Some of the intellectual
celebraties in the world of the
West and the East had the following things
to say about Hinduism:
Few have felt the inherent tragedy of the human condition with such sensitivity as Tukaram. The times and his personal life and emotions show through his poetry with extraordinary clarity. The sorrows of his life were the occasion for spiritual elevation.
He was a contemporary of King Shivaji and a devotee of Vithal. His teachings are contained in Abhangas. His parents were poor agriculturists of Maratha community but of pious and charitable nature. Their family deity was Vithoba of Pandarpur. As a petty farmer and trader, Tukaram innocent of worldly ways, and was cheated and humiliated in dealings. His life is a favorite topic for Keertankars (reciters and story tellers in praise of God) as it is full of dramatic incidents of misadventures of an unworldly man. He was initiated into the spiritual path by one Babaji Chaitanya. This may have been the famous deathless yogi Babaji but there is no indication either way.
Caste and class do not come in the way of God-realization, he declared. He emphasised the life divine and explained his desire for the Amrita. He stated that the attainment of the Amrita is through the Nama and man’s liberation is through the Amrita.
He considered that his
destitution was a needed condition for his higher spiritual achievement, his
greater love of God.
At this time the
Marathi saints had developed to a high degree an informal ecstatic ritual known
as the kirtan. Tukaram addressed his songs to the Lord-of-Pandhari…
" While Tuka in
his love was thus pleading for God’s mercy, though still in his body, he became
one unconscious of body, and by force of his devotion accompanied with love,
the image of Pandurang appeared in his heart. In his love for God he began to
dance in the kirtan, and moment after he would bow prostrate on the ground. (In
his ecstasy) Tuka forgot his relation as bhakta (devotee), and Vithoba forgot
his relation as God.”
He took to
wandering around many towns and performing devotional songs, the kirtans, at
Dehu, Loehgaon and Poona.
These were strongholds of the Brahmans who were particularly rigid about the
rules and regulations of caste and scripture at the time as they were under
serious attack from the Mughal Aurangzeb who was in a frenzy of piety over his
faith and demonstrating it by attacking the religious places and forbidding the
practices of the faiths of others. It is instinctive to huddle together and
hold ever more tightly to the rules that define a community at such times and
here was this lower caste upstart coming along and singing that the rules and
caste did not matter only love for god did. He grimly sang:
Sainthood is not available in the bazaar,
It is gained by paying one’s life
All else is bragging.
He was naturally subject to every form of persecution.
Tukaram did not care; he was too busy singing about his beloved Vithobha to notice.
(source: Religions of India: Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism - By Thomas Berry p. 53 - 54 and indiayogi.com).
362. Dr. Matheson ( ? ) wrote: "It is not too much to say that the mind of the West with all its undoubted impulses towards the progress of humanity has never exhibited such an intense amount of intellectual force as is to be found in the religious speculations of India.....These have been the cradle of all Western speculations, and wherever the European mind has risen into heights of philosophy, it has done so because the Brahmin was the pioneer.
There is no intellectual problem in the West which had not its earlier discussion in the East, and there is no modern solution of that problem which will not be found anticipated in the East."
"We may think this language too strong but we shall never again depreciate the intellectual value, the philosophic subtleties, the religious purpose of the sacred books of the East."
(source: Is India Civilized - Essays on Indian Culture - By Sir John Woodroffe p.138 -139)
363. Philip Rawson ( ? ) academic, and artist and author of The Art of Southeast Asia has written:
“The culture of India
has been one of the world’s most powerful civilizing forces. Countries of the
Far East, including China, Korea, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia owe much of what is
best in their own culture to the inspiration of ideas imported from India. The West, too has its
own debts. But the members of that circle of civilizations beyond Burma
scattered around the Gulf of Siam and the Java Sea, virtually owe their very
existence to the creative influences of Indian ideas. No conquest or invasion,
no forced conversion imposed upon them. They were adopted because the people
saw they were good and that they could use them. “
“The sculptures of
Indian icons produced in Cambodia during the 6th to the 8th
centuries A.D. are masterpieces, monumental, subtle, highly sophisticated,
mature in style and unrivalled for sheer beauty….”
“One of the most
interesting pieces of all is a fragmentary bronze bust, from the western Mebon,
of the God Vishnu
lying asleep on the ocean of non-being. Head and shoulders and the two right
arms survive. It shows the extraordinary, delicate integrity and subtle total
convexity of surface, which these sculptors could achieve by modeling.
Eyebrows, moustache and eyes seem to have been inlaid, perhaps with gold,
silver or precious tone, though the inlay is gone and only the sockets remain. This
was one of the world’s great sculptures.
Another magnificent
bronze of Shiva,
from Por Loboeuk, suggests the wealth of metal art that once must have existed
in Cambodia (Kamboja) at the height of its power."
"The
genius of the artists of that age was for relief. Indeed one might say that Angkor Wat is a
repertory of some of the most magnificent relief art that the world has ever
seen. The open colonnaded gallery on the first storey contains over a mile of
such works, six feet high. The main sources for the relief subject matter
are the Mahabharata
and Ramayana,
as well as legends of Vishnu and his incarnation Krishna. The wars of
classical legend, in which incarnations of the various persons of the Hindu
deity triumph at length over demonic adversaries. The artists’ skill is
everywhere apparent."(source: The Art of Southeast Asia - By Philip Rawson p. 1 - 77. For more refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi).
364. Arthur Osborne (1909 - 1970) has lived with the Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi. He was a man of brilliant intellect and introspective spirit. After graduating from Oxford, his inner longing to experience the Supreme Reality ultimately brought him to the hermitage of the great Indian sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi. In Ramana's presence, Osborne's literary abilities flourished, and he became a vehicle for the genuine spiritual understanding that awakened within him. He wrote some poems - including one on Arunachala. His son was Adam Osborne who invented the portable computer.
"The recognition of Pure Being as one's Self and the Self of the universe and of all beings is the supreme and ultimate truth, transcending all other levels of doctrine without denying their truth on their own plane. This is the doctrine of Advaita, non-Duality, taught by the ancient Rishis and pre-eminently by Shankaracharya. It is the simplest as well as the most profound, being the ultimate truth beyond all the complexities of cosmology."
(source: The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi - By Arthur Osborne). Refer to Osborne's India - hvk.org)
365. Jeffrey Armstrong ( ? ) worked as a sales manager with Apple Computer for six years, is married to Sandy Gramah, who shares his passion for all things Indian. The couple, which has founded an educational institute called the Vedic Academy of Science and Arts (VASA), is now working on creating a permanent library of Hindu and Vedic culture in Vancouver. Their clients include successful businessmen, lawyers, corporate executives and leaders of society. “Bring as much knowledge from India as you can,’’ concludes Mr Armstrong. “People in North America are eager for it.’’
He has written:
"The Mahabharata, the great Sanskrit epic of ancient India, records the history of Bharat. Within it is the Bhagavad-Gita which describes the events of five thousand years ago when Lord Krishna appeared and spoke to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, which saw the triumph of the Pandavas over the Kauravas, the triumph of good over evil. That event marked the beginning of Kali Yuga. So the Sanskrit of the Vedas refers to an era before that time and to the existence of a pool of knowledge that has survived for thousands of years. That is why India and Indian culture is the mother of all modern civilizations."
"Sanskrit is such a perfect language that NASA, the American space agency, contemplated using it as a programming language. I’ll give you a comparison so that you will understand just how perfect Sanskrit is! Imagine that Bill Gates came out with a version of Windows that was so good that it did not need to be upgraded for 2,500 years! He would have created a monopoly. Well Sanskrit has the monopoly on languages, because Sanskrit is a perfect language. It cannot be improved upon."
He is a charismatic international speaker, author and expert guest on TV and talk radio. He is a scholar of the Eastern teachings including Vedanta, Raja Yoga, Tantra, Mantra, and Martial arts. He has practiced Ayurvedic Astrology for 25 years. He predicted over 20 years ago that Silicon Valley would be overrun by Indian innovators and engineers, no one believed him. Today, his prophecy has come true manifold.
“I based my forecast on the fact that Indians have a very strong
Sanskrit background,’’ he says. Sanskrit being the perfect language for
computer programming, I was confident even then that Indians would outshine
others in computer innovations.’’
His next prediction is equally interesting: India will become a superpower in another 20 years, even earlier if Indians propagate their culture and legacy effectively in the West.
The motivational speaker, who left his corporate job seven years ago to foster the spread of Hindu and Vedic culture in the West, looks like a typical American till he opens his mouth.
(source: India Could Once Again Be Great, If Only Her People Utilised Her Heritage - Saturday Jan 17, 2004 and The Greatness of the Vedas).
366. Dr. L P (Lawrence
Pearsall) Jacks (1860-1955) was probably the most widely known British
Unitarian minister in both Britain and North America between 1914 and 1940. He
was an educator, a prolific writer, and an interpreter of modern philosophy.
According to L. A. Garrard, he was 'the last of the Victorian prophets in the
line of Thomas Carlyle'.
Jacks argued for a natural religion for the common man using twentieth century
means of communicationHis next prediction is equally interesting: India will become a superpower in another 20 years, even earlier if Indians propagate their culture and legacy effectively in the West.
The motivational speaker, who left his corporate job seven years ago to foster the spread of Hindu and Vedic culture in the West, looks like a typical American till he opens his mouth.
(source: India Could Once Again Be Great, If Only Her People Utilised Her Heritage - Saturday Jan 17, 2004 and The Greatness of the Vedas).
He wrote in his book, Two Letters about the spiritual men of India:
“The spiritual men of India, a great and watchful multitude whose spiritual status is unattainable, are many of them catholics in a deeper sense than we of the West have yet given to the word….”
(source: Two letters: L.P. Jacks in reply to C.E. Raven and F.W. Dwelly, concerning the action of Lord Hugh Cecil against Liverpool Cathedral - By L P Jacks London, Oxford university press, H. Milford, 1934. p. 26)
“The spiritual men of
India, a great and watchful multitude whose spiritual status is unattainable,
are many of them catholics in a deeper sense than we of the West have yet given
to the word….”
" The sages of
India discovered astonishingly subtle and profound psycho-biophysical connections
between human organism and cosmic subterranean processes. They knew much that
even today is beyond the ken European scientific thought, or that it ignores,
often trying to conceal its helplessness by asserting that oriental wisdom is
mere mysticism, and thus showing its inability to distinguish the rational but
not yet fully understandable essence from various figments of imagination…
"
367. Aleksandr
Georgievich Spirkin (1918 - 2004) a well-known Soviet psychologist,
who was a corresponding member of the erstwhile USSR Academy of Science and
the head of the section of methodological problems of Cybernetics in Scientific
Council of Cybernetics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, presents some
illuminating views in his book Dialectical Materialism (Progress Publishers Moscow-1983,
published during the Soviet days) about Indian's ancient explorers. Professor Spirkin writes:
" The sages of India discovered astonishingly subtle and profound psycho-biophysical connections between human organism and cosmic subterranean processes. They knew much that even today is beyond the ken European scientific thought, or that it ignores, often trying to conceal its helplessness by asserting that oriental wisdom is mere mysticism, and thus showing its inability to distinguish the rational but not yet fully understandable essence from various figments of imagination…
It is sometimes difficult for us to penetrate the profound language of symbolic forms in which this wisdom is couched, to get at the essence of that wisdom. A full understanding of these complex problems can be achieved only in the broad context of history and culture. Historical experience offers us some instructive lessons for the present day. If we look around thoughtfully at the path humanity has passed, it is not difficult to see that the minds of the makers of culture have been guided by the desire to achieve an understanding and a rational transformation of the human being himself, his bodily and spiritual organization, the preservation and strengthening of his health. Socio-political, philosophical, religious, moral, aesthetic and all cultural efforts in general have tended towards this goal.
"The culture of the ancient Orient affirmed not only ideas of man's dependence on the supernatural forces that were external to him; there was also a tendency to cultivate certain rules of behaviour in relation to these forces, including techniques of training the body in relation to these forces to regulate and perfect bodily and spiritual processes. Various systems of exercises linked with religious beliefs were evolved to change the state of the mind, the consciousness, to achieve complete unity with the universe, to become one with the energy of nature. These techniques for influencing one's own organism through the mechanisms of psycho-physiological self-regulation and control - techniques that are much in fashion today – could not have survived for centuries and have penetrated other cultures with a different ethnos, if they had not contained some real knowledge of the most subtle and hidden structural. Energo-informational neuro-psychical and humoral potentials, which even now sometimes seem fantastic to the analytical European mind, particularly when it is fettered by stereotypes.
"Oriental culture is full of beliefs about the role of the way of life and its various components – breathing techniques, the ability to commune very subtly with nature, acupuncture, cauterizing, and other ways of influencing the biologically active centers of the organism, herbo-medicine, diagnostics by means of the iris of the eye, pulse and olfactory diagnostics, consideration of the position of the earth in relation to the celestial bodies in medicine, the time of year and day and of the properties of water in relation to the state of the earth strata and the character of its flow in connection with the geo magnetic phenomena – all this and much else has contributed to the great wisdom of the Eastern peoples, the wealth of their culture and man's place therein, their understanding of the mechanisms of regulation of his life activity and vital potentials. Thus already in the distant past, in the mists of mythological world views the precious crystals of knowledge, tested by the experience of centuries, of skills in beneficially influencing man's body gradually accumulated. How could people of those far off times know so much without any experiments or apparatus about the conditions and factors that regulate the course of the vital processes and the character of the interaction between man and nature, particularly the influence of the celestial bodies, the sun and the moon and various radiations proceeding from outer space and the bowels of the earth!? And all this was taken into consideration both in diagnosing and in treatment! Does this not go to show an astonishingly high level of culture that should arouse our admiration, gratitude and desire to study! This knowledge could not have retained its vitality if it had not again and again been confirmed by practice."
(source: Dialectical Materialism - By Aleksandr Georgievich Spirkin p. 339 - 340)
368. Serge Trifkovic ( ? ) has received his PhD from the University of Southampton in England and pursued postdoctoral research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. His past journalistic outlets have included the BBC World Service, the Voice of America, CNN International, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of London, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is foreign affairs editor of Chronicles. He is the author of The Sword of the Prophet: History, Theology, Impact on the World has observed in his article:
"India prior to the Moslem invasions was one of the world’s great civilizations.
Tenth century Hindustan matched its contemporaries in the East and the West in the realms of philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. Indian mathematicians discovered the number zero (not to mention other things, like algebra, that were later transmitted to a Moslem world which mistaken has received credit for them).
"Medieval India, before the Moslem invasion, was a richly imaginative culture, one of the half-dozen most advanced civilizations of all time. Its sculptures were vigorous and sensual, its architecture ornate and spellbinding. And these were indigenous achievements and not, as in the case of many of the more celebrated high-points of Moslem culture, relics of pre-Moslem civilizations that Moslems had overrun. "
(source: Islam’s Other Victims: India - By SergeTrifkovic - frontpagemag.com). For more by Serge Trifkovic, refer tochapter on Islamic Onslaught
369. William Blake (1757—1827) English poet, painter, and engraver, who created a unique form of illustrated verse; his poetry, inspired by mystical vision, is among the most original, lyric, and prophetic in the language.
According to author
David Weir - William Blake’s poetry was due to the British discovery of Hindu literature.
His mystic system springs from the rich historical context that produced the
Oriental Renaissance.
Blake’s poetic career
underwent a profound development as a result of his exposure to Hindu
mythology. By combining mythographic insight with republican politics and Protestant
dissent, Blake devised a poetic system that opposed the powers of Church and
King
The reference to Brahma
in The Song of Los shows that Blake was able to incorporate
the latest mythographic material into his own evolving system.
Adam stood in the
garden of Eden:
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat;
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations
By the hands of the children of Los.
Adam shuddered! Noah faded! Black grew the sunny African
When Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brahma in the East.
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat;
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations
By the hands of the children of Los.
Adam shuddered! Noah faded! Black grew the sunny African
When Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brahma in the East.
For many years now a
fairly large contingent of critics has insisted on a relationship between
Blake’s work and Hindu mythology. In 1924, S Foster Damon claimed that Blake was “in accord with
Eastern mysticism".
Urthona is Dharma;
Urizen, Karma, while both Tharmas and Luvah are included in Maya.”
In 1947 Northrop Frye
observed in Fearful Symmetry that:
“Blake was among the
first of European idealists to link his own traditions of thought” with the
Indian classic, taking the account of the lost drawing of “Mr. Charles Wilkins
translating the Geeta” (E 148) in Blake’s Descriptive Catalogue of 1809
as evidence of such a link. Frye also noted that Blake’s conception of three
classes of human beings – Angels, Devils, and Elect – “may have come from the
‘Gunas” of the Bhagavad Gita. Wilkins translation of the Gita are called
“three Goon or qualities arising from Prakreetee or nature, namely, “Sattwa
truth, Rajas, passion, and tamas darkness.”
Blake refers to the "Geeta"
in his Descriptive Catalogue of 1809, the same year that Moses Haughton engraved
the plates for Edward Moor’s The Hindu Pantheon (1810), a copious account of Hindu
deities with the Sanskrit names of the gods affixed in Devanagari script by
Charles Wilkins.
370. Rev. Roger
Bertschausen ( ? ) at the Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist
Fellowship of Appleton, Wisconsin. He has written about the Philosophy of Time.
"We in the West have long had trouble with time. Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam had no inkling of the long age of the universe. Cosmologies from these religions were based on the notion that the universe started at a finite point in the recent past. St. Augustine set the beginning of the universe at 5000 BCE. For centuries, this figure was embraced by most Westerners. (And some continue to believe it.) Additionally, the early Christians also believed that the end of time as we know it was close at hand.
This view of time contrasts sharply with other religious perspectives on the age of the universe. In the Hindu tradition, for example, one day in the life of Brahma lasts 4,300,000,000 years. And Brahma lives for the equivalent of 311,040,000,000,000 human years. The historian of religions Huston Smith reports one way of conceiving of the Hindu time-frame.
We understand now from modern physics that the Hindu concept of time is much closer to the mark than St. Augustine's. Scientists now estimate that the universe is ten to twenty billion years old. We do not yet know for sure if our universe will keep expanding into infinity or if the force of gravity will at some point cause it to cease expanding and to collapse in what is called "the Big Crunch." Even if it turns out that the universe will eventually collapse, the Big Crunch probably wouldn't begin for at least another ten billion years.
I find the understandings of modern science--as well as of Hinduism--to be very helpful in this regard. We are part of a universe that has existed for billions of years and will likely continue to exist for billions more. The long view that this understanding should give us has not yet fully emerged--it's hard to unlearn centuries of believing that the universe is only several thousand years old.
(source: On Time and Place: A Philosophy of Time - By Rev. Roger Bertschausen). For more on Cosmology refer to chapter on Glimpses_XIII and Advanced Concepts and Hindu Cosmology.
Refer to Shiva's Cosmic Dance at CERN - the European Center for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva
371. Dr. K M Munshi (1887 - 1971) A freedom fighter, Committee of the Indian National Congress. He founded Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in 1938 with the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi. He ceaselessly strove for cultural and spiritual regeneration.
Dr. Munshi looked upon the Bhavan as an 'Adventure in Faith'- a faith in India's past, present and future. It is also a faith in India's people who have a rich and unbroken cultural heritage. He is the author of Foundations of Indian Culture. He has written in The Essays and Reflections:
"The Mahabharata is not a mere epic. It is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women and of some who were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival; but above all, it has for its core the Gita, which is, as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of stages in which the climax is reached in the wondrous Apocalyspe in the Eleventh canto."
(source: The Treasury of Hinduism - By H L Singh p. 130)
372. Michael Cremo (1948 - ) born in Schenectady, NY, in 1948, he received his first copy of the Bhagavad-Gita from some Hare Krishnas at a Grateful Dead concert. You later joined the group and began writing for the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust at ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness).
In their 1993, 900-page tome, Forbidden Archeology and its condensed version, Hidden History of the Human Race, co-authors Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson brought forth largely unknown evidence illustrating that modern humans worked and walked the earth millions of years ago, even as far back as 2 billion years ago.
The idea of ape-men is not something that was invented by Darwinists of the nineteenth century. Long before that, the ancient Sanskrit writings were speaking of creatures with apelike bodies, humanlike intelligence, and a low level of material culture. For example, the Ramayana speaks of the Vanaras, a species of apelike men that existed millions of years ago. But alongside these ape-men existed humans of our type. The relationship was one of coexistence rather than evolution.
"The Hindu, or Vedic, concept of time is cyclical. There are cycles within cycles within cycles. The basic unit of this cyclical time is called the day of Brahma. It lasts about 4.3 billion years. It's followed by a night of Brahma, which also lasts about 4.3 billion years. The days follow the nights endlessly in succession. During the days, life is manifested in the universe, and during the nights it's dormant. The current day of Brahma, the one we are in now, began about 2 billion years ago. So by this account, we should expect to see signs of life, including human life, going back about 2 billion years on earth. Modern geologists give the earth an age of about 6 billion years. I think there is also a Vedic parallel here as well. First, we have to keep in mind that the Vedic conception of the universe is that it's pretty much like a virtual reality system, giving the conscious self a temporary domain of experience, apart from the eternal domain of the realm of pure consciousness, or spirit. Under this conception, I picture the earth, our particular domain of experience, as being somewhat like a rewritable CD or DVD disk. It's erased at the end of each day of Brahma."
'This is an interesting parallel between the Vedic and modern scientific accounts. Also, the day of Brahma is divided into 14 subcycles called manvantara periods, each lasting about 300 million years. Between each one there is a devastation, after which the earth has to be repopulated. We are now in the seventh manvantara cycle, and that means there have been six devastations over the past 2 billion years. Modern paleontology also tells us that the history of life on earth has been interrupted by six major extinction events, spaced at intervals of hundreds of millions of years, the last being the one that wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. "
'.. true ancient Hindu cosmology was "dismantled" by Europeans in order to bring it into line with the biblical time scale.. this happened during the 18th and 19th centuries. They tried to fit everything within five thousand years."
(source: Human Devolution - biped.info). For more refer to Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory)
373. Charles H. Townes (1915 - ) A member of the technical staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1933 to 1947. Dr. Townes worked extensively during World War II in designing radar bombing systems and has a number of patents in related technology. He invented the microwave-emitting - MASER.
He has observed:
“Indian students should value their religious culture and of
course, the classical Indian culture bears importantly on the meaning of life
and values. I would not separate the two. To separate science and Indian
culture would be harmful. …I don't think it is practical to keep scientific and
spiritual culture separate.”
(source: Interviews with Nobel Laureates and Eminent Scholars to
T. D.Singh and Pawan K. Saharan on 19-Oct-1985, (1986) p.67).374. Major-General Charles Stuart - 'Hindoo' Stuart (1758- 1828) was an Irish man and a member of the Asiatic Society, who came out to India in his teens.
He seems to have been almost immediately attracted to Hinduism and within a year of his arrival in Calcutta had adopted the practice-which he continued to his death-of walking every morning from his house to bathe in and worship the Ganga according to Hindu custom.
"Incredible as it may sound," wrote one horrified officer, "there is at this moment a British general in the Company's service, who observes all the customs of the Hindoos, makes offerings at their temples, carries about their idols with him, and is accompanied by fakirs who dress his food. He is not treated as a madman, but would not perhaps be misplaced if he had his idols, fakirs, bedas, and shasters, in some corner of Bedlam, removed from its more rational and unfortunate inmates."
Stuart's military
contemporaries never quite knew what to make of their general. One of his
junior colonels, William Linnaeus Gardner, himself a British convert to Shia
Islam, wrote how "he regularly performs his pooja and avoids the sight of
beef". Later, Gardner noted that Stuart was planning to take a week off to
bathe at the Kumbh Mela, where he was later seen sitting "surrounded by a
dozen naked faqueers who, joining their hands over his head, gave him
Benediction . . . Every Hindoo he salutes with Jey Sittaramjee [Victory to
Lord Ram and Queen Sita]".
Eccentric as
he may have been, Stuart was a central figure in the history of the western
appreciation of Indian art. The inventory of goods that Stuart left behind him
when he died indicates the degree to which he wore Indian clothes and had taken
on Indian customs such as chewing paan; it also details the huge number of
statues of Hindu deities which Stuart appears to have worshiped. Certainly
he built a Hindu temple at Saugor, and when he visited Europe in 1804 he
took a collection of his Hindu household gods with him.He learnt Indian languages and in his writings championed all things Indian and Hindu. He opposed Christian missionary activity and the notion that the West was morally superior. He denounced James Mill's bigoted ideas of Hinduism and published a pamphlet entitled Vindications of the Hindoos by a Bengal Officer, which suggested that 'Hinduism little needs the meliorating hand of Christianity to render its votaries a sufficiently correct and moral people for all the useful purposes of a civilized society, and remarked that:
" Whenever I look around me, in the vast region of Hindoo Mythology, I discover piety in the garb of allegory: and I see Morality, at every turn, blended with every tale; and, as far as I can rely on my own judgment, it appears the most complete and ample system of Moral Allegory that the world has ever produced."
When he died, Hindoo Stuart's collection of Hindu sculpture-the largest and most important ever amassed by a European-ended up in the British Museum where it still forms the core of the Oriental collection. Stuart himself was buried in the Christian cemetery in South Park Street-but with his idols in his coffin and under a tomb which takes the form of a Hindu temple, with a carved stone gateway, the recesses on each side of which were occupied by figures of the Goddess Ganga, Prithvi Devi.
(source: India Britannica - By Geoffrey Moorhouse p. 89 and When Albion’s sons went native - By W Dalrymple and Gods and monsters – By William Dalrymple Guardian Saturday August 25, 2007)
375. Swami Samarth Ramdas (1608 - 1682) He was a pre-eminent bhakti saint and poet.
According to author Historian Benoy Kumar Sarkar:
"Ramdas was one of the greatest saints of the world. He was the inspirer of Shivaji. Like the Sanskrit Gita and the Tamil Kurul, the Dasabodh is one of the greatest classics of world literature. Ramdas was a contemporary of Sant Tukaram. As makers of Maharastra and remakers of Hindustan, Ramdas and Shivaji will always go together as one ideological complex in the historical scholarship of future generations."
He was the last of the five great Marathi saints, wrote in a style that is generally prose in content and expression. Devoted to the Vishnu incarnation in Lord Rama, he lived as a wandering mendicant visiting the temples of the region.
One of his frequent sayings was "Run to my help, Dear Ram. To what extremity are you willing to see me suffer?"
Among the one composed by Ramdas is the following:
O dear Ram, in Thy mercy meet me.
Through separation from Thee my whole being is in distress.
I cannot free myself from worldly things amongst men.
In my despondency I know not how to pass my time.
May the Almighty One not have in mind to reject me.
May there ever be kindly thought of His bhaktas.
Union with Thee I have been unable to have. How am I to acquire it?
In my despondency I know not how to pass my time.
Victory, Victory to Ram Almighty!
The literary works of Ramdas such as Dasabodh, Manache Shlok (verse addressed to the mind), Karunashtakas (hymns to God) and Ramayana (describing only the conquest of Lanka by Sri Rama and the vanquishing of Ravana) are very popular. It was as a tribute to Ramdas's extraordinary patience and determination in rehabilitating the Hindu religion in India that people named him Samartha (all-powerful) Ramdas, a name which he richly deserved. This great Guru of Maharashtra breathed his last in 1682 at Sajjangad, near Satara, a fortress which was given to him by Shivaji for his residence.
Ramdas was spiritual teacher of the greatest of Maratha political rulers, Shivaji.
He has said:
"The Bhagavad Gita teaches us that one attains union with God through knowledge, love and action. These three must develop together so that we can unite with God through the divination of intelligence, love and action. This is integral yoga."
(source: Religions of India - By Thomas Berry p. 53 - 54. Also refer to La Glorie du nom divin - By J .K. Sahasrabudhe)
376. Devamrita Swami ( ? ) American born, is an author and researcher specializing in the history and knowledge of ancient India. Born in New York City, he began his immersion in India upon graduating from Yale University in 1972. Visiting India annually for three decades he is an ordained sannyasi or monk, of India's Vaishnava spiritual tradition.
"The Vedas are the largest mass of sacred knowledge from the ancient world, and they are its most brilliant literary achievement. In the Vedic literature we find an exquisite Weltanschanuung, a majestic world outlook followed by millennia by a highly developed civilization.
The West, however,
would benefit profoundly by seriously exploring the value of the Vedic texts,
in revealing a completely different way of seeing the universe. And – most
important for our problems today – the Vedas reveal a completely different way
of belonging to the universe."
An uncanny confidence
permeates the Vedic texts, that the highest reality can be approached via any
subject matter. Since everything has emanated from the supreme reality, all
subjects of study are considered within the purview of Transcendence.
The Vedas teach that
conscious energy pervades the universe. The literature asserts that from the
subatomic level to the cosmic level and even beyond, you’ll find it everywhere.
The Chandogya
Upanishad says Sarvam khalv idam brahma, or “Consciousness,
indicative of the spiritual energy, is limitless in its presence.”
The Vedas tell us that
because Brahman is not subject to material analysis, therefore its telltale
evidence, consciousness, cannot be dissected.
The Vedic presentation
of Brahman enchanted some of the 20th century’s most influential
physicists. Austrian Nobel Laureate Erwin Schrodinger was a great fan of the
Vedas, especially the Upanishads. He found in Brahman clear affirmation for his
conceptions of “One Mind.” David Bohm used Brahman to formulate his idea of the
“explicated order and implicate order.”
(source: Searching for Vedic India – By Devamrita Swami
p. 24 - 322)
377. Sting (1951 -
) Born in Newcastle, England in 1951, the son of a milkman, Born Gordon
Matthew Sumner in Wallsend, Northumberland. He received his name Sting from his
striped sweater in which Gordon Solomon said that he looked like a bee. Sting,
who received the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) honour from the queen is
reportedly unimpressed with the honour and believes it is not a big achievement
to get awards from a country that has shrunk to an island. "It's not very
big, the British Empire.
It used to be the whole world and now we own, like, one island. It's called
England"
Rock star Sting has
declared himself a Hindu in an e-mail interview with Hindustan Times ahead of his
concerts in India in aid of Tsunami victims. Sting revealed that he feels like
a Hindu.
"In a
sense I am more of a Hindu ... I like the Hindu religion more than anything
else at the moment.""I have become addicted to India," reveals Sting, adding that he would like to spend the rest of his life discovery this beautiful country. His favorite place is Benaras (Varanasi). There is something very magical about Benaras."
He recalls the:
"Shiva temple that has fallen half way into the Ganga", and says, "I find that such a wonderful, powerful image…"
The Goddess Theme - The female deity plays a prime role in his music. It is something "I spend a lot of time for." Sting feels, "We need more of the female deity in this world."
The Concept of God - "I would not consider myself a Christian any longer. My beliefs are much wider than that. I don't believe God is necessarily a Catholic or Islamic or anything else...it's a much larger concept than that..." said this latest Champion of the Universal Religion.
Sting says, "I have a great deal of respect for Indian music." He said that knows quite a lot about the musical tradition of India and its intricacies. I am aware how complex ragas are, and how specific the rhythm is." He is particularly fond of the sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka.
(source: Why Sting Likes Hinduism - about.com)
378. Denis Diderot (1713-84) he was a prominent French figure in what became known as The Enlightenment, and was the editor-in-chief of the famous Encyclopédie. He was also a novelist, satirist, and dramatist. Diderot was enormously influential in shaping the rationalistic spirit of the 18th century.
He suggested in his article on India that the “sciences may be more ancient in India than in Egypt.”
(source: Searching for Vedic India – By Devamrita Swami p. 164).
379. Andrew Tomas (1906- 2001) was an Australian UFO pioneer, author of several books including Mirage of the Ages: A Critique of Christianity and We Are Not The First and On the shores of endless worlds: The search for cosmic life and Beyond the Time Barrier has written:
"A thousand years before the childish image of the earth drawn by Cosmas Indicopleustes, a scholar-explorer of the 6th century, in his Christian Topography, philosophers had a different and much more accurate idea of the shape of the earth.
Until the second part of the 19th century scholars and clerics of the West thought that the earth was but a few thousand years old. Yet ancient Brahmin books, estimated the Day of Brahma, the life-span of our universe, to be 4.32 billion years. This figure is close to that of our astronomers, who calculate it to be about 4.6 billion years. "
" The atomic structure of matter is mentioned in the Hindu treastises Vaisesika and Nyaya. The Yoga Vasishta says: “There are vast worlds within the hollows of each atom, multifarious as the specks in a sunbeam.”
"The Indian sage Uluku
proposed a hypothesis over 2,500 years ago that all material objects were made
of paramanu, or seeds of matter. He was then nicknamed Kanada, or the swallower
of grains."
"The sacred
writings of ancient India contain descriptions of weapons which resembled
atomic bombs. The Mausola Parva speaks of a thunderbolt – “a gigantic messenger
of deaths” – which reduced to ashes whole armies and caused the hair and nails
of the survivors to fall out. Pottery broke without any cause and the birds
turned white. After a few hours all foodstuffs were poisoned. The ghastly
picture of Hiroshima comes to mind when one reads this ancient text from
India."
“A blazing missile
possessed of the radiance of smokeless fire was discharged. A thick gloom
suddenly encompassed the heavens. Clouds roared into the higher air, showering
blood. The world, scorched by the heat of that weapon, seemed to be in fever,”
thus describes the Drona Parva – in The Mahabharat.
One can almost visualize the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb explosion and
atomic radiation.
"Another passage
compares the detonation with a flare-up of ten thousand suns. In ancient times
the day was divided into 60 kala, each equal to 24 minutes, subdivided into 60
vikala, each equal to 24 seconds. Then followed a further sixty-fold
subdivision of time into para, tatpara, vitatpara, ima, and finally, kashta or
1/300,000,000 of a second. Is this reckoning of time a folk memory from a
highly technological civilization? Without sensitive instruments the kashta
would be absolutely meaningless. It is significant that the kashta, or 3 x 10-8
second, is very close to the life-spans of certain mesons and hypersons. This
fact support the bold hypothesis that the science of nuclear physics is not
new."
(source: We Are Not The First: Riddles of Ancient Science - By Andrew
Tomas p. 15 - 49 and 49 - 55).380. Frederick Soddy (1877 - 1956) English born scientist. Studied in the University of Oxford. From 1900 to 1902 and was Chemistry assistant in the University of McGill, Montreal, where he co-worked with Rutherford. He received in 1921 a Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry.
He awarded the Nobel prize in 1921 - ""for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes"
In 1903, with Sir William Ramsay, Soddy verified that the decay of radium produced helium.
He had a great regard for the Indian epics of Ramayana and The Mahabharat. In 1909 when academics were first beginning to grasp the awesome power of the atom, he did not take these ancient records as fable.
In the Interpretation of Radium (1909) he wrote these lines:
“Can we not read into
them some justification for the belief that some former forgotten race of men
attained not only to the knowledge we have so recently won, but also to the
power that is not yet ours?”
When Dr Soddy wrote
the book, the atom-bomb box of Pandora had not yet been opened.
In 1909 when academics
were first beginning to grasp the awesome power of the atom, physicist
Frederick Soddy wrote in his Interpretation of Radium: "I believe that
there have been civilisations in the past that were familiar with atomic
energy, and that by misusing it they were totally destroyed."
(source: We Are Not The First: Riddles of Ancient Science - By Andrew
Tomas p. 53). For more refer to chapter on War in Ancient
India and Vimanas.381. Mirabai (1500 - 1550) She was born a Rajput princess, is undoubtedly India's best known saint-poetess of bhakti in the purest Vaishnava tradition. Her bhakti poetry is immortal. Mirabai was born 500 years ago in a little-known village called Kurki in Mewar. The much loved daughter of Rana Ratan Singh, Mira was nurtured by her grandfather Rao Duda in the fortress city of Merta in Mewar. According to the royal custom she was married in 1516 to Prince Bhojraj, son of Rana Sanga, ruler of the Sisodiya clan of Mewar.
In 1521 Bhojraj died, soon followed by Rana Sanga. Mira refused to lead the secluded life of a royal widow and defied all conventions. She sang and danced with greater mystic frenzy. Her cymbals and her anklets were heard even in the temple on the outskirts of the city, a public place open to all devotees. Such insubordination had never been witnessed before. The young Rana Vikram and his mother could not treat Mira with either indifference or clemency. Her rising popularity and strong political connections made the Rana so jealous that he tried to kill her several times.. It is said that once a poisonous snake was sent to her in a flower basket, but when she opened it she found an image of Krishna; on another occasion she was given a cup of poison but drank it with Krishna's name on her lips and was miraculously saved.
This Rajput princess's lovely songs have inspired many generations of Hindus. She sang:
"My only Lord is Giridhar Gopal
None else, none else, in this false world;
I have forsaken my family and friends,
I sit among saintly souls,
I have lost regard for worldly fame and honor,
My heart swells at the sight of the godly,
It shrinks at the sight of the worldly.
I have watered the creeper of God’s love with my own tears.
Churning the curds of life, I have taken out the butter and thrown away the rest.
The King, my husband, sent me a cup of poison:
I drank it with pleasure.
The news is now public, everyone knows now
That Mirabai has fallen in love with God!
It does not matter now: what was fated to happen, has happened."
Many stories are told of how the devotion of Mirabai for Lord Krishna led her to abandon her husband, who was the ruler of the ancient Rajput state of Mewar, and to pass life in complete dedication to the praise of her God. Once for example, her husband, hearing her talking in a closed room to a man, rushed in with drawn sword to kill her for her unfaithfulness. But it was Krishna with her, and he transformed her into a multitude of forms so that the king could not tell which one was really his wife. In response to her continual pleading for a demonstration of his love for her, Lord Krishna finally revealed himself in his glory and absorbed her soul into his. Her hauntingly lovely songs are still popular in western India and Rajasthan. In this poem, Giridhar Gopal is a name of Krishna.
Refer to Meerabai Bhajans: Aisi Laagi Lagan - By Anup Jalota and http://www.jalebimusic.com
382. Walter Eidlitz (1892 - 1976) also called Vaman dasa. A Jew from Germany finds himself in an internment camp in India during the Second World War. His goal was to study Indian religion and philosophy. He had left his family in Germany in late 1930 and traveled to India in search of God. His wife loved him enough to honor his spiritual quest, the fruit of which he would share with her years later upon his return. He has written about his spiritual journey in his book Journey to Unknown India.
From India he merged from the myriad of India’s spiritual paths on the bhakti marg, the path of devotion as taught by Sri Chaitanya.
His goal was to go Mount
Kailash, the mountain of God’s revelation, and at its base Manasarovar, the
lake of the divine spirit. There, says the legend, the eternal human soul
glides upon the clear waves like a swan, untouched by fear, hate, or
desire.
“God himself speaks
the Bhagavad Gita, the innermost God which Brahma the Creator, Vishnu, the
Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer are only aspects."
Hindus have a greater
respect for the spoken word than do people in the West. Not only every word in
a mantra, but practically every sound and every word in the language is called
akshara in Sanskrit, which means “the indestructible”. Akshara is also a name
for God. A true mantra should be sung not spoken. Indian scriptures call Brahma
the Creator “the first singer”. Our world is said to have sprung from the
mantra he sang. In the West, these ideas are probably utterly foreign, and yet
there are traces of similar teachings.
A poor man in India
can have a rough conception of the fact that within himself exists an eternal
atman, which wanders through the ages. He knows that he has brought about his
hard fate in his life through his deeds in a former existence and that his
behavior in this life determines his destiny. This teaching is known only to a
few of the most profound mystics in the West.
As Krishna says
in the Bhagavad Gita,
“Never was there a
time when I, nor thou, nor these lords of men, were not, nor will there ever be
a time hereafter, when we shall cease to be….As a man throweth away old
garments and putteth on new; even so, the soul in the body, having quitted its
old mortal frame, entereth into others which are new….The weapon divideth it
not, the fire burneth it not, the water corrupteth it not, the wind drieth it
not away; for it is indivisible, inconsumable, incorruptible…Therefore, knowing
it to be thus, thou shouldst not grieve.”
(source: Journey to Unknown India - By Walther Eidlitz
p. 1 - 101).
383. Franklin
Merrell-Wolff (1887 - 1985) was an American Mystic, Philosopher, and
Mathematician who combined an extraordinary intellect with profound mystical
insight and authenticity. Born in 1887 in Pasadena, California, he was raised
in San Fernando as the son of a Methodist minister. Wolff graduated from
Stanford University in 1911 with a major in mathematics and minors in philosophy
and psychology. He then went on to Harvard graduate school to study
philosophy. As a result of his philosophical studies, Wolff "became convinced of the probable existence of a transcendent mode of consciousness that could not be comprehended within the limits of our ordinary forms of knowledge." Prior to completing his degree at Harvard, he returned to Stanford to teach mathematics. When it became clear to him that he must "reach beyond anything contained within the academic circles of the West" to Realize Transcendental Consciousness, he left his promising career in academia to engage in a spiritual quest. Wolff was drawn to the philosophical works of the Indian sage Shankara, who founded the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy.
Wolff's first premonitory recognition took place in 1922, approximately 14 years prior to his transcendental breakthroughs. Wolff describes this first recognition as a noetic insight into the truth of "I am Atman". The term "Atman" is a Sanskrit term that Wolff uses to refer to the transcendental subject to consciousness (see the discussion above of the second fundamental of the philosophy).
(source: http://www.integralscience.org/gsc/ and http://www.merrell-wolff.org/philo.htm)
384. Dr. Abinash Chandra Bose (1896 - ) was the Head of the Dept of English in Rajaram College, Kolhapur, and post-graduate Teacher, Bombay University for 25 years. He was a keen student of Sanskrit and had taken a life-long interest in the Vedas. He carried out researches in Mysticism in Poetry at the Trinity College, Dublin. His approach of the Vedas has been that of a lover of poetry and a student of India’s spiritual history and comparative religion.
“It is usual to
describe Vedic poetry as primitive. If, by 'primitive poetry' is meant
tribal song or folk ballad, then nothing could be farther from the fact. No
primitive poet ever sang:
Thought was the pillow
of her couch,
Sight was the unguent of her eyes.
Sight was the unguent of her eyes.
If we should call
Vedic poetry primitive, we should do so with reference to its pristine purity
and its freedom from the malaise of the later civilization. Our people have
got a better name for the Vedic age - Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth. Because the
Vedic sages loved life as well as God, every wish of theirs for the good things
of the earth took the form of an ardent prayer. The Rishis (sages),
including women among them, placed themselves under the discipline of Satya
(Truth) and Rta (Eternal Order), as well as Tapas (spiritual ardor, superceding
animal life). They were pure in their mental make-up, dedicated to a pure way
of life and were transported by spiritual exaltation and what they accepted as
divine inspiration. Their word (Vak) was, for them, a revelation in their souls
of inner truth of reality, which they creatively received.
In their purity,
austerity and power, the Vedic hymns have appeared to me like fresh, clear
streams gushing out of a rocky mountain. The beautiful pictures of life and
nature seem to carry some deep, hidden meaning. The very sound often makes a
deep, symbolic impression. The wise men of India, from the immediate successors
of the Vedic sages right down to our times, have searched for and discovered
the revelation of the deepest spiritual truth in the Vedas. The visions of
the beauty of life and nature in the Vedas are extremely rich in poetic value.
Perhaps nowhere else in the world has the glory of dawn and sunrise and the
silence and sweetness of nature, received such rich and at the same time such
pure expression. The beauty of woman has been most tenderly delineated. The
Vedas speak of 'gracious, smiling women' and in Usha (Dawn) with the beauty of
a youthful woman in her, they find the perfect smile. Life's little things are
invested with holiness and living appears to be a grand ritual.
(source: The Call of the Vedas - By A C Bose Bharati Vidya Bhawan
Mumbai 1999 p. 1 - 20)
385. Graham Hancock (
? ) is the author of a number of bestselling
investigations of historical mysteries, including The Sign and the Seal,
Fingerprints of the Gods.
"The Vedas (a
superb religious literature with no known parent) might in fact have been
the work of the undeniably maritime Indus Sarasvati civilization which
was long known to have possessed a script but apparently had no religious
literature.'
"What is the most
amazing about these hymnodies is not so much their overall length, which is
awesome, but that for most of their history it is probable that no written
versions of them ever existed – and not because they could not be written down
but because the priests of the Vedic religion that evolved into Hinduism
believed that they should not be written down but should be kept alive instead
in human memory."
" Almost
supernatural feats of memory - Unlike in other big modern industrial
nations that have long ago lost all sense of the sacred and all respect for
‘what the ancients said’, the sacred life still permeates India through and
through to such an extent that an appeal to the authority of scripture can
still settle all disputes. And unlike the cultures of ancient Egypt,
Mesopotamia, China and the Americas, where only spectacular fossils of
architecture and language remain, the culture of ancient India is still
vibrantly alive today in the subcontinent and offers as its gift to the present
a vast library of archaic rituals, dances, games, ceremonies, festivals and
customs as well as an immense oral literature that has not only been preserved
and continuously passed on in the memory of sadhus and rishis (sages, wise men)
for thousands of years but that is also celebrated, rehearsed, admired and
relished in hundreds of thousands of Hindu villages from the Himalayas to the
sea. "
"In India, with
its vibrant spiritual culture, its armies of ragged pilgrims and its remarkable
Vedas raises the possibility that the real origins of civilization could be
very different – not driven by economics but by the spiritual quest that all
true ascetics of India still pursue with the utmost dedication. Such a quest does not
deny that the basic material requirements of the human creature must be met but
seeks to limit our attachment to material things and in general to subordinate
material needs to mental and spiritual self-discipline."
"Indian thought
has traditionally regarded history and prehistory in cyclical rather than
linear terms. In the West time is an arrow – we are born, we live, we die. But in India we die
only to be reborn. Indeed, it is a deeply rooted idea in Indian spiritual
traditions that the earth itself and all living creatures upon it are locked
into an immense cosmic cycle of birth, growth, fruition, death, rebirth and
renewal. Even temples are reborn after they grow too old to be used safely –
through the simple expedient of reconstruction on the same site.
(source: Underground: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization – By
Graham Hancock p. 108 - 196 and 94 - 95). For more refer
to chapter on Sacred AngkorWatch Lost / Submerged city of Dwaraka – The Learning Channel video
386. Linda Johnsen ( ? ) holds a Master's degree in Eastern studies. She is author of Daughter of the Goddess: The Women Saints of India, and The Living Goddess: Reclaiming the Tradition of the Mother of the Universe. She has published nearly 100 articles in magazines such as Hinduism Today, Yoga Journal, and Yoga International and has lectured throughout the United States on Hindu spirituality.
In her book on Hinduism, she has written:
"Hinduism is the one world religion that reaches out to embrace other faiths with respect, a welcome change from groups who expend enormous amounts of energy condemning the sincere beliefs of others. There is no eternal damnation in Hinduism because Hindus believe absolutely no one is excluded from divine grace.
The Hindu tradition has held the culture of greater India together for thousands of years, through fair times and foul. Increasingly, we in the West are looking to Hinduism with the respect and appreciation it deserves, realizing we modern people have a great deal to learn from the oldest religion on Earth.
Today, there's a resurgence of interest in "the wisdom of the East." Many of us in the West flounder spiritually, confused by the inability of our religions to square with scientific reality and craving actual spiritual experience of which our lives seem so devoid. We're impressed by the ability of Eastern religions like Hinduism to meet science head on, agreeing in many respects about important topics, such as the age and size of the universe.
Today, Hindu culture is one of the last remaining enclaves of a universal minded religion.
(source: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism - By Linda Johnsen - cited in introduction and p. 78)
387. Sant Jnaneshwar (1275 - ) was born over seven hundred years ago in the village of Alandi, on the banks of the Indrayani river. The son of a sannyasi, he was shunned by the local Brahmins. Their father, after living the life of an ascetic, returned to married life, and on that account the orthodox Brahmins ostracised the whole family. They were orphaned young and their genius blazed forth while still in their teens.
He was an ardent 'Bhakta' [devotee] of Lord Krishna, Jnandev, the greatest of them, is better known as Jnaneshwara, the 'Lord of Wisdom'. His great work, the Jnaneshwari is a monumental verse commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Apart from this there are also his Anubhavamrita or 'Elixir of Experience'.
Having himself attained this elixir, he says, It is said that Jnaneshwar won the right to investiture with the sacred thread by making a water buffalo recite the Vedas. Alandi is a village located fifteen kilometers from Pune, on the banks of the Indrayani River. Since ancient times, the village has been a shrine of Shiva as Siddheshwar, Lord of Spiritual Attainment. He was the disciple of Swami Ramanand
He was a poet, philosopher, mystic and saint who committed Samadhi 700 years ago in his early twenties believing his work completed. His commentary on Bhagavadgita 'Jnaneshvari' was written when he was only about 15 years old. In the eighties of the twentieth century, 'Jnaneshvari' was added to the list of world's cultural heritage by UNESCO, due to his unconventionally cosmopolitan visions, thinking and writing without regarding creed and caste.
"The distinction between liberated, aspirant and bound subsists only so long as this Elixir of Experience is unknown to one. The enjoyer and the enjoyed, the seer and the seen, are merged in the non-dual, which is indivisible. The devotee has become God, the Goal has become God, the Goal has become the path; this indeed is solitude in the universe.'
This magnificent achievement was completed by the age of 22, when he declared that his life's work was finished and ceremoniously entered into samadhi in a specially prepared crypt, having given instruction that it was to be bricked up. This was in the village of Alandi in Poona district. There is a beautiful atmosphere of sanctity and serenity there. It contains a tree under which an unending chain of recitation of the Jnaneshwari has gone until the present day. Jnaneshwara has remained a perennial fount of inspiration for Maharashtra. He was at once the foundation and crown of this amazing dynasty.
(source: The mystic poets of Maharashtra - sol.com.au).
388. Robert C. Priddy ( ? ) who formerly lectured in philosophy & social science at the University of Oslo (1968-1984) has written:
"All agree that the ancient Indians already operated with a time span of truly astronomical proportions long before the earliest signs of natural science in ancient Greece. It is undeniable that ancient Indian texts present some astonishingly exact scientific calculations even by today's latest scientific standards, such as the speed of light, exact size of the smallest particles and the age of the universe."
"It is undeniable
that ancient Indian texts present some astonishingly exact scientific calculations
even by today's latest scientific standards, such as the speed of light, exact
size of the smallest particles and the age of the universe."
"The
likelihood is that Indian civilization existed in times far more ancient than
historians can witness by scientifically-based methods. Yet this is ignored
due to the limitations of the current assumptions (or pre-judgmental beliefs)
that direct the minds of historians who themselves belong to a civilization
which in many vital respects may still be inferior in many important
respects.""The age of the Vedas of ancient India, the first scriptures known to mankind, may be much greater than supposed by 'scientific historians'. In the West, it is hardly questioned at all that the Bible's Old Testament by and large refers to events that - though probably inaccurately described - actually must have taken place, at least from the time of Abraham and Ur onwards... more than 5,000 years ago. Hebrew scribes are reckoned to have put sacred oral traditions into writing centuries after the events. The same liberality of belief is not accorded to the doubtless yet more ancient Vedas, which the evidence shows were much more firmly based in oral traditions and preserved by a complex cross-checking system of memorizing. Yet some historians even date certain Vedic scriptures only from the earliest extant manuscripts, sometimes even as late as 1400 A.D.
It has been held by some shastris and pundits that Western historians have vastly underrated the age and authenticity of ancient Indian scriptures and handed-down accounts of the past. In the West, it is hardly questioned at all that the Bible's Old Testament...The same liberality of belief is not accorded to the doubtless yet more ancient Vedas, which the evidence shows were much more firmly based in oral traditions and preserved by a complex cross-checking system of memorizing. Yet some historians even date certain Vedic scriptures only from the earliest extant manuscripts, sometimes even as late as 1400 A.D.
It is frequently said, especially by Western academics, that the Greeks were the first to introduce natural philosophy, to speculate on the four (or five) elements, to think of the atom, to conceive of the heliocentric system, and so on. The evidence about India's distant past shows that this is most certainly not the case. That it has been available for a long time, too, reflects very badly on the scope or the historical competence of academic Western philosophers, who continue to stare too much at their European navels.
Great epics of good and evil, of individual conscience and will versus fate had been developed in India long before Homer or the classical European period of the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles and Aristophanes by well over a millennium. On only has to consider the Mahabharata, which describes the catastrophic armed conflict that took place according to widespread tradition about 3000 years BC The date calculated by various Indian shastris and Brahmins from Sanskrit sources is equivalent to 3138 BC. "
(source: On India's Ancient Past - By Robert C Priddy)
389. Balbir K Punj (1949 - ) Member of Parliament and a Rajya Sabha member and convenor of the BJP's think-tank.
"Hinduism doesn’t breed exclusivism, intolerance of other religions and disavowal of the pre-Hindu past. Unfortunately, the same is not true about proselytising religions."
"Exclusivism and intolerance in matters of faith are features of Semitic religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Islam, in fact, had an empire-building agenda from day one. Contrary to these desert-born religions, intolerance and persecution were alien to Hinduism.
It's also not correct to say that pre-Muslim India was not predominantly Hindu, that Buddhism was the dominant religion for many centuries, and that Jainism has an equally long history. By Hinduism one perhaps implies the Vedic faith. Otherwise, Buddhism and Jainism, like Sikhism, Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj, are equally Hindu. Their respective founders as well as their patrons and subscribers were Hindus.
"The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation, whatever it may be, and is doctrinally tolerant.... A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu...he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well being of the world and the mankind."
"The clear-cut and exclusive religious identities of Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism and perceiving them as separate religions are recent phenomena. Otherwise, they were overlapping and mutually inclusive throughout. Most of the Jains and several Sikhs even today consider themselves Hindus. Many Hindus worship Buddha as a reincarnation of Lord Vishnu, visit Jain and Buddhist temples with devotion and pay obeisance at gurudwaras. Small wonder then that the all-India convenor of Bajrang Dal, bugbear of secularists, is Surendra Jain."
(source: The Hindu Soul In Search Of Its Body - outlookindia.com). http://www.bjp.org/news/Dec-1002.htm
"Neo-Platonism
and Christian Gnosticism owe much to India. The Gnostic ideas in regard to a
plurality of heavens and spiritual worlds go back directly to Hindu
sources."
390. Hajime Nakamura (1912 -
1999) Was a Japanese scholar. His field of research was exceedingly broad,
encompassing Indian philosophy, Buddhist studies, historical studies, Japanese
thought, comparative thought. He was the author of The History of Early Vedānta Philosophy an epoch-making study in four volumes.
“Indians conducted far
more elaborate speculations than the Westerners of antiquity and the Middle
Ages with respect to the theory of numbers, the analysis of psychological
phenomena, and the study of linguistic structures. The Indians are highly
rationalistic, insofar as their ideal is to recognize eternal laws concerning
past, present, and future. The thought represented by Tertullian’s aphorism,
“credo quia absurdum,” or “I believe because it is absurd,” had no receptivity
in India.
The Indians
are, at the same time, logical since they generally have a tendency to
sublimate their thinking to the universal; they are at once logical and
rationalistic. On the contrary, many religions of the West are irrational
and illogical, and this is acknowledged by the Westerners themselves. For
example, Albert Schweitzer, a pious and most devoted Christian, says, “Compared
to the logical religions of Asia, the gospel of Jesus is illogical.”
It is often contended
that in contrast to Western thought the spirit of tolerance and mutual
concession is a salient feature of Eastern thought. The religion of the West
at times is harsh and even emphasizes struggle for the sake of keeping the
faith and condemning unbelievers:
“If any man come to
me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren,
and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke,
14.26).
Such aggressive
thoughts as expressed here did not appear at all in the religions of East Asia.
Throughout the religious world of India a more tranquil and peaceful
atmosphere has prevailed from time immemorial. Gotama and Mahavira ended their
lives in peace.
"The idea of
tolerance and concession is based on admitting the compatibility of many
different philosophical views of the world. The Indians are prone to tolerate
the co-existence of philosophical thoughts of various types from the
metaphysical viewpoint. Interference with religions on the part of the state
was not found in India, but in China it occurred to a considerable degree.”
(source: Ways of
Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India-China-Tibet-Japan- By Hajime Nakamura
p. 16 – 19).
He firmly believed
that:
“Without Indian
influence Japanese culture would not be what it is today.”
(source: Japan and Indian Asia -
By Hajime Nakamura p. 1). For
more on Japan refer to chapter on Glimpses XVII
391. Friedrich Heiler
(1892 – 1967) born in Muenchen, Germany. He was a professor of history of
religions.
He is the author of Mysticism
of the Upanishads, Christian faith and Indian thought and Das Gebet and Die Religionen der Menschheit pointed out that Greek
mysticism was borrowed from India.
He wrote:
" India is our
motherland of speculative theology."
“There runs in
unbroken chain from the Atman-Brahman mysticism of the Vedic Upanishads to the
Vedanata of Sankara on the one side and on the other through the mystical
technique of the Yoga system to the Buddhist doctrine of salvation.
Another line of
development equally continuous leads from the Orphic-Dionysiac mysticism to
Plato, Philo and the later Hellenistic mystery cults to the Neoplatonic
mysticism of the Infinite of Plotinus which is in turn is the source of the
“mystical theology” of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areioagute…..Perhaps this
second chain is only an offshoot from the first, since the Elatic speculations
and the cryptic doctrine of redemption have possibly borrowed essential elements from early Indian
mysticism.”
(source: Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion - By
Frederic Heiler p. 135 and Eastern Religions & Western Thought - By. Dr. S.
Radhakrishnan p. 248 – 249).
392. Shirdi Sai Baba ( -
1918) Sai Baba was a Brahmin from Pathri. His parents had handed him over
to a Muslim fakir and his wife for reasons unknown. It is also known that after
some years that fakir died and before his death he asked his wife to hand over
the child to a petty chieftain of Selu in the Nizam’s dominions who was called
Gopal Rao Deshmukh. It is believed that Baba must have been eight years old
then. Deshmukh, a Brahmin who was also called Venkatesa (Venhusa as Baba called
him) worshipped Venkatachalapathi of Thirumala and had developed siddhis. He
became Baba’s guru and Baba served him with Bhakti and devotion.
He has said:
“The creator God is
one and the same for both communities, Hindus and Muslims. This is a mere
verbal difference. Sadhakas should not attach importance to it. But see one
God, Sat Chit Ananda in everything. He that is called Allah Ilahi by
Muslims is the same as Seshasayee for the Hindus. In your Puranas you have the
story of Chokia Mahar who became hundred times dearer than his pujari to
Pandarinath. He who is pure in heart is pure and holy wherever he is.”
Baba soon moved on to
the dilapidated and crumbling mosque and made himself comfortable there. The
place which was later called Dwaraka Mayi was to be his home till his
death. He dug a pit and started a fire which was called the dhuni and it
was kept burning day and night and it continues to burn even today at
Shirdi.
He taught:
“I am the attributes
of Absolute Nirguna. I have no name and no residence.
“I am embroiled myself
in Karma and got this body. Brahman is my father and Maya is my mother. I am
formless and in everything. I fill all space and am omnipresent. I am water, in
land, in crowds and also in solitary wilderness. I am in the fire and in
ether.”
(source: God who Walked On Earth - By Rangaswami Parthasarathy p.
20 - 23 and Great Indian Saints - By Pranab Bandyopadhyay p.
224 - 225)393. General George S. Patton (1885-1945) He came from a long line of soldiers who fought and often died in many conflicts, including the American Revolution and, in particular, the Confederate side in the American Civil War.
Remembered for his fierce determination and ability to lead soldiers, General S. Patton, Jr. is considered one of the greatest military figures in history.
He believed that he had acquired his military skills on ancient battlefields.
He was a staunch believer in reincarnation. One of his favorite topics, he would offer up as evidence pertinent bits of The Bhagavad Gita:
"For sure is the death of him that is born, and sure the birth of him that is dead"
He used to point out that the poet William Wordsworth also shared his belief in reincarnation. It is impossible for a person familiar with Indian thought not to see the reflection of Vedanta in Wordsworth poem - Tintern Abbey written in 1798.
(source: http://www.lib.byu.edu/~english/WWI/over/glass.html and Coming Back: The Science of Reincarnation - By ISCKON p. 9)
394. Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) He was a French author, designer, and artist. He was possibly the most important of the Romantic authors in the French language. His major works include the novels Notre Dame de Paris and Les Misérables, and a large body of poetry.
Victor Hugo’s respect and awe for the literary masterpieces of India were born of his perception of the immensity of the universe described in the epics. In ‘Supremate,’ a poem in his Legend of the Ages, he versified the narrative portion of the Kena Upanishad in 1870.
He imitated the Kena Upanishad in his poem, Suprematie (The Legend of the Centuries) in 1870.
He gathered his information from G. Pautheir’s Les Livres Sacres de l’Orient.
Vayou - is Vayu (God of Wind), Agni (God of Fire) and Indra (God of space):
"Lorsque les
trois grands dieux eurent dans un cachot
Mis les démons, chassé les monstres de là-haut,
Oté sa griffe à l'hydre, au noir dragon son aile,
Et sur ce tas hurlant fermé l'ombre éternelle,
Laissant grincer l'enfer, ce sépulcre vivant,
Ils vinrent tous les trois, Vâyou le dieu du Vent,
Agni, dieu de la Flamme, Indra, dieu de l'Espace,
S'asseoir sur le zénith, qu'aucun mont ne dépasse,
Et se dirent, ayant dans le ciel radieux
Chacun un astre au front : " nous sommes les seuls dieux!"
Tout à coup devant eux surgit dans l'ombre obscure
Une lumière ayant les yeux d'une figure.
Ce que cette lumière était, rien ne saurait
Le dire, et, comme brille au fond d'une forêt
Un long rayon de lune en une route étroite,
Elle resplendissait, se tenant toute droite.
Ainsi se dresse un phare au sommet d'un récif.
C'était un flamboiement immobile, pensif,
Debout.
Et les trois dieux s'étonnèrent.
Ils dirent : "Qu'est ceci?"
Tout se tut et les cieux attendirent.
"Dieu Vâyou, dit Agni, dieu Vâyou, dit Indra,
Parle à cette lumière. Elle te répondra.
Crois-tu que tu pourrais savoir ce qu'elle est?
- Certes,
Dit Vâyou. Je le puis."
Mis les démons, chassé les monstres de là-haut,
Oté sa griffe à l'hydre, au noir dragon son aile,
Et sur ce tas hurlant fermé l'ombre éternelle,
Laissant grincer l'enfer, ce sépulcre vivant,
Ils vinrent tous les trois, Vâyou le dieu du Vent,
Agni, dieu de la Flamme, Indra, dieu de l'Espace,
S'asseoir sur le zénith, qu'aucun mont ne dépasse,
Et se dirent, ayant dans le ciel radieux
Chacun un astre au front : " nous sommes les seuls dieux!"
Tout à coup devant eux surgit dans l'ombre obscure
Une lumière ayant les yeux d'une figure.
Ce que cette lumière était, rien ne saurait
Le dire, et, comme brille au fond d'une forêt
Un long rayon de lune en une route étroite,
Elle resplendissait, se tenant toute droite.
Ainsi se dresse un phare au sommet d'un récif.
C'était un flamboiement immobile, pensif,
Debout.
Et les trois dieux s'étonnèrent.
Ils dirent : "Qu'est ceci?"
Tout se tut et les cieux attendirent.
"Dieu Vâyou, dit Agni, dieu Vâyou, dit Indra,
Parle à cette lumière. Elle te répondra.
Crois-tu que tu pourrais savoir ce qu'elle est?
- Certes,
Dit Vâyou. Je le puis."
Agni, dit Indra; frère Agni, mon compagnon,
Dit Vâyou, pourrais-tu le savoir, toi?
Sans doute",
Dit Agni.
Le dieu rouge, Agni, que l'eau redoute,
Et devant qui médite à genoux le Bouddha,
Alla vers la clarté sereine et demanda :
"Qu'es-tu clarté?
(source: India and World Civilization - By D. P. Singhal Pan
Macmillan Limited. 1993 p. 241)Dit Vâyou, pourrais-tu le savoir, toi?
Sans doute",
Dit Agni.
Le dieu rouge, Agni, que l'eau redoute,
Et devant qui médite à genoux le Bouddha,
Alla vers la clarté sereine et demanda :
"Qu'es-tu clarté?
395. Prof. Raimundo Panikkar (1918 - ) Born in two major religious traditions, he has been striving towards the harmony of religion in a pluralistic world. Speaking of the The Cosmology Hymn/ Hymn of Creation in the Rigveda, he wrote:
"The vision of this hymn comes out of a profound insight into the mystery of reality. It is the product of a mystical experience that far transcends the limits of logical thinking; it is a religious chant - for only in music or poetry can such a message be conveyed - invoking in splendid verses the Primal Mystery that transcends all categories, both human and divine....."
(source: The Vedic Experience - By Prof. Raimundo Panikkar p. 54 Mantra-manjari Pub. Motilal Banarasidas).
"The Vedic experience may perhaps disclose, not an alternative to the modern view of life and the world....but an already existing, although often hidden, dimension of Man himself."
(source: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism - By Linda Johnsen p. 54).
The Bhagavad Gita uses the same expression, gati, to express both the way toward the goal and the goal itself, often called the parama gati, the supreme goal. As the word itself suggests, gati (from the root gam-, to go, to move) means a going, a movement, motion in general. In the Bhagavad Gita it has the connotation of the pilgrimage that constitutes human life, a connotation that allows the text to say that he who is on the path has, in a certain sense, already reached the end of it, because the end is not another place outside or after the way itself, but is already contained in it. Like other parts of the Vedic Revelation, this truth can be grasped only by personal experience. The pilgrimage that is life may lead us to its goal, which in the Bhagavad Gita is described as union with the Lord. The Lord comes down to earth and manifests himself to Man in order to proclaim his message of love and salvation. The Lord is not only the powerful ruler, the mighty God, the just judge, but also the Savior."
(source: http://www.adishakti.org/prophecies/prophecy_20.htm)
396. Sir William Temple (1628 -1699) English statesman and diplomat, in his Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning (1690) he wrote:
"From these famous Indians, it seems most probable that Pythagoras learned, and transported into Greece and Italy, the greatest part of his natural and moral philosophy, rather than from the Aegyptians...Nor does it seem unlikely that the Aegyptians themselves might have drawn much of their learning from the Indians..long before..Lycurgus, who likewise traveled to India, brought from thence also the chief principles of his laws."
Temple's ideas remained in isolation in his period until they were revived in the middle of the 18th century when a battle raged between the 'believers' and the 'infidels' on the question of the value of Mosaic interpretation of history.
(source: Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art - By Partha Mitter p. 191)
397. S Gurumurthy ( ? ) a chartered accountant, acclaimed writer, columnist and founder of Swadeshi Jagaran Manch has written eloquently about Indic Civilization:
"In the East, more specifically in India, there prevailed a society and a social mind which thrived and happily grew within a multiplicity of thoughts. "Ano bhadrah kratavo yantu visatah" ("let noble thoughts come in from all directions of the universe") went the Rigvedic invocation.
We, therefore, welcomed all, whether it was the Parsis who came fleeing from the slaughter of Islamic theocratic marauders and received protection here for their race and their religion, or the Jews who were slaughtered and maimed everywhere else in the world. They all found a secure refuge here along with their culture, civilization, religion and the book. "
"There is continuity in Indian civilization today. It is not a frozen continuity. It is change and continuity. It is changeless India and yet changing India. It can interface with modern world, holding tradition in one hand. This is the civilizational assert that India has been able to preserve in spite of thousands of years of onslaught, with a stateless situation, with hostile ruling situation, which tried to destroy the society of India, the ethos of India, the lifestyle of India, the traditions and faith of India. This capacity to survive seems unique to Indian civilization. In Europe, the erosion of culture, family values and trivializing of marriage as mere biological relationship, all resulted in the decline of Europe so much, that they say, that in the next fifty years, there may be no Scandinavian nations. "
(source: Global Positioning of India - By S Gurumurthy - sulekhahopper.com and Semitic Monotheism: The Root of Intolerance in India - By S Gurumurthy).
398. Col. Henry S Olcott (1832 – 1907) American author, attorney, philosopher, and cofounder of the Theosophical Society in a lecture in Allahabad, in 1881.
“The ancient Hindus could navigate the air, and not only navigate it, but fight battles in it like so many war-eagles combating for the domination of the clouds.
To be so perfect in aeronautics, they must have known all the arts and sciences related to the science, including the strata and currents of the atmosphere, the relative temperature, humidity, density and specific gravity of the various gases...”
399. Goswami Tulsi Das (1532 – 1623) the greatest and most famous of Hindi poets, and philosopher was a Sarwariya Brahmin. His fathers name was Atma Ram Dived, his mother is said to have been Hulasidevi. He was named ‘Rambola’, as to everyone’s astonishment, the child cried with the word ‘Rama’ as soon as he was born. The name ‘Rambola’ meant one who uttered Rama. Tulsidas wrote twelve books. The most famous book is his Ramayan—Ram-charit-manas - Lake of Rama's deeds—in Hindi. He wrote this book under the directions of Hanuman. This Ramayan is read and worshipped with great reverence in every Hindu home in Northern India. It is an inspiring book. It contains sweet couplets in beautiful rhyme. Vinaya Patrika is another important book written by Tulsidas.
He first made Ayodhya his headquarters, frequently visiting distant places of pilgrimage in different parts of India. During his residence at Ayodhya the Lord Rama is said to have appeared to him in a dream, and to have commanded him to write a Ramayana in the language used by the common people. He began this work in the year 1574 and had finished the third book (Aranyakanda), when differences with the Vairagi Vaishnavas at Ayodhya to whom he had attached himself, led him to migrate to Benares.
In the 16th century, the beloved Hindu poet Tulsi Das composed a new, Hindi version of the Ramayana called the Rama Charita Manasa. An updated version was necessary because most people could no longer understand Sanskrit, the language of the original poem. Mahatma Gandhi considered the Rama Charita Manasa the single greatest book in the world.
This book has immortalized Tulsidas as a great poet, philosopher, and devotee of Lord Ram. He was hailed as a great sage of his times. It is said that Raja Man Singh and Raja Todar Mal waited on him.
"Keep the name of Rama always in your mind, remembering it with love. It will feed you when you're alone. bless you when you feel cursed, and protect you when you're abandoned. To the crippled it's another limb. To the blind it's another eye. To the orphaned it's a loving parent. Whenever I remember Rama's name, the desert of my heart blooms lush and green."
One day some thieves came to Tulsidas’s Ashram to take away his goods. They saw a blue-complexioned guard, with bow and arrow in his hands, keeping watch at the gate. Wherever they moved, the guard followed them. They were frightened. In the morning they asked Tulsidas, "O venerable saint! We saw a young guard with bow and arrow in his hands at the gate of your residence. Who is this man?" Tulsidas remained silent and wept. He came to know that Lord Rama Himself had been taking the trouble to protect his goods. He at once distributed all his wealth among the poor.
(source: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hinduism - By Linda Johnsen p. 61 - 62 and http://www.dlshq.org/saints/tulsidas.htm. for more refer to Goswami Tulsidas
400. Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami (1942 - ) When Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami attained mahasamadhi, his great departure, on November 12, 2001, he designated Bodhinatha Veylanswami, a disciple for 37 years, as his successor.
American born editor of Hinduism Today has observed:
"Hindus the world over, while following unique and varied paths, are united by their belief in karma, dharma, the all-pervasiveness of God, the sanctity of the Vedas, reincarnation, noninjuriousness, enlightenment, yoga, the illumined guru's centrality and the mysticism of worship."
"The social, political power of the family of faiths we call Hinduism is based on its spiritual, mystical power, which abides in its many individual sects and sampradayas, each with its enlightened guru lineages, dynamic temples, noble traditions and profound scriptural canons. This sectarian diversity is the real power of the Hindu faith and must be preserved."
"From the Hindu perspective, all of life is sacred, and performing our duty is dharma. Dharma is a rich term that means "way of righteousness, religion and fulfillment of duty." From this lofty view, every deed is a part of our religious practice. Everything we do is an act of worship and faith. There are no purely secular activities. Our worship in the temple is part of our dharma, and our work or occupation is part of our dharma.'
(source: Hinduism Today - Jan/Feb/March 2005 and July/August/September, 2004).
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
(My humble salutations to , H H Swamyjis, Hindu Wisdom, great Universal Philosophers, Historians, Professors and Devotees for the discovering collection)
( The Blog is reverently for all the seekers of truth and lovers of wisdom and also purely a non-commercial)
0 comments:
Post a Comment