its people.

Dayananda was a BrAhmana of the highest order, a spotless brahmachAri, a great logician, a fearless thinker, a grand orator and above all, a magnificient  scholar of the Vedas. If you think I am generous in my use of adjectives, I will say I have only used the most conservative terms.

What I liked most about him was his understanding of the Vedas which he had learnt from the blind guru Vrajananda.  Dayananda differed from the classical understanding that the Samhitas along with Brahmanas and the Aranyakas form the total Vedic corpus . He declared that the Samhitas were the true Vedas and alone are  qualified for the title "Apaurusheya " (not man made) as called by the rishis.

I see merit in his argument. The BrAhmaNas and the AraNyakams of the Vedas are man made texts which are obvious as per their own content. That leaves us with the Samhitas alone. Dayananda also gave us a touchstone to verify the ' apaurusheyatvam' of the Vedas. The criterion was that if the Vedas were in fact an eternal knowledge , they should be timeless. In other words, they should contain an eternal content unlimited by time  and SHOULD NEVER CONTAIN HISTORY OF ANY PERIOD. Thus all names, places and incidents must not be found in the Vedas.

I understood the significance of his argument recently. I was learning the Sri Rudram, a praise of Rudra. Classically this is understood to be taken from the Yajur Veda. Normally all chants of Rudram accompany the Chamakam also. Sri Rudram is taken from the Taitreeya AraNyakam of Yajur Veda  and the Chamakam is from the Yajur Veda Samhita. While Sri Rudram was full of praise for Rudra calling his names, his attributes and praising his features like 'tryambakAya' (the three eyed), 'tripurAndhagAya' (one who burnt the three cities), 'neelakantthAya' (the one with blue scarred neck) etc. One can easily guess that these names are associated with mythological event and hence depict history.

On the other hand, the Chamakam part is completely devoid of any names or history. One can very easily understand that it is a praise of Paramatman and it can readily be suited to all deities we worship, not just Rudra. I was just beginning to understand his monumental statement that Samhitas are the real Vedas. My friend ,a temple priest told me that Chamakam is used in some Vaishnava Shrines during abhishekam.

Sometime back, I read Subrahmania Bharatiar's introduction to his commentary on Bhagavad Gita. In it he also was backing Dayananda's statement.He says that the Samhitas are in one type of Vedic Samskrutam but the Aranyakams and BrahmaNas are in a typically later day Samskrutam.See the Tamil text by him here

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இந்த உபநிஷத்துக்கள் வேதாந்தம் என்ற பெயர் படைத்தன. அதாவது வேதத்தின் நிச்சயம்.  இவை வேத ரிஷிகளால்  சமைக்கப பட்டனவல்ல. பிற்காலத்தவரால் சமைக்கப்பட்டன. ஸம்ஹிதைகள் என்று மந்திரங்கள் சொல்லப்படுவனவே உண்மையான வேதங்கள். அவையே ஹிந்து மதத்தின் வேர். அவை வசிஷ்ட வாமதேவாதி தேவ ரிஷிகளின் கொள்கைகளைக் காட்டுவன. உபநிஷத்துகள் மந்திரங்களுக்கு விரோதமல்ல. அவற்றுக்குச் சாஸ்திர முடிவு. அவற்றின் சிரோபூஷணம். ஆனால், பச்சை வேதமென்பது  மந்திரம் அல்லது சம்ஹிதை  எனப்படும் பகுதியேயாம்.

இந்த மந்திரங்கள் அல்லது ஸம்ஹிதைகள் பழைய மிகப் பழைய ஸம்ஸ்கிருத பாஷையில் எழுதப்பட்டிருக்கின்றன. அதாவது, வேதங்களின் ஸம்ஸ்கிருதம் மதுரைச் சங்கத்துக்கு முந்திய தமிழைப் போலவும் உபநிஷத்துக்களின் பாஷை சங்கத்துக்குப் பிந்திய தமிழைப் போலவும் இருக்கின்றன.

ஆனால், இந்த உவமானம் முற்றிலும் பொருந்தியதாகக்  கூறலாகாது. இன்னும் அதை உள்ளபடி விளக்குமிடத்தே. ஸம்ஸ்கிருத பாஷையிலுள்ள மற்றெல்லா
நூல்களும் ஒரு பாஷை, வேதம் மாத்திரம் - அதாவது, ஸம்ஹிதை அல்லது மந்திரம் மாத்திரம் -தனியான பாஷையாக இருக்கிறது. இஃதொரு பெருவியப்பு அன்றோ? வேத ஸம்ஸ்கிருதம் வேறெந்த நூலிலும் கிடையாது. உபநிஷத்தில் சில, மிகச் சில பகுதிகளில், விசேஷமாக வேத மந்திரங்களை மீட்டுமுரைக்குமிடத்தே, வேத பாஷையைக் காணலாம். மற்றபடி உபநிஷத்துக்கு முழுவதும் பிற்காலத்துப் பாஷையிலேயே சமைந்திருக்கிறது.

இங்ஙனமிருக்கப் பிற்காலத்து ஆசார்யர்களிலே சிலர் வேதத்தைக் கர்மகாண்டம் என்றும் அதனால் தாழ்ந்தபடியைச் சேர்ந்ததென்றும் உபநிஷத்தே ஞானகாண்டம் என்றும் ஆதலால் அது வேதத்தைக் காட்டிலும் உயர்ந்ததென்றும் கருதுவாராயினர்.

இங்ஙனம் பிற்காலத்து ஆசாரியர்கள் நினைப்பதற்கு உண்டான காரணங்கள் பல. அவற்றுட் சிலவற்றை இங்கே தருகிறேன். முதலாவது காரணம்,வேத பாஷை மிகவும் பழைமைப்பட்டுப் போனபடியால் அதன் உண்மையான பொருளைக் கண்டுபிடித்தல் மிகவும் துர்லபமாய்விட்டது. நிருத்தம் என்ற வேத நிகண்டையும் பிராம்மணங்கள் என்று சொல்லப்படும் பகுதிகளிலே  காணப்படும் வேத மந்திர விளக்கங்களையும் சுற்ற பின்னரே, ஒருவாறு வேத மந்திரங்களின் பொருளையறிதல் சாத்தியமாயிற்று. வேதம் பிரம்மாண்டமான நூல். அதில் இத்தகைய ஆராய்ச்சி செய்வோர மிக மிகச் சிலரேயாவார்.
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Swamy  Dayananda lived in the 19 th century CE. The Arya Samaj movement he created was such a force in his times that most of the first generation freedom fighters came out of it. The first real attempt at reconversion of people back into Hindu religion was begun by him in right earnest through the Shuddhi movement. Entire north India seemed to be under his spell.

Swamy's puritan spirit could never accept vigraha ArAdhana in any form. He saw great value  in yagya and was a proponent of the six schools of vedic philosophy (shat darsanas). He reportedly shunned the vigraha ArAdhana due to an incident in his boyhood,  on one Shivaratri night, when a rat climbed over the Shiva Linga and ate the prasadam kept there. He vowed then and there that he will not worship that God who was so powerless to protect his offering from that lowly creature.

Because of this incident and his Vedic education from the venerable Swamy Vrajananda made him an enemy of Puranas, Temple worship,and  the Tantric pooja  rites etc. In my personal opinion , Puranas are a valuable medium of telling great truths in the form of fables, stories and history. I would have greatly loved it if Dayananda tried to appreciate them. But such was his passion for pure Vedic way of life that he wanted nothing less than the most perfect education for his people.

Swamy's commentaries on the Vedas are his last great contribution to mankind. It was he who retrieved Vedas which were hijacked by all and sundry to satisfy their particular Gods and their own theories. If the three Acharyas (Sankara , Maddhwa and Ramanuja)  revived Vedanta, Dayananda revived the Vedas.

Swamy died abruptly in the middle of his great work after being poisoned to death by a King's concubine who saw in him a threat should the King be reformed due to the Swamy's teachings. He had not travelled to the South part of India yet. He had completed only 5 mandalas of commentary on the Rigveda.

Another very very important contribution of Swamy Dayananda was that he was able to interpret great keys to the secrets of science in the Vedas. In fact Dayananda argued that the Vedas contain the keys of all secrets of creation.

Aurobindo, wrote on Dayananda thus,."In the matter of Vedic interpretation I am convinced that whatever may be  the final complete interpretation, Dayananda will be honoured as the first  discoverer of the right clues. Amidst the chaos and obscurity of old ignorance and age-long misunderstanding his was the eye of direct vision that pierced to the truth and fastened on that which was essential. He has found the keys of the doors that time had closed and rent asunder the seals of the imprisoned fountains."

I prostrate before you Maharishi, may your light of truth shine always upon us.

Swamy's 'Satyartha Prakash'- His magnum Opus is available online <here>
Swamy's Vedic commentaries in Hindi can be accessed <here>

What they do not teach you at the blogging help menu

Today, suddenly I had a flash idea. Why not blog on blogging itself ? I do not know whether you will like it or not, but I have obeyed my intuition. Here is my Chitra Poornima gift to you.



The essentials of Successful blogging

I have noted that despite being articulate, well read, and sharp, intelligent people often wane away without recording their thoughts in writing. The print and publishing industry operates in a way to favour the rich and the unmeritorious , leaving the genuine talent out of its consideration. I think that was the reason the phenomenal talents of commoners in this country got suppressed.

Not any more.Internet has changed every rule of the game. Blogging rewrote every rule of self expression.. What started as a weblog to jot down one's thoughts has grown leaps and bounds into what it stands today. The huge plus side being that every blog post has a unique URL and is listed in search engines. This means you have enormous visibility. Only you need to know the rules to fully utilise it.

I am a blogger for three years. I went to blogging after I started contributing to email groups. I noticed that people liked my style of presentation however crude it seemed to me. Then started this pleasant journey of self expression . In this journey , I learned many things, most of them belonging to the common sense domain. I will call it " what they don't teach you at the blogger help menu". These are secrets of successful blogging. These are gathered from my own and other's successes. Now we go

Initiation:

I know two of the world's greatest blog sites- http://wordpress.com and http://blogger.com. Enter these sites and learn to register as bloggers. Now you are ready to write to post on the internet. The registration is a routine one and anyone with some internet knowledge can handle that.

Deciding your line of expression:

Before you start, you must well know what you are going to tell the world. If you are a yoga specialist, decide on the topic you are going to share. Here are some rules

1. The content, even if technical, must be expressed in a language easily understandable to others.

2. The content, must not be more than one to one and a half pages of typed matter in an A4 sheet. I have learned that an ordinary person's concentration does not last more than 30 minutes at a stretch. Remember that people read in the night, and might already have gone through some material prior to yours. So safely limit your content to a readable limit of five minutes.

3. Dramatize your content: For this technique , I owe my gratitude to Dale Carnegie. Dramatization means simply adding more stuff that will enliven the reader. My most potent choice for this is a picture or a photo. Most of my posts have a photo. I add one even when these was no need for it. It works. It keeps your readers alive. While choosing pictures, you can choose from the internet, some photos from your digicam, scanned content from books, or your own photoshop work.

My next dramatizing weapon is the video. It is simply fabulous. Sites like youtube offer embedding codes which you can simply paste in your post. When the videos of your choice are not available, create one. Youtube accepts videos of ten minutes duration. Watching videos within a blog post is a tremendous advantage since the reader does not have to open many windows. You can also add voice or music content into your post. Even simple applications like windows movie maker will help you create and edit videos that can be uploaded into your blog.

Appearance:

I know you will be tempted to decorate your blog. Obviously you will choose some flashy scheme. My experiences tell something different. If you value the eyes of your readers, you will think differently. Not only should your window look simple, splashing colours will make your reader tired quickly and he will lose concentration. So, go with care here.

Choose your font style and size with equal care. Select fonts that are easily readable like Times New Roman, Arial etc., and your font size should be minimum 12. Do not use varying colours for your content in paragraphs, this is also unfriendly to your reader.

Split your typed content into small paragraphs of not more than three or four sentences. Make your sentences short with minimum of conjunctions. Use straight sentences unless you are presenting poetry. Don't use your linguistic skill in saying " it is not unheard of.... ". I would prefer it to be simply " It is learnt as ..".

Emotive and Intuitive content

Make sure your content contains, more 'I's. This is important. Without your personal touch you cannot reach the emotional side of your readers. " The early morning rising sun is a great sight" is a poor sentence. I would instead use " I feel great to see the rising sun in the morning". Do not question this. It is almost a law. A mere knowledge cannot a stir an emotional reaction . Only a person can. Without an emotional bondage, you can never make a reader come back to your blog.

Be target specific. You should have decided clearly what type of people you intend your blog to reach. Kids, Adults, students, mothers, etc. Do some research as to what appeals to these people. Mothers like to read about recipes, students like to see fun stuff, men like to discuss money. All your pictures and videos must confirm to your target. Remember the TV advertisement where they show a simply dressed woman when they advertise cheap soaps and shampoos. For the expensive Garnier, they will use the top celebrity in best costumes.

Respecting your intuitions

Wait for inspirations for a post. Wait for and look for hunches. When nothing seems forthcoming, just start the post and enter atleast a few lines. Then save the post in draft mode and leave it. Sleep with the idea for a day. By the morning, you will have more inspirations and hunches. The subconscious mind has to be tuned and trained to produce hunches.Always have a scribbling pad in your bed or nearby, so that you can record some out of the world idea when and where they come. Intuitions are what make a post sensational and separate it from the ordinary.

And, do not think you need some lengthy stuff to succeed. Even a small happening, like your encounter with an astrologer can become a blog post , provided you know how to start and enter the content. Remember whole movies have been made based on the happenings of a single day.

Pitching it right:

After you are done with the post, and having reread it at least once, you should start to pull readers. The post itself contains tags or keywords option. This is what the search engines will trace. So be careful with the choice of these key words. If I am writing about some special pranayama, I will enter Hinduism, Yoga, Pranayama, breathing technique, healing, revitalizing, immunity, longevity, spirituality, vital powers, etc. See what a far and wide net I have cast ! All the browsers who typed these search words , will see your post in their search.

Next, join emailing groups with like interests and send mail there with a few sentences of polite but powerful introduction to this post and send the URL of your post to the list. (Do not send the whole content). This is a sure way to visibility.

Next important way to pull people is to search for blogs with similar interests. Visit them , and comment on their blog posts after registering with the url of your blog. Whoever clicks on your name in the comment column will be directed to your blog. This method is a tried and tested one.

Finally, send notices to friends and relatives. Tell me whether your inbox is full of comments from your viewers. Happy blogging.

ASAMSAYAM SAMAGRAM MAAM...........

ASAMSAYAM SAMAGRAM MAAM...........

A fascinating journey into the theory of Vigraha Aradhana expounded in Bhagavad Gita

Krishna, after fully explaining Karma yoga in nearly five adhyAyAs (chapters), then starts his Bhakti discourse. The chapters six to twelve of Srimad Bhagavad Gita are called the Bhakti pradhana shatakam or in English where devotion is mainly discussed.

Krishna starightaway says in the first sloka of the seventh chapter

Sri BhagavAn uvAcha

mayyAsakta manA: pArtha, yOgam yunjan madAsraya : |

asamsayam samagram mAm, yathA jnAsyasi tachchruNu || ( 7-1)

Partha ! Listen how, with the mind intent on Me, taking refuge in Me, and practicing Yoga, you will know me in full, free from doubt.

On a cursory view, the above sloka will probably miss the attention it deserves , It is because the reader will be tempted to read on further as to what Bhagavan wants to reveal. But, here is a key to nearly six chapters. It is one word which , when understood carefully, will reveal why the chapters from seven to twelve has been told to Arjuna in that order.

That monumental and magic word, according to my understanding, is " samagram" meaning 'full' or 'complete'. If that word is not understood, then the present Hinduism can never be understood properly.

Bhagavad Gita is a bridge between the Vedic religion and our present Hinduism. Krishna was one of the key Avatars to approve Vigraha Aradhana in its present form in. And now let us go into that grand journey of unravelling 'samagram'.

Krishna says His 'Samagra Swarupam' has to be realized so that nothing more is to be known further. (7-2). What is that form like ?


I am the taste of water, the light of the Sun and the moon, the syllable Om of all Vedas, the virility in men, the fragrance of earth, life of all that lives, penance of all ascetics, the seed of all existence, intellect of the intelligent, the tejas of tajasvis, the righteous power, the righteous sexual urge, the goodness, passion , and ignorance. Though I am everything of these, I am independent and not under their influence.

Here , Krishna takes a deviation only to return to his description of Samagra swaroopam again in the 16 th sloka of the 9 th chapter.

My Powers

I am the ritual, the sacrifice, the yajna , the herb (offered in fire), the mantra, the ghee , the fire ,offering, am the father of this universe, am the mother, the supporter , and the grandsire. Am the object of knowledge, the purifier and Omkara. I am also the Rig, Sama and Yajur Vedas. Am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the wirness, the abode, the refuge and the most dear friend. Am the creation, dissolution, the basis of everything, the resting place and the eternal seed.

I give heat, I send forth and withhold rain, am immortality and death, am also the manifest and unmanifest.

Then finally in the 10 th chapter Bhagavan formally tells Arjuna his vibhutis. “I am the Self, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle and the end of all beings. Of the Adityas, I am Vishnu, Of lights I am the radiant sun, I am Marichi of the Maruts, and among the stars I am the moon.

Of the Vedas I am the Sama-veda; of the devatas I am Indra; of the senses I am the mind, and in living beings I am the living force. Of all the Rudras I am Sankara; of the Yaksas and Raksasas I am Kubera ; of the Vasus I am Agni , and of mountains I am Meru. Of priests, know Me to be the chief, Brhaspati, the lord of devotion. Of generals I am Skanda, ; and of bodies of water, I am the ocean.

My representations

Of the great sages I am Bhrgu; of vibrations I am the transcendental om. Of yajnas I am the Japa yajna , and of immovable things I am the Himalayas. Of all trees I am the holy fig tree, and among divine sages and I am Narada.

Of the singers of the gods [Gandharvas] I am Chitraratha, and among perfected beings I am the sage Kapila. Of horses know Me to be Uccaihsrava, who rose out of the ocean, born of the elixir of immortality; of lordly elephants I am Airavata, and among men I am the monarch.

Of weapons I am the thunderbolt; among cows I am the surabhi, givers of abundant milk. Of procreators I am Manmada, and of serpents I am Vasuki. Of the celestial Naga snakes I am Ananta; of the aquatic deities I am Varuna.

Of pitrus I am Aryama, and among the dispensers of law I am Yama .Among the Asuras I am the Prahlada; among subduers I am time; among the beasts I am the lion, and among birds I am Garuda .

Of purifiers I am the wind; of the wielders of weapons I am Rama; of fishes I am the shark, and of rivers I am the Ganga. Of all creations I am the beginning and the end and also the middle. Of all sciences I am the spiritual science of the self, and among logicians I am the conclusive truth.

Of letters I am the akara, and among compounds I am the dual word. I am also inexhaustible time, and of creators I am Brahma, whose manifold faces turn everywhere. I am all-devouring death, and I am the generator of all things yet to be.

Among women I am fame, fortune, speech, memory, intelligence, faithfulness and patience. Of hymns I am the Brhat-sama sung to the Lord Indra, and of mantras I am the Gayatri . Of months I am Margasirsa and of seasons I am flower-bearing spring.

I am also the gambling of cheats, and of the splendid I am the splendor. I am victory, I am adventure, and I am the strength of the strong. Of the descendants of Vrsni I am Vasudeva, and of the Pandavas I am Arjuna.

Of the sages I am Vyasa, and among great poets I am Sukracharya. Among punishments I am the rod of chastisement, and of those who seek victory, I am morality. Of secret things I am silence, and of the wise I am wisdom.

And, as a conclusion, the Lord says thus:

O mighty conqueror of enemies, there is no end to My divine manifestations. What I have spoken to you is but a mere indication of My infinite opulences.

This sums up the samagra rupam of Bhagavan. It is this form that Krishna wants Arjuna to see and realize. Bhakti is to be focused on the unlimited and absolute Lord. For we mortals, who have not had a taste of it, Bhagavan dwelt it in length in the Gita. And most importantly, Krishna showed this Swarupam which is famously called the Viswa Rupa Darsanam. The 11 th chapter describes it in all splendour.

This form once known, helps the Sadhak to choose an aspect of it so close to his nature and to start worshipping. He chooses the Vigraha of that aspect which appeal to his ideosyncracies and there blooms that chemistry which we famously call Bhakti.

Vedas, Gita and Varna

I recently read an old book, ' History of Ancient India' by R K Majumdar and R N Srivastava.

In page 118, there is a mention of mantra probably from one of the brahmanas of Rigveda

karuraham tatobhi shagupal prakshini nanA |
nAnAdiyO vasooyavO (a) mugAyiva tasthi mendrAyandO parisrava ||

"I am a poet, my father is a physician and my mother grinds corn on stone. Being engaged in different occupations, we seek wealth and happiness as cows seek food in different pastures"

This shows the utter lack of class consciousness in Rigvedic period.

Now let us take up the Purusha sooktam. Translation to the mantra of Purusha Suktam (RV 10.8.90) mantra 13



ब्राह्मणोस्य मुखमासीद बाहूराजन्य : कृत : |

ऊरू तदस्य यद्वैस्यो पद्भ्यां शूद्रो अजायत ||
brahmano(a) sya mukhamaseed, bahoo rAjanya: kruta:|
uru tadasya yadvaisyo padbhyo sudro ajAyata||

The brahmin became the head of the Purusha. The Kashatriya became its arms. The Vaisya its torso and the sudra its legs.


The standard interpretation is that of the brahman 'becoming' the head of the Purusha (not 'springing up from' as given by European mischief indologists). The previous mantra 12 in purusha suktam says

" when the Purusha was sacrificed( vyadadhu:) , into what forms he was made ? What became of His head ? What became of his face ? What is said of His Arms ? What are said of His Thighs and feet ?"

So the verse 13, is a continuation of the 'what became of ' line of enquiry .

The mantra 13 (which is being used by anti Hindus and all and sundry to denigrate the Varna system) is in fact a straightforward hymn on the nature of classification of people on naturally existing principles.

As regards the Gita: Krishna says in Chapter 4, sloka 13,

chAturvarnyam mayA srushtam guna karma vibhAgasha: |

The four characteristics which classify people based on character (attitude) and Action are created by me.

This is the correct meaning. Krishna says here 'varnyam' (characteristics) and not 'varnam' (classification). Look at the missing 'y'

And lastly I come to the Jati। This is the achilles' heel of our country in general and our religion in particular. You will be surprised to learn that the Jati classification was made during the 3 rd to 10 th century when Buddhism died out and the returnees made out sects for themselves in Hinduism. But here again, the Jati is different from 'caste' as coined by the British.

A Divine Endeavour- Uzhavaarappani

உழவாரப்பணி

Today (28-06-09), morning a troop of more than 150 devotees descended on our neighbourhood Shiva temple. They are part of the ' Kongu Mandalam ApparadaigaL Sivaneri Vazhipaattu Thirukkoottam ( Association of 'Appar AdigaL' Siva Devotees of Kongu Region ) . They are from Vijayamangalam near Erode and do cleaning of Siva Temples every month on the last Sunday. This is their 335 th temple in their 35 years of such divine work.

By the time I reached the temple , all the members were busy cleaning our temple. Half of them were women and they were from diverse places in Kongu region. Some children also had come. Most of the men were with Rudraksha Mala, bare chested and busy in cleaning the ground and the prakarams.

Oil slime, soot from lamps, and stains of all kinds were being attended to. Look at the following pictures that speak for themselves.

The women had brought the flowers themselves and are engaged in preparing garlands for the deities.


A typical Shiva Devotee (Sivanadiyar) with Rudraksha malas around his neck.
The cleaned Nataraja swamy Vigraha . The temple kurukkaLs are sitting along . The boy is my son.
Food is getting ready for the devotees. This was arranged by our temple management.
The Lord's utensils are being cleaned.

A woman devotee cleans the Gomuki- the outlet port for the Abhisheka water.
The open ground being cleaned.
Each of the above picture can be clicked on and enlarged. Please observe the eagerness of the Bhaktas as they had converged from far off distances. One such volunteer was present as early as 6.00 AM and he came from Bhavani , about 80 KM from Coimbatore !

Witnessing the scene of 'Uzhavarappani' (cleaning of the temple) , I was transported in time back by 1500 years, when the great Appar swamigaL, started cleaning temples as part of his divine work. In fact his only work was cleaning temples and singing the praise of Lord Siva. That work alone revived Saiva Religion in Tamilnadu and paved the way for other great Nayanmars to do divine work.

I stood there moved to the bones on seeing the simple people seriously engaged in their work. They were mostly from the middle class or lower middle class , sacrificing a weekend for the cause of society and the Lord. It became clear that whatever be the missionary onslaught, the core of Hinduism is rock solid and invincible. I just saw one more demonstration of it.

We all have a Divine Mother

We all have a Divine Mother

Recently, I accompanied my family to a suburb of Coimbatore where my wife's friend had invited us to attend a temple function. I thought it was one of those temples of some small colonies. I came humbled after that visit.

First, what struck me was the scale of the festival. The entire village or rather township was involved in it. The temple was dedicated to Bhadra Kali Amman. The place is a village right inside Coimbatore city called Uppilipalayam. The entire population of the village rever Bhadra Kali. The festival was 'poochhaattu'- a function held once in three years for this Devi.

The temple is a spacious one surrounded by streets on two sides. The festival was made attractive by the stall selling flowers, toys, condiments and pooja items. Look at a street here.


There is a typical custom in Amman and Kali temples in Tamilnadu. That is the offering of a sweet meat (maavilakku) made of rice flour and jaggery (or sugar). The wet paste of the two are made into a cup shape and oil is poured into the sunken area and a lamp is lit with a cotton wick. The entire womanfolk of the village carried the 'Maavilakku' . Look at this cute Tamil girl carrying the maavilakku ! What a tasteful decoration !




I tried to analyze the crowd regarding their particular caste. This village has a mixture of Naidu, Vellala Gounders,brahmins, Thevars, Viswakarmas, Devendra Kula Vellalars, and many shades of harijans. Looking around the temple, I could see huge banners welcoming the visitors on behalf of each community.

A small word here. Each caste mentioned above has their own kula devata. The Naidus are staunch Vaishnavites too. But , here they were, standing shoulder to shoulder honouring their divine mother ! Once the temple flag is hoisted indicating the poochchaattu, no one stays out of the village beyond the evening. No one even attends any condolences like death , visiting the bereaved etc.


I myself has a kuladevata by name Chandamma Devi, who is the presiding Devi in a village near Kolhapur where my ancestors lived. Likewise, whomever I asked, everyone had a kula devata in the form of an Amman . The only exception being the Sri Vaishnavas. But Sri Vaishnavism is just a 1,000 year old tradition and before that every Hindu must have had the divine mother as a kula devata.

And the divine mother sits there in the middle of the village blessing every visitor. I now realize this - That everyone of us has a Divine Mother too.

Why do Sandhyavandanam at all ?

Why do Sandhyavandanam at all ?

I know many Brahmin friends who ask me “ What is the use of Sandhyavandanam at all ? It is not like meditation which shows results instantly. In this we sprinkle water or partake it in some routine and murmur some hymns. What benefit at all do we get ?”

This is the Kali yuga and such words from Brahmins themselves are to be expected only. But in order to answer my friends, I have written this post . As I myself was an atheist in my twenties and who never did sandhya till about three years back, such knowledge is reassuring to myself first . Read on:

Nadis and the Sandhya time

Sandhya means the time of union of the day with the night. They usually are in the evening and early morning. But, why do Sandhya at this these times only ? It is these times that one is in an empty stomach which is a condition for any spiritual exercise.

The standard explanation of our acharyas on the Sandhya time is in this post.


The recent psychological experiments have confirmed the existence of the nadis of the spine viz “ Ida , Pingala and Sushumna”. These nadis are not physical entities but are part of our astral body and can be seen by those endowed with special vision. Even advanced yogis can see these nadis.

These nadis ida and pingala are the paths of flow of Prana or life force. They are in a continued state of agitation during the daytime but, tend to follow a uniform path during the sandhya periods. Hence such periods were chosen for Sandhyavandanam to derive maximum concentration.

Achamanam and mental focus

The achamanam is a scientifically proved technique of cooling our body and also in focusing our mind. Read this old blog post here on achamanam.

Pranayama and deep concentration

Pranayamam is the next. Pranayama is to be done with mentally chanting the extended Gayatri. The Puraka, Kumbaka and Rechaka type of Pranayama was originally suggested and practiced but nowadays even the Puraka and Rechaka themselves are sufficient to derive benefit. The kumbaka has to be learnt only with the help of Gurus who are becoming rare these days.

The steady intake of Breath is called Puraka and steady exhaling is called Rechaka. Usually Rechaka is best done at twice the time of Puraka. Let me illustrate the power of breath.

Prana regulates the temperature of the Body: In early morning even in cold climates, you can splash cold water on your body by taking a deep breath and keeping it inside while taking bath. You will not feel cold at all. Just remember those days when the oldies used to close the nostrils while taking a dip in the river or pond !

Next try this: Close your eyes, sit erect, but not stiff. Think of the sound AUM. Pronounce it mentally, very slowly. A…….U………..M. Do it for five to ten minutes. Now without opening your eyes, notice your breath. You will be surprised. It has become very slow, very rhythmic and feeble ! In the same way, notice how a child breathes in sleep. Very rhythmic , steady and VERY SLOW.

What do you gather ? when the thoughts are focused, the breath is slow and rhythmic. In the same way, when the breath is made rhythmic and slow, your thoughts (mind) will be focused and clear ! Apart from single pranayamas at the beginnings, the gayatri japa is tucked in between two sets of three pranayamas each at the beginning and end respectively. Look at the subtlety of our Rishis !

Gayatri Japa

The Gayatri chanting part is the central part of the Sandhyavandanam and many volumes can be written on this alone. Gayatri is a most sacred and mysterious mantra that can activate twenty four spots of the human body. Look at this picture where the individual sounds of the gayatri are marked on the body of the sadhak. The working of gayatri is very subtle and it was said that a Brahmin need not do any sadhna if he does gayatri.



Arghyam

Then there is Arghyam. This is a beautiful kriya in Sandhyavandanam and it is as subtle and scientific as Gayatri japa. Considering its beauty and importance, I am planning to bring it as a separate post.

Net links for Sandhyavandanam:

You can download this pdf book on Sandhya from this website.

My dear readers, I believe you enjoyed this post. If a good portion of you realize the import of doing Sandhyavandanam and start doing this, I will be happy. If you encourage others to do it, I will be doubly happy. If you enjoy doing it realizing its depth , I will be most happy. It is just a twenty minute routine in the morning and evening.

(pictures taken from the internet)

Is Krishna really an Avatar ?

Is Krishna an Avatar ?

In Srimad Bhagavad Gita, there is an extraordinary declaration by Krishna:

“Whenever Dharma declines and when irreligion flourishes, I will be born in each of such eras to reestablish dharma and to destroy the irreligious”

To some it is a sacred statement. But to many, it seems a far fetched one. The very idea of a God being born is a ridiculous one to them. Is there a significance to this statement ? What are its implications ? In searching for answers, I was spell bound by an explanation. Please read on.

Whenever Krishna as being born a human is discussed, Buddha and Mahavira are also discussed there. Is this comparison correct ?

Buddha and Mahavira were enlightened masters who reached that stage through rigorous sadhana (spiritual exercises). Their sadhana was to empty out whatever belonged to them- physical, mental and intellectual till they reached the empty stage.

On the other hand , we have not known Krishna to have done any Sadhana. But still his preaching on the battle field in the form of Srimad Bhagavad Gita remains the greatest gift to humankind for the last 5000 years. What differentiates Krishna from the other two ?

Osho, in his superb book, “ Krishna, the man and his Philosophy”, gives a beautiful explanation. Here are his words.

“If I empty out my inside, if I negate something in me, it will cease to be, and I will achieve a kind of emptiness. But this emptiness will be just the absence of something that I have negated.

But there is a different kind of emptiness which is not of our making: this emptiness is born out of our awareness of our being. We are empty; we are emptiness itself, so we don’t have to become it.

Emptiness is our very nature; we are it. And when we come to it, it is not the result of some sadhana, some discipline or effort. And this emptiness is multidimensional.

Krishna makes an extraordinary statement on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, one no other man of enlightenment has ever made. He tells Arjuna, ”I will continue to come whenever the world is in trouble. I will continue to come whenever religion declines and disintegrates.”

Buddha and Mahavira cannot say this. There is no statement of theirs on record that they will come back again when the earth is beset by darkness and disease, by irreligion and profanity.

Rather, they will say, ”How can we come again? We are now liberated, we have attained to mahanirvana.”

But Krishna says, ”Don’t worry, I can come back whenever this earth is in distress.” When Krishna says he can come again he only means he has no difficulty whatsoever in coming and going. It makes no difference for him. His emptiness is so total that nothing can affect it.

Mahavira and Buddha can take emptiness only in the sense of release, of liberation, moksha,

because they have longed for and labored all their lives for this liberation. So when they come

to this emptiness they feel free and relaxed. It is the point of no return for them; the question of going back does not arise.

For them, going back will mean going back to the same old world of greed and anger, of craving and attachment, of hate and hostility, of sorrow and suffering. Why go back to the rotten world of senseless strife and war and misery? Therefore when they come to emptiness they just become dissolved into it, they just disappear into the infinite. They will not talk of returning to the same corruption and horror they have left behind.

But going back to the world does not make any difference to Krishna: he can easily go back if it becomes necessary. He will remain himself in every situation – in love and attachment, in anger and hostility. Nothing will disturb his emptiness, his calm.

He will find no difficulty whatsoever is coming and going. His emptiness is positive and complete, alive and dynamic. But so far as experiencing it is concerned, it is the same whether you come to Buddha’s emptiness or Krishna’s.

Both will take you into bliss. But where Buddha’s emptiness will bring you relaxation and rest, maybe Krishna’s emptiness will lead you to immense action. If we can coin a phrase like ”active void”, it will appropriately describe Krishna’s emptiness. And the emptiness of Buddha and Mahavira should be called ”passive void”.

Bliss is common to both but with one difference: the bliss of the active void will be creative and the other kind of bliss will dissolve itself in the great void.” Thus concludes Osho.

Buddha and Mahavira strived for an empty state. But Krishna is that emptiness itself. It is this that separates a seer from an incarnate. Buddha was time bound. Krishna is timeless. Krishna is God incarnate, an avatar.

Why the Histories of Great Souls of Bharat are not available ?

Why the Histories of Great Souls of Bharat are not available ?

I often face this question. This question has been hurled at me in many discussion groups, emails, personal discussions and even from my own curious self. This history dimension took a huge proportion in the Rama Sethu episode when a bunch of mercenary like politicians challenged the entire Hindu community to prove the historicity of Lord Ram.

One of my friends says that we Hindus lack the art of history writing. But this is wrong. We have the Eighteen Puranas and their countless upa puranas which deal with histories of many great sons of Bharat. Now, what is missing ?

The single most glaring miss in our Puranas are the specific time of birth, year and millennia of our Avatars like Rama and Krishna and also our Rishis. This has made our Puranas an object of ridicule in the eyes of so called ‘indologists’.

The title ‘indologist’ is available to anyone who belongs to the anti Indian, anti Hindu, pro Christian, pro communist, and pro atheist groups. Curiously, a patriotic Indian is just a ‘historian’ whereas all the above persons are ‘indologists’. In short, anyone who wants to dishonour India will easily qualify for that title.

Dr Narahari Achar, recently declared that the Mahabharata war indeed took place and it happened in the year 3067 BCE . Read this link

This he did with the help of a software which could generate the almanacs for ten thousand successive years! He went back in time to calculate the astronomical data as provided by Sage Vyasa in ‘Mahabharatam’.

We also hear Buddha’s history is also in such darkness. Even the fixing of Kaladi, as the birthplace of Adi Sankara, was done in 1910 only.

On reading all this, we cry out ,why ? Why indeed our ancestors hid their histories to us ? In finding the answers I was struck by the beauty of an explanation. Please read on.

Osho, in his “Krishna, the man and his philosophy” says keeping time and recording it is the job of unenlightened people. To keep records of illuminated masters who have transcended time is an insult. May be this is why Krishna’s historical indications were allowed to fade away from memory. But, his life and teachings are told and retold in Bharat with such freshness, devotion and joy. Does it not sound paradoxical ?

Enlightenment happens when time ceases to be. Time is a product of the mind. When mind ceases in Samadhi, time does not exist. Krishna cannot be predicted in Samadhi , where there is no time.

In Bharatiya philosophy , the Atman (or the soul) has no beginning or end whereas in Islamic and Christian teachings, the soul has only one birth. This is the reason why immaculate records have been kept on their teachers. Once they know and realize that the soul goes on taking reincarnations in so many life forms, they would have realized the futility of keeping such records.

Rinzai, an illumined Zen master, once remarked to the amazement of his pupils , “: Buddha never happened”. They knew he was a fervent Buddha devotee. Rinzai explained, “ May be his shadow walked up on earth, but Buddha ? never !” . He asked, “ Can someone without beginning can be bracketed into a single life ?”

We know the Krishna, the mischievous boy, the naughty teenager, the enthralling flautist, the wrestler , the sweetheart of the Gopikas, the King, the husband of eight wives, the strategist, and finally the preacher who sang the eternal Bhagavad Gita. We even know he lived and ruled Dwaraka . But what we do not know is ‘when’. In the entire Srimad Bhagavatham, this piece of information is not clear.

Here is Osho again:

“Therefore it is not a failing on the part of this country if it does not have a sense of history. It is so not for lack of an awareness of history, but because of a still higher awareness that we have, an awareness of the eternal. A higher awareness, by its very nature, denies the lower.

We don’t attach so much value to an event as to the spirit running through the event, to the soul of the event. So we did not care to notice what Krishna ate and drank, but we did take every care to notice the witness inside Krishna who was simply aware when Krishna ate and drank.

We did not care to remember when Krishna was born, but we certainly remembered the spirit, the soul that came with his birth and departed with his death. We were much more concerned with the innermost spirit, with the soul, than with its material frame.”

Vivekananda To Chennai Disciples

(This post is my longest yet. But, the contents will make you glide through it with total absorption. Such is Swamy Vivekananda's forceful language. Whoever of you wants a clear idea of what Hinduism represents, this is the answer. As a Tamil disciple I am proud that Swamy chose to write to Chennaiites, who begged from house to house to raise money for Swamiji's travel. And that travel was the turning point in nineteenth century India in projecting Hinduism as the greatest , the fountainhead of all later religious thoughts.)

REPLY TO THE MADRAS ADDRESS

(When the success of the Swami in America became well known in India, several meetings were held and addresses of thanks and congratulations were forwarded to him. The first reply which he wrote was that to the Address of the Hindus of Madras.)

http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_1/vol_1_frame.htm

FRIENDS, FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN AND CO-RELIGIONISTS OF MADRAS,

It is most gratifying to me to find that my insignificant service to the cause of our religion has been accept able to you, not because it is as a personal appreciation of me and my work in a foreign and distant land, but as a sure sign that, though whirlwind after whirlwind of foreign invasion has passed over the devoted head of India, though centuries of neglect on our part and contempt on the part of our conquerors have visibly dimmed the glories of ancient Âryâvarta, though many a stately column on which it rested, many a beautiful arch, and many a marvellous corner have been washed away by the inundations that deluged the land for centuries — the centre is all sound, the keystone is unimpaired. The spiritual foundation upon which the marvellous monument of glory to God and charity to all beings has been reared stands unshaken, strong as ever. Your generous appreciation of Him whose message to India and to the whole world, I, the most unworthy of His servants, had the privilege to bear shows your innate spiritual instinct which saw in Him and His message the first murmurs of that tidal wave of spirituality which is destined at no distant future to break upon India in all its irresistible powers, carrying away in its omnipotent flood all that is weak and defective, and raising the Hindu race to the platform it is destined to occupy in the providence of God, crowned with more glory than it ever had even in the past, the reward of centuries of silent suffering, and fulfilling its mission amongst the races of the world — the evolution of spiritual humanity.

The people of Northern India are especially grateful to you of the South, as the great source to which most of the impulses that are working in India today can be traced. The great Bhâshyakâras, epoch-making Âchâryas, Shankara, Râmânuja, and Madhva were born in Southern India. Great Shankara to whom every Advâitavâdin in the world owes allegiance; great Ramanuja whose heavenly touch converted the downtrodden pariahs into Âlwârs; great Madhva whose leadership was recognised even by the followers of the only Northern Prophet whose power has been felt all over the length and breadth of India — Shri Krishna Chaitanya. Even at the present day it is the South that carries the palm in the glories of Varanasi — your renunciation controls the sacred shrines on the farthest peaks of the Himalayas, and what wonder that with the blood of Prophets running in your veins, with your lives blessed by such Acharyas, you are the first and foremost to appreciate and hold on to the message of Bhagavân Shri Ramakrishna.

The South had been the repository of Vedic learning, and you will understand me when I state that, in spite of the reiterated assertions of aggressive ignorance, it is the Shruti still that is the backbone of all the different divisions of the Hindu religion.

However great may be the merits of the Samhitâ and the Brâhmana portions of the Vedas to the ethnologists or the philologists, however desirable may be the results that the * or * or * in conjunction with the different Vedis (altars) and sacrifices and libations produce — it was all in the way of Bhoga; and no one ever contended that it could produce Moksha. As such, the Jnâna-Kânda, the Âranyakas, the Shrutis par excellence which teach the way to spirituality, the Moksha-Mârga, have always ruled and will always rule in India.

Lost in the mazes and divisions of the "Religion Eternal", by prepossession and prejudice unable to grasp the meaning of the only religion whose universal adaptation is the exact shadow of the (Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest (Katha, II. 20)) God it preaches, groping in the dark with a standard of spiritual truth borrowed second-hand from nations who never knew anything but rank materialism, the modern young Hindu struggles in vain to understand the religion of his forefathers, and gives up the quest altogether, and becomes a hopeless wreck of an agnostic, or else, unable to vegetate on account of the promptings of his innate religious nature, drinks carelessly of some of those different decoctions of Western materialism with an Eastern flavour, and thus fulfils the prophecy of the Shruti:

— "Fools go staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind." They alone escape whose spiritual nature has been touched and vivified by the life-giving touch of the "Sad-Guru". (The good teacher.)

Well has it been said by Bhagavan Bhashyakara:

— "These three are difficult to obtain in this world, and depend on the mercy of the gods — the human birth, the desire for salvation, and the company of the great-souled ones."

Either in the sharp analysis of the Vaisheshikas, resulting in the wonderful theories about the Paramânus, Dvyanus, and Trasarenus, (Atoms, Entities composed of two atoms, Entities composed of three atoms.) or the still more wonderful analysis displayed in the discussions of the Jâti, Dravya, Guna, Samavâya, (Genus, Substance, Quality, Inhesion or Inseparability.) and to the various categories of the Naiyâyikas, rising to the solemn march of the thought of the Sânkhyas, the fathers of the theories of evolution, ending with the ripe fruit, the result of all these researches, the Sutras of Vyâsa — the one background to all these different analyses and syntheses of the human mind is still the Shrutis. Even in the philosophical writings of the Buddhists or Jains, the help of Shrutis is never rejected, and at least in some of the Buddhistic schools and in the majority of the Jain writings, the authority of the Shrutis is fully admitted, excepting what they call the Himsaka Shrutis, which they hold to be interpolations of the Brahmins. In recent times, such a view has been held by the late great Swami Dayânanda Saraswati.

If one be asked to point out the system of thought towards which as a centre all the ancient and modern Indian thoughts have converged, if one wants to see the real backbone of Hinduism in all its various manifestations, the Sutras of Vyasa will unquestionably be pointed out as constituting all that.

Either one hears the Advaita-Keshari roaring in peals of thunder — the Asti, Bhâti, and Priya — (Exists (Sat), Shines (Chit), Is beloved (Ânanda) — the three indicatives of Brahman.) amidst the heart-stopping solemnities of the Himalayan forests, mixing with the solemn cadence of the river of heaven, or listens to the cooing of the Piyâ, Pitam in the beautiful bowers of the grove of Vrindâ: whether one mingles with the sedate meditations of the monasteries of Varanasi or the ecstatic dances of the followers of the Prophet of Nadia; whether one sits at the feet of the teacher of the Vishishtâdvaita system with its Vadakale, Tenkale, (The two divisions of the Ramanuja sect.) and all the other subdivisions, or listens with reverence to the Acharyas of the Mâdhva school; whether one hears the martial "Wâ Guruki Fateh" (Victory to the Guru) of the secular Sikhs or the sermons on the Grantha Sâhib of the Udâsis and Nirmalâs; whether he salutes the Sannyâsin disciples of Kabir with "Sat Sâhib" and listens with joy to the Sâkhis (Bhajans); whether he pores upon the wonderful lore of that reformer of Rajputana, Dâdu, or the works of his royal disciple, Sundaradâsa, down to the great Nishchaladâsa, the celebrated author of Vichâra sâgara, which book has more influence in India than any that has been written in any language within the last three centuries; if even one asks the Bhangi Mehtar of Northern India to sit down and give an account of the teachings of his Lâlguru — one will find that all these various teachers and schools have as their basis that system whose authority is the Shruti, Gitâ its divine commentary, the Shâriraka-Sutras its organised system, and all the different sects in India, from the Paramahamsa Parivrâjakâchâryas to the poor despised Mehtar disciples of Lâlguru, are different manifestations.

The three Prasthânas, ("Courses", viz, the Upanishad (Shruti), the Gita, and the Shariraka-Sutras.) then, in their different explanations as Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita, or Advaita, with a few minor recensions, form the "authorities" of the Hindu religion. The Purânas, the modern representations of the ancient Nârâsamsi (anecdote portion of the Vedas), supply the mythology, and the Tantras, the modern representations of the Brâhmanas (ritual and explanatory portion of the Vedas), supply the ritual. Thus the three Prasthanas, as authorities, are common to all the sects; but as to the Puranas and Tantras, each sect has its own.

The Tantras, as we have said, represent the Vedic rituals in a modified form; and before any one jumps into the most absurd conclusions about them, I will advise him to read the Tantras in conjunction with the Brahmanas, especially the Adhvaryu portion. And most of the Mantras, used in the Tantras, will be found taken verbatim from their Brahmanas. As to their influence, apart from the Shrauta and Smârta rituals, all the forms of the rituals in vogue from the Himalayas to the Comorin have been taken from the Tantras, and they direct the worship of the Shâkta, or Shaiva, or Vaishnava, and all the others alike.

Of course, I do not pretend that all the Hindus are thoroughly acquainted with these sources of their religion. Many, especially in lower Bengal, have not heard of the names of these sects and these great systems; but consciously or unconsciously, it is the plan laid down in the three Prasthanas that they are all working out.

Wherever, on the other hand, the Hindi language is spoken, even the lowest classes have more knowledge of the Vedantic religion than many of the highest in lower Bengal.

And why so?

Transported from the soil of Mithilâ to Navadvipa, nurtured and developed by the fostering genius of Shiromani, Gadâdhara, Jagadisha, and a host of other great names, an analysis of the laws of reasoning, in some points superior to every other system in the whole world, expressed in a wonderful and precise mosaic of language, stands the Nyâya of Bengal, respected and studied throughout the length and breadth of Hindusthân. But, alas, the Vedic study was sadly neglected, and until within the last few years, scarcely anyone could be found in Bengal to teach the Mahâbhâshya of Patanjali. Once only a mighty genius rose above the never-ending Avachchhinnas and Avachchhedakas (In Nyaya, 'Determined', and 'determining attribute'.) — Bhagavân Shri Krishna Chaitanya. For once the religious lethargy of Bengal was shaken, and for a time it entered into a communion with the religious life of other parts of India.

It is curious to note that though Shri Chaitanya obtained his Sannyâsa from a Bhârati, and as such was a Bharati himself, it was through Mâdhavendra Puri that his religious genius was first awakened.

The Puris seem to have a peculiar mission in rousing the spirituality of Bengal. Bhagavan Shri Ramakrishna got his Sannyâsâshrama from Totâ Puri.

The commentary that Shri Chaitanya wrote on the Vyâsa-Sutras has either been lost or not found yet. His disciples joined themselves to the Madhvas of the South, and gradually the mantles of such giants as Rupa and Sanâtana and Jiva Goswâmi fell on the shoulders of Bâbâjis, and the great movement of Shri Chaitanya was decaying fast, till of late years there is a sign of revival. Hope that it will regain its lost splendour.

The influence of Shri Chaitanya is all over India. Wherever the Bhakti-Mârga is known, there he is appreciated, studied, and worshipped. I have every reason to believe that the whole of the Vallabhâchârya recension is only a branch of the sect founded by Shri Chaitanya. But most of his so-called disciples in Bengal do not know how his power is still working all over India; and how can they? The disciples have become Gadiâns (Heads of monasteries), while he was preaching barefooted from door to door in India, begging Âchandâlas (all down to the lowest) to love God.

The curious and unorthodox custom of hereditary Gurus that prevails in Bengal, and for the most part in Bengal alone, is another cause of its being cut off from the religious life of the rest of India.

The greatest cause of all is that the life of Bengal never received an influx from that of the great brotherhood of Sannyasins who are the representatives and repositories of the highest Indian spiritual culture even at the present day.

Tyâga (renunciation) is never liked by the higher classes of Bengal. Their tendency is for Bhoga (enjoyment). How can they get a deep insight into spiritual things? — "By renunciation alone immortality was reached." How can it be otherwise?

On the other hand, throughout the Hindi-speaking world, a succession of brilliant Tyâgi teachers of far-reaching influence has brought the doctrines of the Vedanta to every door. Especially the impetus given to Tyaga during the reign of Ranjit Singh of the Punjab has made the highest teachings of the Vedantic philosophy available for the very lowest of the low. With true pride, the Punjabi peasant girl says that even her spinning wheel repeats: "Soham", "Soham". And I have seen Mehtar Tyagis in the forest of Hrishikesh wearing the garb of the Sannyasin, studying the Vedanta. And many a proud high-class man would be glad to sit at their feet and learn. And why not? — "Supreme knowledge (can be learnt) even from the man of low birth."

Thus it is that the North-West and the Punjab have a religious education which is far ahead of that of Bengal, Bombay, or Madras. The ever-travelling Tyagis of the various orders, Dashanâmis or Vairâgis or Panthis bring religion to everybody's door, and the cost is only a bit of bread. And how noble and disinterested most of them are! There is one Sannyasin belonging to the Kachu Panthis or independents (who do not identify themselves with any sect), who has been instrumental in the establishing of hundreds of schools and charitable asylums all over Rajputana. He has opened hospitals in forests, and thrown iron bridges over the gorges in the Himalayas, and this man never touches a coin with his hands, has no earthly possession except a blanket, which has given him the nickname of the "Blanket Swami", and begs his bread from door to door. I have never known him taking a whole dinner from one house, lest it should be a tax on the householder. And he is only one amongst many. Do you think that so long as these Gods on earth live in India and protect the "Religion Eternal" with the impenetrable rampart of such godly characters, the old religion will die?

In this country, (United States of America) the clergymen sometimes receive as high salaries as rupees thirty thousand, forty thousand, fifty thousand, even ninety thousand a year, for preaching two hours on Sunday only, and that only six months in a year. Look at the millions upon millions they spend for the support of their religion, and Young Bengal has been taught that these Godlike, absolutely unselfish men like Kambli-Swami are idle vagabonds. — "Those who are devoted to My worshippers are regarded as the best of devotees."

Take even an extreme case, that of an extremely ignorant Vairagi. Even he, when he goes into a village tries his best to impart to the villagers whatever he knows, from Tulasidâsa, or Chaitanya-Charitâmrita or the Âlwârs in Southern India. Is that not doing some good? And all this for only a bit of bread and a rag of cloth. Before unmercifully criticising them, think how much you do, my brother, for your poor fellow-countrymen, at whose expense you have got your education, and by grinding whose face you maintain your position and pay your teachers for teaching you that the Babajis are only vagabonds.

A few of your fellow-countrymen in Bengal have criticised what they call a new development of Hinduism. And well they may. For Hinduism is only just now penetrating into Bengal, where so long the whole idea of religion was a bundle of Deshâchâras (local customs) as to eating and drinking and marriage.

This short paper has not space for the discussion of such a big subject as to whether the view of Hinduism, which the disciples of Ramakrishna have been preaching all over India, was according to the "Sad-Shâstras" or not. But I will give a few hints to our critics, which may help them in understanding our position better.

In the first place, I never contended that a correct idea of Hinduism can be gathered from the writings of Kâshidâsa or Krittivâsa, though their words are "Amrita Samâna" (like nectar), and those that hear them are "Punyavâns" (virtuous). But we must go to Vedic and Dârshanika authorities, and to the great Acharyas and their disciples all over India.

If, brethren, you begin with the Sutras of Gautama, and read his theories about the Âptas (inspired) in the light of the commentaries of Vâtsyâyana, and go up to the Mimâmsakas with Shabara and other commentators, and find out what they say about the (supersensuous realisation), and who are Aptas, and whether every being can become an Apta or not, and that the proof of the Vedas is in their being the words of such Aptas if you have time to look into the introduction of Mahidhara to the Yajur-Veda, you will find a still more lucid discussion as to the Vedas being laws of the inner life of man, and as such they are eternal.

As to the eternity of creation — this doctrine is the corner-stone not only of the Hindu religion, but of the Buddhists and Jains also.

Now all the sects in India can be grouped roughly as following the Jnâna-Mârga or the Bhakti-Mârga. If you will kindly look into the introduction to the Shâriraka-Bhâshya of Shri Shankarâchârya, you will find there the Nirapekshatâ (transcendence) of Jnana is thoroughly discussed, and the conclusion is that realisation of Brahman or the attainment of Moksha do not depend upon ceremonial, creed, caste, colour, or doctrine. It will come to any being who has the four Sâdhanâs, which are the most perfect moral culture.

As to the Bhaktas, even Bengali critics know very well that some of their authorities even declared that caste or nationality or sex, or, as to that, even the human birth, was never necessary to Moksha. Bhakti is the one and only thing necessary.

Both Jnana and Bhakti are everywhere preached to be unconditioned, and as such there is not one authority who lays down the conditions of caste or creed or nationality in attaining Moksha. See the discussion on the Sutra of Vyâsa — * by Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva.

Go through all the Upanishads, and even in the Samhitas, nowhere you will find the limited ideas of Moksha which every other religion has. As to toleration, it is everywhere, even in the Samhita of the Adhvaryu Veda, in the third or fourth verse of the fortieth chapter, if my memory does not fail; it begins with *. This is running through everywhere. Was anybody persecuted in India for choosing his Ishta Devatâ, or becoming an atheist or agnostic even, so long as he obeyed the social regulations? Society may punish anybody by its disapprobation for breaking any of its regulations, but no man, the lowest Patita (fallen), is ever shut out from Moksha. You must not mix up the two together. As to that, in Malabar a Chandâla is not allowed to pass through the same street as a high-caste man, but let him become a Mohammedan or Christian, he will be immediately allowed to go anywhere; and this rule has prevailed in the dominion of a Hindu sovereign for centuries. It may be queer, but it shows the idea of toleration for other religions even in the most untoward circumstances.

The one idea the Hindu religions differ in from every other in the world, the one idea to express which the sages almost exhaust the vocabulary of the Sanskrit language, is that man must realise God even in this life. And the Advaita texts very logically add, "To know God is to become God."

And here comes as a necessary consequence the broadest and most glorious idea of inspiration — not only as asserted and declared by the Rishis of the Vedas, not only by Vidura and Dharmavyâdha and a number of others, but even the other day Nischaladâsa, a Tyagi of the Dâdu panthi sect, boldly declared in his Vichâra-Sâgara: "He who has known Brahman has become Brahman. His words are Vedas, and they will dispel the darkness of ignorance, either expressed in Sanskrit or any popular dialect."

Thus to realise God, the Brahman, as the Dvaitins say, or to become Brahman, as the Advaitins say — is the aim and end of the whole teaching of the Vedas; and every other teaching, therein contained, represents a stage in the course of our progress thereto. And the great glory of Bhagavan Bhashyakara Shankaracharya is that it was his genius that gave the most wonderful expression to the ideas of Vyasa.

As absolute, Brahman alone is true; as relative truth, all the different sects, standing upon different manifestations of the same Brahman, either in India or elsewhere, are true. Only some are higher than others. Suppose a man starts straight towards the sun. At every step of his journey he will see newer and newer visions of the sun — the size, the view, and light will every moment be new, until he reaches the real sun. He saw the sun at first like a big ball, and then it began to increase in size. The sun was never small like the ball he saw; nor was it ever like all the succession of suns he saw in his journey. Still is it not true that our traveller always saw the sun, and nothing but the sun? Similarly, all these various sects are true — some nearer, some farther off from the real sun which is our — "One without a second".

And as the Vedas are the only scriptures which teach this real absolute God, of which all other ideas of God are but minimised and limited visions; as the (The well-wisher to all the world.) Shruti takes the devotee gently by the hand, and leads him from one stage to another, through all the stages that are necessary for him to travel to reach the Absolute; and as all other religions represent one or other of these stages in an unprogressive and crystallized form, all the other religions of the world are included in the nameless, limitless, eternal Vedic religion.

Work hundreds of lives out, search every corner of your mind for ages — and still you will not find one noble religious idea that is not already imbedded in that infinite mine of spirituality.

As to the so-called Hindu idolatry — first go and learn the forms they are going through, and where it is that the worshippers are really worshipping, whether in the temple, in the image, or in the temple of their own bodies. First know for certain what they are doing — which more than ninety per cent of the revilers are thoroughly ignorant of — and then it will explain itself in the light of the Vedantic philosophy.

Still these Karmas are not compulsory. On the other hand, open your Manu and see where it orders every old man to embrace the fourth Ashrama, and whether he embraces it or not, he must give up all Karma. It is reiterated everywhere that all these Karmas — "finally end in Jnana".

As to the matter of that, a Hindu peasant has more religious education than many a gentleman in other countries. A friend criticised the use of European terms of philosophy and religion in my addresses. I would have been very glad to use Sanskrit terms; it would have been much more easy, as being the only perfect vehicle of religious thought. But the friend forgot that I was addressing an audience of Western people; and although a certain Indian missionary declared that the Hindus had forgotten the meaning of their Sanskrit books, and that it was the missionaries who unearthed the meaning, I could not find one in that large concourse of missionaries who could understand a line in Sanskrit — and yet some of them read learned papers criticising the Vedas, and all the sacred sources of the Hindu religion!

It is not true that I am against any religion. It is equally untrue that I am hostile to the Christian missionaries in India. But I protest against certain of their methods of raising money in America. What is meant by those pictures in the school-books for children where the Hindu mother is painted as throwing her children to the crocodiles in the Ganga? The mother is black, but the baby is painted white, to arouse more sympathy, and get more money. What is meant by those pictures which paint a man burning his wife at a stake with his own hands, so that she may become a ghost and torment the husband's enemy? What is meant by the pictures of huge cars crushing over human beings? The other day a book was published for children in this country, where one of these gentlemen tells a narrative of his visit to Calcutta. He says he saw a car running over fanatics in the streets of Calcutta. I have heard one of these gentlemen preach in Memphis that in every village of India there is a pond full of the bones of little babies.

What have the Hindus done to these disciples of Christ that every Christian child is taught to call the Hindus "vile", and "wretches", and the most horrible devils on earth? Part of the Sunday School education for children here consists in teaching them to hate everybody who is not a Christian, and the Hindus especially, so that, from their very childhood they may subscribe their pennies to the missions. If not for truth's sake, for the sake of the morality of their own children, the Christian missionaries ought not to allow such things going on. Is it any wonder that such children grow up to be ruthless and cruel men and women? The greater a preacher can paint the tortures of eternal hell — the fire that is burning there, the brimstone - the higher is his position among the orthodox. A servant-girl in the employ of a friend of mine had to be sent to a lunatic asylum as a result of her attending what they call here the revivalist-preaching. The dose of hell-fire and brimstone was too much for her. Look again at the books published in Madras against the Hindu religion. If a Hindu writes one such line against the Christian religion, the missionaries will cry fire and vengeance.

My countrymen, I have been more than a year in this country. I have seen almost every corner of the society, and, after comparing notes, let me tell you that neither are we devils, as the missionaries tell the world we are, nor are they angels, as they claim to be. The less the missionaries talk of immorality, infanticide, and the evils of the Hindu marriage system, the better for them. There may be actual pictures of some countries before which all the imaginary missionary pictures of the Hindu society will fade away into light. But my mission in life is not to be a paid reviler. I will be the last man to claim perfection for the Hindu society. No man is more conscious of the defects that are therein, or the evils that have grown up under centuries of misfortunes. If, foreign friends, you come with genuine sympathy to help and not to destroy, Godspeed to you. But if by abuses, incessantly hurled against the head of a prostrate race in season and out of season, you mean only the triumphant assertion of the moral superiority of your own nation, let me tell you plainly, if such a comparison be instituted with any amount of justice, the Hindu will be found head and shoulders above all other nations in the world as a moral race.

In India religion was never shackled. No man was ever challenged in the selection of his Ishta Devatâ, or his sect, or his preceptor, and religion grew, as it grew nowhere else. On the other hand, a fixed point was necessary to allow this infinite variation to religion, and society was chosen as that point in India. As a result, society became rigid and almost immovable. For liberty is the only condition of growth.

On the other hand, in the West, the field of variation was society, and the constant point was religion. Conformity was the watchword, and even now is the watchword of European religion, and each new departure had to gain the least advantage only by wading through a river of blood. The result is a splendid social organisation, with a religion that never rose beyond the grossest materialistic conceptions.

Today the West is awakening to its wants; and the "true self of man and spirit" is the watchword of the advanced school of Western theologians. The student of Sanskrit philosophy knows where the wind is blowing from, but it matters not whence the power comes so longs as it brings new life.

In India, new circumstances at the same time are persistently demanding a new adjustment of social organisations. For the last three-quarters of a century, India has been bubbling over with reform societies and reformers. But, alas, every one of them has proved a failure. They did not know the secret. They had not learnt the great lesson to be learnt. In their haste, they laid all the evils in our society at the door of religion; and like the man in the story, wanting to kill the mosquito that sat on a friend's forehead, they were trying to deal such heavy blows as would have killed man and mosquito together. But in this case, fortunately, they only dashed themselves against immovable rocks and were crushed out of existence in the shock of recoil. Glory unto those noble and unselfish souls who have struggled and failed in their misdirected attempts. Those galvanic shocks of reformatory zeal were necessary to rouse the sleeping leviathan. But they were entirely destructive, and not constructive, and as such they were mortal, and therefore died.

Let us bless them and profit by their experience. They had not learnt the lesson that all is a growth from inside out, that all evolution is only a manifestation of a preceding involution. They did not know that the seed can only assimilate the surrounding elements, but grows a tree in its own nature. Until all the Hindu race becomes extinct, and a new race takes possession of the land, such a thing can never be — try East or West, India can never be Europe until she dies.

And will she die — this old Mother of all that is noble or moral or spiritual, the land which the sages trod, the land in which Godlike men still live and breathe? I will borrow the lantern of the Athenian sage and follow you, my brother, through the cities and villages, plains and forests, of this broad world — show me such men in other lands if you can. Truly have they said, the tree is known by its fruits. Go under every mango tree in India; pick up bushels of the worm-eaten, unripe, fallen ones from the ground, and write hundreds of the most learned volumes on each one of them — still you have not described a single mango. Pluck a luscious, full-grown, juicy one from the tree, and now you have known all that the mango is.

Similarly, these Man-Gods show what the Hindu religion is. They show the character, the power, and the possibilities of that racial tree which counts culture by centuries, and has borne the buffets of a thousand years of hurricane, and still stands with the unimpaired vigour of eternal youth.

Shall India die? Then from the world all spirituality will be extinct, all moral perfection will be extinct, all sweet-souled sympathy for religion will be extinct, all ideality will be extinct; and in its place will reign the duality of lust and luxury as the male and female deities, with money as its priest, fraud, force, and competition its ceremonies, and the human soul its sacrifice. Such a thing can never be. The power of suffering is infinitely greater than the power of doing; the power of love is infinitely of greater potency than the power of hatred. Those that think that the present revival of Hinduism is only a manifestation of patriotic impulse are deluded.

First, let us study the quaint phenomenon.

Is it not curious that, whilst under the terrific onset of modern scientific research, all the old forts of Western dogmatic religions are crumbling into dust; whilst the sledge-hammer blows of modern science are pulverising the porcelain mass of systems whose foundation is either in faith or in belief or in the majority of votes of church synods; whilst Western theology is at its wit's end to accommodate itself to the ever-rising tide of aggressive modern thought; whilst in all other sacred books the texts have been stretched to their utmost tension under the ever-increasing pressure of modern thought, and the majority of them are broken and have been stored away in lumber rooms; whilst the vast majority of thoughtful Western humanity have broken asunder all their ties with the church and are drifting about in a sea of unrest, the religions which have drunk the water of life at that fountain of light, the Vedas — Hinduism and Buddhism — alone are reviving?

The restless Western atheist or agnostic finds in the Gitâ or in the Dhammapada the only place where his soul can anchor.

The tables have been turned, and the Hindu, who saw through tears of despair his ancient homestead covered with incendiary fire, ignited by unfriendly hands, now sees, when the searchlight of modern thought has dispersed the smoke, that his home is the one that is standing in all its strength, and all the rest have either vanished or are building their houses anew after the Hindu plan. He has wiped away his tears, and has found that the axe that tried to cut down to the roots the (Gita, XV. 1) has proved the merciful knife of the surgeon.

He has found that he has neither to torture texts nor commit any other form of intellectual dishonesty to save his religion. Nay, he may call all that is weak in his scriptures, weak, because they were meant to be so by the ancient sages, to help the weak, under the theory of *. Thanks to the ancient sages who have discovered such an all-pervading, ever-expanding system of religion that can accommodate all that has been discovered in the realm of matter, and all that is to be known; he has begun to appreciate them anew, and discover anew, that those discoveries which have proved so disastrous to every limited little scheme of religion are but rediscoveries, in the plane of intellect and sense-consciousness, of truths which his ancestors discovered ages ago in the higher plane of intuition and superconsciousness.

He has not, therefore, to give up anything, nor go about seeking for anything anywhere, but it will be enough for him if he can utilise only a little from the infinite store he has inherited and apply it to his needs. And that he has begun to do and will do more and more. Is this not the real cause of this revival?

Young men of Bengal, to you I especially appeal. Brethren, we know to our shame that most of the real evils for which the foreign races abuse the Hindu nation are only owing to us. We have been the cause of bringing many undeserved calumnies on the head of the other races in India. But glory unto God, we have been fully awakened to it, and with His blessings, we will not only cleanse ourselves, but help the whole of India to attain the ideals preached in the religion eternal.

Let us wipe off first that mark which nature always puts on the forehead of a slave — the stain of jealousy. Be jealous of none. Be ready to lend a hand to every worker of good. Send a good thought for every being in the three worlds.

Let us take our stand on the one central truth in our religion — the common heritage of the Hindus, the Buddhists, and Jains alike — the spirit of man, the Atman of man, the immortal, birthless, all-pervading, eternal soul of man whose glories the Vedas cannot themselves express, before whose majesty the universe with its galaxy upon galaxy of suns and stars and nebulae is as a drop. Every man or woman, nay, from the highest Devas to the worm that crawls under our feet, is such a spirit evoluted or involuted. The difference is not in kind, but in degree.

This infinite power of the spirit, brought to bear upon matter evolves material development, made to act upon thought evolves intellectuality, and made to act upon itself makes of man a God.

First, let us be Gods, and then help others to be Gods. "Be and make." Let this be our motto. Say not man is a sinner. Tell him that he is a God. Even if there were a devil, it would be our duty to remember God always, and not the devil.

If the room is dark, the constant feeling and repeating of darkness will not take it away, but bring in the light. Let us know that all that is negative, all that is destructive, all that is mere criticism, is bound to pass away; it is the positive, the affirmative, the constructive that is immortal, that will remain for ever. Let us say, "We are" and "God is" and "We are God", "Shivoham, Shivoham", and march on. Not matter but spirit. All that has name and form is subject to all that has none. This is the eternal truth the Shrutis preach. Bring in the light; the darkness will vanish of itself. Let the lion of Vedanta roar; the foxes will fly to their holes. Throw the ideas broadcast, and let the result take care of itself. Let us put the chemicals together; the crystallization will take its own course. Bring forth the power of the spirit, and pour it over the length and breadth of India; and all that is necessary will come by itself.

Manifest the divinity within you, and everything will be harmoniously arranged around it. Remember the illustration of Indra and Virochana in the Vedas; both were taught their divinity. But the Asura, Virochana, took his body for his God. Indra, being a Deva, understood that the Atman was meant. You are the children of India. You are the descendants of the Devas. Matter can never be your God; body can never be your God.

India will be raised, not with the power of the flesh, but with the power of the spirit; not with the flag of destruction, but with the flag of peace and love, the garb of the Sannyâsin; not by the power of wealth, but by the power of the begging bowl. Say not that you are weak. The spirit is omnipotent. Look at that handful of young men called into existence by the divine touch of Ramakrishna's feet. They have preached the message from Assam to Sindh, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. They have crossed the Himalayas at a height of twenty thousand feet, over snow and ice on foot, and penetrated into the mysteries of Tibet. They have begged their bread, covered themselves with rags; they have been persecuted, followed by the police, kept in prison, and at last set free when the Government was convinced of their innocence.

They are now twenty. Make them two thousand tomorrow. Young men of Bengal, your country requires it. The world requires it. Call up the divinity within you, which will enable you to bear hunger and thirst, heat and cold. Sitting in luxurious homes, surrounded with all the comforts of life, and doling out a little amateur religion may be good for other lands, but India has a truer instinct. It intuitively detects the mask. You must give up. Be great. No great work can be done without sacrifice. The Purusha Himself sacrificed Himself to create this world. Lay down your comforts, your pleasures, your names, fame or position, nay even your lives, and make a bridge of human chains over which millions will cross this ocean of life. Bring all the forces of good together. Do not care under what banner you march. Do not care what be your colour — green, blue, or red — but mix up all the colours and produce that intense glow of white, the colour of love. Ours is to work. The results will take care of themselves. If any social institution stands in your way of becoming God, it will give way before the power of Spirit. I do not see into the future; nor do I care to see. But one vision I see dear as life before me: that the ancient Mother has awakened once more, sitting on Her throne rejuvenated, more glorious than ever. Proclaim Her to all the world with the voice of peace and benediction.

Yours ever in love and labour,

VIVEKANANDA.

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