Satsangam

Satsangam : Free school for every village : : Swami Vivekananda wrote to the Raja of Mysore: Supposing even your Highness opens a free school in every village, ...  Now if the m...

Swami Vivekananda wrote to the Raja of Mysore: Supposing even your Highness opens a free school in every village, ...  Now if the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain.  If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him.  There are thousands of single-minded, self-sacrificing Sannyâsins in our own country, going from village to village, teaching religion.  If some of them can be organised as teachers of secular things also, they will go from place to place, from door to door, not only preaching, but teaching also.  Suppose two of these men go to a village in the evening with a camera, a globe, some maps, etc.  They can teach a great deal of astronomy and geography to the ignorant.  By telling stories about different nations, they can give the poor a hundred times more information through the ear than they can get in a lifetime through books. We think Swamiji meant these cameras, a s...

Satsangam : Shakti is creative aspect of Brahmam ? : To, All Members, Sri Ramakrishna was an extraordinary exponent of the idea of harmony. All his actions, messages, etc were roo...

To, All Members, Sri Ramakrishna was an extraordinary exponent of the idea of harmony. All his actions, messages, etc were rooted in the idea of harmony. Through his extraordinary spiritual insights based on his own experiences he brought about a wonderful harmony between Brahman and Shakti. In the traditional Advaita Vedanta the idea of Shakti is never accepted. It is always unitary consciousness or atma or Brahmam which is the one and only reality. Everything else is classified under the idea of maya or illusion. Although at the highest level of spiritual experience this idea is experienced, people in the initial stages of spiritual life strive hard to harmonize this idea of unitary consciousness with the existential world. If it is accepted that everything else is maya or illusion and Brahmam alone is real, all that a sadhaka or a spiritual aspirant is engaged with, come under the classification of illusion which in effect means unreal. But, Sri Ramakrishna through his...

Satsangam : Transforming Human Action Into Divine Action : : It has been a long journey from the first moments of Arjuna’s confusion and dejection to the point that has now been reached, where ...

It has been a long journey from the first moments of Arjuna’s confusion and dejection to the point that has now been reached, where he is ready once again to take up his divinely appointed work, and carry it out. He has had the opportunity to see and understand the limitations of acting from the human standpoint, has been provided methodologies to systematically transition to the divine standpoint, and has been given the vision of the universal Person that constitutes the entire creation. His human weakness has been reviewed and shown up for what it is, and the confusion that his weakness engendered has now been dispelled. This process is a transformation of the human activity into the divine action, and during this transformation the individual undergoes a transfiguration from being purely a representative human ego-personality to being a conscious instrument of the Divine, in other words, a “Vibhuti” of the Divine, a power or emanation of the Divine carrying out the Divine ...

Satsangam : THE HEART : : To, All Members, In the centre of the cavity of the Heart the sole Brahman shines by itself as the Atman (Self) in the feelin...

To, All Members, In the centre of the cavity of the Heart the sole Brahman shines by itself as the Atman (Self) in the feeling of `I-I'. Reach the Heart by diving within yourself, either with control of breath, or with thought concentrated on the quest of the Self. You will thus get fixed in the Self. I have been saying all along that the Heart Centre is on the right side, even when learned men differed from me. I speak from experience. I knew it even in my home during my trances (samadhi). Again during the incident recorded in Self- Realization, I had a very clear vision and experience. All of a sudden a light came from one side erasing the world-vision. I felt that the heart on the left had stopped and the body became blue and inert. Vasudeva Sastri embraced the body and wept over my death, but I could not speak. All the time I was feeling that the Heart Centre on the right was working as well as ever. This state lasted fifteen or twenty minutes. Then sudden...

To, All Members,  Ratri means "night" and Nava means "nine".  During Navaratri, Ishvara, in the form of Devi is worshiped as Durgā, Lakśmi and Saraswati. Day 1, 2, 3 - Durga Ma Day 4, 5, 6- Lakshmi Ma Day 7, 8, 9 - Saraswati Ma  First we invoke Durga Mata ji to wipe away all our ailments, troubles, inhibitions, and make way for better things to come, by removing all our obstacles that stagnate our emotional, intellectual and physical growth Next, let Lakśmi Mata ji be invoked, to give us health, and wealth to enrich our minds and lives with all things good, and to make our endeavors successful.  and finally, Saraswati Mata ji, to give us wisdom, and knowledge. These are two of the most precious possessions. Wisdom is that discriminative tool which which allows us to differentiate between right and wrong, eternal and non eternal, and exercise perfect control over the mind and bodily actions, thus protecting us from inner and outer elemen...