REMEMBER

Always remember that the cause of your attachment to this material world is love which is selfish and not pure love; the desire to please your senses is binding and not relinquishment of desires. Therefore, do not try to use any person, sense object or any material thing for your own enjoyment and even if you get them in the course of your life's journey, do not consider them to be yours and attach your emotions with them. You become happy if you everything happens as you desire and feel sad if the turn of events are not according to your plans. Let the events in your life unfold naturally and take things as they come and remain unaffected by whatever life has to offer you. Love everything that you perceive through your senses for love's sake and that love should not be selfish, but for the betterment and satisfaction of the object or persons you come in contact with. Then your love will not be binding but will become a prayer for the Lord and for the immense enjoyment of the inner self.

In course of our lifetime there are occasions when most of us lament that someone close to us does not love us as he/she used to or his affection for us has diminished with the passage of time. There are other instances when we say that a certain individual did not sacrifice as much as we had done for him/her on earlier occasions. We always crib that we had invested so much of our love ,affection, time and wealth in a certain individual, but he did not reciprocate in the same way when the time to redeem his/her debt to us arose.

When we are in such a frame of mind, we should pause and think, turn our consciousness inwards and start contemplating that - was our love for the individual concerned selfless or was there a desire that he should repay our love towards him by giving us succor during our times of crisis? Had we turned love into trade or exchange of money and goodies for our sense gratification? In such a case there is mutual duplicity and deceit which leads to the apparent lessening of love and indifference.

Paper on Hinduism

Paper on Hinduism

By Swami Vivekananda                                                                                                               Read at the Religious Parliament in Chicago on 19th September, 1893


E-Text Source: www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info
Three religions now stand in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric - Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks and all of them prove by their survival their internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that remains to tell the tale of their grand religion, sect after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations, but like the waters of the seashore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing flood, a thousand times more vigorous, and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed, and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith.

From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists, and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in the Hindu’s religion.

Where then, the question arises, where is the common centre to which all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common basis upon which all these seemingly hopeless contradictions rest? And this is the question I shall attempt to answer.

The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.

The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as perfected beings. I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very greatest of them were women. Here it may be said that these laws as laws may be without end, but they must have had a beginning. The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. In that case God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make Him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound, and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So God would die, which is absurd. Therefore there never was a time when there was no creation.

If I may be allowed to use a simile, creation and creator are two lines, without beginning and without end, running parallel to each other. God is the ever active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time and again destroyed. This is what the Brahmin boy repeats every day: “The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and moons of previous cycles.” And this agrees with modern science.

Here I stand and if I shut my eyes, and try to conceive my existence, “I”, “I”, “I”, what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of material substances? The Vedas declare, “No”. I am a spirit living in a body. I am not the body. The body will die, but I shall not die. Here am I in this body; it will fall, but I shall go on living. I had also a past. The soul was not created, for creation means a combination which means a certain future dissolution. If then the soul was created, it must die. Some are born happy, enjoy perfect health, with beautiful body, mental vigour and all wants supplied. Others are born miserable, some are without hands or feet, others again are idiots and only drag on a wretched existence. Why, if they are all created, why does a just and merciful God create one happy and another unhappy, why is He so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are miserable in this life will be happy in a future one. Why should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God?

In the second place, the idea of a creator God does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel fiat of an all-powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before his birth, to make a man miserable or happy and those were his past actions.

Are not all the tendencies of the mind and the body accounted for by inherited aptitude? Here are two parallel lines of existence - one of the mind, the other of matter. If matter and its transformations answer for all that we have, there is no necessity for supposing the existence of a soul. But it cannot be proved that thought has been evolved out of matter, and if a philosophical monism is inevitable, spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a materialistic monism; but neither of these is necessary here.

We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration, through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. There are other tendencies peculiar to a soul caused by its past actions. And a soul with a certain tendency would by the laws of affinity take birth in a body which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives.

There is another suggestion. Taking all these for granted, how is it that I do not remember anything of my past life ? This can be easily explained. I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue, in fact no words of my mother tongue are now present in my consciousness; but let me try to bring them up, and they rush in. That shows that consciousness is only the surface of the mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all our experiences. Try and struggle, they would come up and you would be conscious even of your past life.

This is direct and demonstrative evidence. Verification is the perfect proof of a theory, and here is the challenge thrown to the world by the Rishis. We have discovered the secret by which the very depths of the ocean of memory can be stirred up - try it and you would get a complete reminiscence of your past life.

So then the Hindu believes that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce - him the fire cannot burn - him the water cannot melt - him the air cannot dry. The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is located in the body, and that death means the change of this centre from body to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter. In its very essence it is free, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow or other it finds itself tied down to matter, and thinks of itself as matter.Why should the free, perfect, and pure being be thus under the thraldom of matter, is the next question. How can the perfect soul be deluded into the belief that it is imperfect? We have been told that the Hindus shirk the question and say that no such question can be there. Some thinkers want to answer it by positing one or more quasi-perfect beings, and use big scientific names to fill up the gap. But naming is not explaining. The question remains the same. How can the perfect become the quasi-perfect; how can the pure, the absolute, change even a microscopic particle of its nature? But the Hindu is sincere. He does not want to take shelter under sophistry. He is brave enough to face the question in a manly fashion; and his answer is: “I do not know. I do not know how the perfect being, the soul, came to think of itself as imperfect, as joined to and conditioned by matter.” But the fact is a fact for all that. It is a fact in everybody’s consciousness that one thinks of oneself as the body. The Hindu does not attempt to explain why one thinks one is the body. The answer that it is the will of God is no explanation. This is nothing more than what the Hindu says, “I do not know.”

Well, then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death. But here is another question: Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed down into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and fro at the mercy of good and bad actions - a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever-raging, ever-rushing, uncompromising current of cause and effect; a little moth placed under the wheel of causation which rolls on crushing everything in its way and waits not for the widow’s tears or the orphan’s cry? The heart sinks at the idea, yet this is the law of Nature. Is there no hope? Is there no escape? - was the cry that went up from the bottom of the heart of despair. It reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: “Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again.” “Children of immortal bliss” - what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name - heirs of immortal bliss - yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. Ye are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. Ye divinities on earth - sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.

Thus it is that the Vedas proclaim not a dreadful combination of unforgiving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One “by whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks upon the earth.”

And what is His nature?

He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful. “Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life.” Thus sang the Rishis of the Vedas. And how to worship Him? Through love. “He is to be worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life.”

This is the doctrine of love declared in the Vedas, and let us see how it is fully developed and taught by Krishna, whom the Hindus believe to have been God incarnate on earth.

He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world - his heart to God and his hands to work.

It is good to love God for hope of reward in this or the next world, but it is better to love God for love’s sake, and the prayer goes: “Lord, I do not want wealth, nor children, nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth, but grant me this, that I may love Thee without the hope of reward - love unselfishly for love’s sake.” One of the disciples of Krishna, the then Emperor of India, was driven from his kingdom by his enemies and had to take shelter with his queen in a forest in the Himalayas, and there one day the queen asked him how it was that he, the most virtuous of men, should suffer so much misery. Yudhishthira answered, “Behold, my queen, the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are; I love them. They do not give me anything, but my nature is to love the grand, the beautiful, therefore I love them. Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is the only object to be loved; my nature is to love Him, and therefore I love. I do not pray for anything; I do not ask for anything. Let Him place me wherever He likes. I must love Him for love’s sake. I cannot trade in love.”

The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is therefore, Mukti - freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery.

And this bondage can only fall off through the mercy of God, and this mercy comes on the pure. So purity is the condition of His mercy. How does that mercy act? He reveals Himself to the pure heart; the pure and the stainless see God, yea, even in this life; then and then only all the crookedness of the heart is made straight. Then all doubt ceases. He is no more the freak of a terrible law of causation. This is the very centre, the very vital conception of Hinduism. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories. If there are existences beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an all-merciful universal Soul, he will go to Him direct. He must see Him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about God, is: “I have seen the soul; I have seen God.” And that is the only condition of perfection. The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realising - not in believing, but in being and becoming.

Thus the whole object of their system is by constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reach God and see God, and this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus.

And what becomes of a man when he attains perfection? He lives a life of bliss infinite. He enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having obtained the only thing in which man ought to have pleasure, namely God, and enjoys the bliss with God.

So far all the Hindus are agreed. This is the common religion of all the sects of India; but, then, perfection is absolute, and the absolute cannot be two or three. It cannot have any qualities. It cannot be an individual. And so when a soul becomes perfect and absolute, it must become one with Brahman, and it would only realise the Lord as the perfection, the reality, of its own nature and existence, the existence absolute, knowledge absolute, and bliss absolute. We have often and often read this called the losing of individuality and becoming a stock or a stone.

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”

I tell you it is nothing of the kind. If it is happiness to enjoy the consciousness of this small body, it must be greater happiness to enjoy the consciousness of two bodies, the measure of happiness increasing with the consciousness of an increasing number of bodies, the aim, the ultimate of happiness being reached when it would become a universal consciousness.

Therefore, to gain this infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison-individuality must go. Then alone can death cease when I am alone with life, then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself, then alone can all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself; and this is the necessary scientific conclusion. Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter; and Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul.

Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop from further progress, because it would reach the goal. Thus Chemistry could not progress farther when it would discover one element out of which all other could be made. Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfill its services in discovering one energy of which all others are but manifestations, and the science of religion become perfect when it would discover Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world. One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations. Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no farther. This is the goal of all science.

All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language, and with further light from the latest conclusions of science.

Descend we now from the aspirations of philosophy to the religion of the ignorant. At the very outset, I may tell you that there is no polytheism in India. In every temple, if one stands by and listens, one will find the worshippers applying all the attributes of God, including omnipresence, to the images. It is not polytheism, nor would the name henotheism explain the situation. “The rose called by any other name would smell as sweet.” Names are not explanations.

I remember, as a boy, hearing a Christian missionary preach to a crowd in India. Among other sweet things he was telling them was that if he gave a blow to their idol with his stick, what could it do? One of his hearers sharply answered, “If I abuse your God, what can He do?” “You would be punished,” said the preacher, “when you die.” “So my idol will punish you when you die,” retorted the Hindu.

The tree is known by its fruits. When I have seen amongst them that are called idolaters, men, the like of whom in morality and spirituality and love I have never seen anywhere, I stop and ask myself, “Can sin beget holiness?”

Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can no more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing. By the law of association, the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships. He will tell you, it helps to keep his mind fixed on the Being to whom he prays. He knows as well as you do that the image is not God, is not omnipresent. After all, how much does omnipresence mean to almost the whole world? It stands merely as a word, a symbol. Has God superficial area? If not, when we repeat that word “omnipresent”, we think of the extended sky or of space, that is all.

As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the image of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms. But with this difference that while some people devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows, the whole religion of the Hindu is centred in realisation. Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols or temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood: but on and on he must progress.

He must not stop anywhere. “External worship, material worship,” say the scriptures, “is the lowest stage; struggling to rise high, mental prayer is the next stage, but the highest stage is when the Lord has been realised.” Mark, the same earnest man who is kneeling before the idol tells you, “Him the Sun cannot express, nor the moon, nor the stars, the lightning cannot express Him, nor what we speak of as fire; through Him they shine.” But he does not abuse any one’s idol or call its worship sin. He recognises in it a necessary stage of life. “The child is father of the man.” Would it be right for an old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a sin?

If a man can realise his divine nature with the help of an image, would it be right to call that a sin? Nor even when he has passed that stage, should he call it an error. To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realise the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength, till it reaches the Glorious Sun.

Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognised it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realised, or thought of, or stated, through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols - so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas on. It is not that this help is necessary for every one, but those that do not need it have no right to say that it is wrong. Nor is it compulsory in Hinduism.

One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots. On the other hand, it is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths. The Hindus have their faults, they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are always for punishing their own bodies, and never for cutting the throats of their neighbours. If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of Inquisition. And even this cannot be laid at the door of his religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity.

To the Hindu, then, the whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them. Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures.

It is the same light coming through glasses of different colours. And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation. But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns. The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna, “I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there.” And what has been the result? I challenge the world to find, throughout the whole system of Sanskrit philosophy, any such expression as that the Hindu alone will be saved and not others. Says Vyasa, “We find perfect men even beyond the pale of our caste and creed.” One thing more. How, then, can the Hindu, whose whole fabric of thought centres in God, believe in Buddhism which is agnostic, or in Jainism which is atheistic?

The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also.

This, brethren, is a short sketch of the religious ideas of the Hindus. The Hindu may have failed to carry out all his plans, but if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being, from the lowest grovelling savage not far removed from the brute, to the highest man towering by the virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognise divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be created in aiding humanity to realise its own true, divine nature.

Offer such a religion, and all the nations will follow you. Asoka’s council was a council of the Buddhist faith. Akbar’s, though more to the purpose, was only a parlour-meeting. It was reserved for America to proclaim to all quarters of the globe that the Lord is in every religion.

May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea! The star arose in the East; it travelled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world; and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the Sanpo, a thousandfold more effulgent than it ever was before.

Hail, Columbia, motherland of liberty! It has been given to thee, who never dipped her hand in her neighbour’s blood, who never found out that the shortest way of becoming rich was by robbing one’s neighbours, it has been given to thee to march at the vanguard of civilisation with the flag of harmony.

* Each soul is potentially Divine. The Goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling nature external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy - by one, or more, or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of Religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

* The Upanishads are the great mine of Strength. Therein lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world; the whole world can be vivified, made strong, energized through them.

* In modern language, the theme of the Upanishads is to find an Ultimate Unity of things. Knowledge is nothing but finding Unity in the midst of diversity.

* We are Lions, not Sheep: Shall we advise men to kneel down and cry, O miserable sinners that we are! No, rather let us remind them of their divine nature. I will tell you a story. A lioness in search of prey came upon a flock of sheep, and as she jumped at one of them, she gave birth to a cub and died on the spot. The young lion was brought up in the flock, ate grass, and bleated like a sheep, and it never knew that it was a lion. One day a lion came across the flock and was astonished to see in it a huge lion eating grass and bleating like a sheep. At his sight the flock fled and the lion - sheep with them. But the lion watched his opportunity and one day found the lion - sheep asleep. He woke him up and said, You are a lion. The other said, No, and began to bleat like a sheep. But the stranger lion took him to a lake and asked him to look in the water at his own image and see if it did not resemble him, the stranger lion. He looked and acknowledged that it did. Then the stranger lion began to roar and asked him to do the same. The lion - sheep tried his voice and was soon roaring as grandly as the other. And he was a sheep no longer. My friends, I would like to tell you all that you are mighty as lions. If the room is dark, do you go about beating your chest and crying, It is dark, dark, dark! No, the only way to get the light is to strike a light, and then the darkness goes. The only way to realise the light above you is to strike the spiritual light within you, and the darkness of sin and impurity will flee away.

* From gross to subtle: There was once a minister to a great king. He fell into disgrace. The king, as a punishment, ordered him to be shut up in the top of a very high tower. This was done, and the minister was left there to perish. He had a faithful wife, however, who came to the tower at night and called to her husband at the top to know what she could do to help him. He told her to return to the tower the following night and bring with her a long rope, some stout twine, pack thread, silken thread, a beetle, and a little honey. . . The good wife obeyed her husband, and brought him the desired articles. The husband directed her to attach the silken thread firmly to the beetle, then to smear its horns with a drop of honey, and to set it free on the wall of the tower, with its head pointing upwards. She obeyed all these instructions, and the beetle started on its long journey. Smelling the honey ahead it slowly crept onwards, in the hope of reaching the honey, until at last it reached to top of the tower, when the minister grasped the beetle, and got possession of the silken thread. He told his wife to tie the other end to the pack thread, and after he had drawn up the pack thread, he repeated the process with the stout twine, and lastly with the rope. Then the rest was easy. The minister descended from the tower by means of the rope, and made his escape. In this body of ours the breath motion is the silken thread; by laying hold of and learning to control it we grasp the pack thread of the nerve currents, and from these the stout twine of our thoughts, and lastly the rope of Prana, controlling which we reach freedom.

* Truth will be out, sooner or later: There was a certain king who had a huge number of courtiers, and each one of these courtiers declared he was ready to sacrifice his life for his master, and that he was the most sincere being ever born. In course of time, a Sannyasin came to the king. The king said to him that there never was a king who had so many sincere courtiers as he had. The Sannyasin smiled and said he did not believe that. The king said the Sannyasin could test it if he liked. So the Sannyasin declared that he would make a great sacrifice by which the king's reign would be extended very long, with the condition that there should be made a small tank into which each one of his courtiers should pour a pitcher of milk, in the dark of night. The king smiled and said, 'Is this the test?' And he asked his courtiers to come to him, and told them what was to be done. They all expressed their joyful assent to the proposal and returned. In the dead of night, they came and emptied their pitchers into the tank. But in the morning, it was found full of water only. The courtiers were assembled and questioned about the matter. Each one of them had thought there would be so many pitchers of milk that his water would not be detected. Unfortunately most of us have the same idea and we do our share of work as did the courtiers in the story.

* There were four travellers who came to a high wall. The first one climbed with difficulty to the top and without looking back, jumped over. The second clambered up the wall, looked over, and with a shout of delight disappeared. The third in his turn climbed to the top, looked where his companions had gone, laughed with joy, and followed them. But the fourth one came back to tell what had happened to his fellow - travellers. The sign to us that there is something beyond is the laugh that rings back from those great ones who have plunged from Maya's wall.

* The sense universe is, as it were, only one portion, one bit of that infinite spiritual universe projected into the plane of sense consciousness. How can this little bit of projection be explained, be understood, without knowing that which is beyond? It is said of Socrates that one day while lecturing at Athens, he met a Brahmin who had travelled into Greece, and Socrates told the Brahmin that the greatest study for mankind is man. The Brahmin sharply retorted: 'How can you know man until you know God?' This God, this eternally Unknowable, or Absolute, or Infinite, or without name - you may call Him by what name you like - is the rationale, the only explanation, the raison d'etre of that which is known and knowable, this present life.

* The great question that generally arises is the utility of philosophy. To that there can be only one answer: if on the utilitarian ground it is good for men to seek for pleasure, why should not those whose pleasure is in religious speculation seek for that? Because sense- enjoyments please many, they seek for them, but there may be others whom they do not please, who want higher enjoyment. The dog's pleasure is only in eating and drinking. The dog cannot understand the pleasure of the scientist who gives up everything, and, perhaps, dwells on the top of a mountain to observe the position of certain stars. The dogs may smile at him and think he is a madman. Perhaps this poor scientist never had money enough to marry even, and lives very simply. May be, the dog laughs at him. But the scientist says, 'My dear dog, your pleasure is only in the senses which you enjoy, and you know nothing beyond; but for me this is the most enjoyable life, and if you have the right to seek your pleasure in your own way, so have I in mine.' The mistake is that we want to tie the whole world down to our own plane of thought and to make our mind the measure of the whole universe.

* This is the gist of all worship - to be pure and to do good to others. He who sees Siva in the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased, really worships Siva, and if he sees Siva only in the image, his worship is but preliminary. He who has served and helped one poor man seeing Siva in him, without thinking of his cast, creed, or race, or anything, with him Siva is more pleased than with the man who sees Him only in temples.

* Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached!

Sri Ramakrishna Speaks:

*Truth is one; only It is called by different names. All people are seeking the same Truth; the variance is due to climate, temperament, and name. A lake has many ghats. From one ghat the Hindus take water in jars and call it 'jal'. From another ghat the Mussalmans take water in leather bags and call it 'paani'. From a third the Christians take the same thing and call it 'water'. Suppose someone says that the thing is not 'jal' but 'paani', or that it is not 'paani' but 'water', or that it is not 'water' but 'jal', It would indeed be ridiculous. But this very thing is at the root of the friction among sects, their misunderstandings and quarrels. This is why people injure and kill one another, and shed blood, in the name of religion. But this is not good. Everyone is going toward God. They will all realize Him if they have sincerity and longing of heart.

RUDRASHTAKAM

Namaamii shamishaana-nirvaana rupam

vibhum vyaapakam brahma-veda-svaroopam

nijam nirgunam nirvikalpam niriham

chidaakaasha maakaasha-vaasam bhaje ham

I bow to the Ruler of the Universe, whose very form is Liberation,

the omnipotent and all pervading Brahman, manifest as the Vedas.

I worship Shiva, shining in his own glory, without physical qualities,

Undifferentiated, desireless, all pervading sky of consciousness 

and wearing the sky itself as His garment.

niraakaara monkaara-moolam turiiyam

giraa gyaana gotiita miisham giriisham

karaalam mahaa-kaala-kaalam kripaalam

gunaagaara samsara paaram nato ham

I bow to the supreme Lord who is the formless source of “OM”

The Self of All, transcending all conditions and states,

Beyond speech, understanding and sense perception,

Awe-full, but gracious, the ruler of Kailash,

Devourer of Death, the immortal abode of all virtues.

tushaa raadri-sankaasha-gauram gambhiram

manobhuta-koti prabha shri shariram

sphuran mauli-kallolini-charu-ganga

lasad-bhaala-balendu kanthe bhujangaa

I worship Shankara, whose form is white as the Himalyan snow,

Radiant with the beauty of countless Cupids, 

Whose head sparkles with the Ganga

With crescent moon adorning his brow and snakes coiling his neck,

chalatkundalam bhru sunetram vishalam

prasannaa-nanam nila-kantham dayaalam

mrigadhisha charmaambaram mundamaalam

priyam shankaram sarvanaatham bhajaami

The beloved Lord of All,

with shimmering pendants hanging from his ears,

Beautiful eyebrows and large eyes,

Full of Mercy with a cheerful countenance and a blue speck on his throat.

prachandam prakrishtam pragalbham paresham

akhandam ajam bhaanukoti-prakaasham

trayah-shula-nirmulanam shula-paanim

bhaje ham bhavaani-patim bhaava-gamyam

I worship Shankara, Bhavani’s husband,

The fierce, exalted, luminous supreme Lord.

Indivisible, unborn and radiant with the glory of a million suns;

Who, holding a trident, tears out the root of the three-fold suffering, 

And who is reached only through Love.

kalaatita-kalyaana-kalpanta-kaari

sadaa sajjanaa-nanda-daataa purarih

chidaananda-sandoha-mohaapahaari

prasida prasida prabho manmathaarih

You who are without parts, ever blessed,

The cause of universal destruction at the end of each round of creation,

A source of perpetual delight to the pure of heart,

Slayer of the demon, Tripura, consciousness and bliss personified,

Dispeller of delusion…

Have mercy on me, foe of Lust.

na yaavad umaanaatha-paadaaravindam

bhajamtiha loke parevaa naraanam

na taavat-sukham shaanti-santaapa-naasham

prasida prabho sarva bhutaa-dhivaasam

Oh Lord of Uma, so long as you are not worshipped

There is no happiness, peace or freedom from suffering 

in this world or the next.

You who dwell in the hearts of all living beings,

and in whom all beings have their existence,

Have mercy on me, Lord.

na janaami yogam japam naiva pujam

nato ham sadaa sarvadaa sambhu tubhyam

jaraa janma-dukhaugha taatapya maanam

prabho paahi apan-namaamisha shambho

I don’t know yoga, prayer or rituals,

But everywhere and at every moment, I bow to you, Shambhu!

Protect me my Lord, miserable and afflicted as I am 

with the sufferings of birth, old-age and death.

rudrastaka midam proktam viprena haratoshaye

ye pathanti naraa bhaktyaa teshaam sambhuh prasidati

This eightfold hymn of praise was sung by the Brahman to please Shankara.

Shambhu will be pleased with whomever heartfully recites it. 

Iti Shri Goswami Tulsi Das krita Shri Rudrashtakam sampoornam

karpoora gauram karunaavataaram samsaara saaram bhujagendra haaram

He is white like camphor and the very incarnation of mercy and compassion,

The only good thing in this world, wearing a king cobra as a garland

sadaavasantam hridayaara vinde bhavam bhavaani sahitam namaami

It is always springtime in the lotus of His heart I bow down to Bhava (Shiva), as well as to Bhavani (Parvati) who accompanies Him

shiv puran, gyan samhita 68/18

Karpoor ke samaan gaurav varn wale, karuna ke avtaar, vishwa ke mool karan, gale mein naag raaj ka haar dharan karne wale tatha hriday kamal mein sada viraajmaan rehnewale bhagwan shiv ko bhawani sahit main pranam karta hoon. 

Shambho Sadaa Shiva!

||र्शिवताण्डवस्तोत्रम् |

||श्रीगणेशाय नमः ||

जटाटवीगलज्जल प्रवाह पावितस्थले

matted hair-thick as forest-water-flow-consecrated-area

गलेऽवलम्ब्य लम्बितां भुजङ्गतुङ्गमालिकाम् |

in the throat-stuck-hanging-snake-lofty-garland

डमड्डमड्डमड्डमन्निनादवड्डमर्वयं

damat-damat-damat-damat-having sound-drum-this

चकार चण्डताण्डवं तनोतु नः शिवः शिवम् ||१||

did-fierce-Tandava-may he shower-on us-Shiva-auspiciousness

With his neck, consecrated by the flow of water flowing from the thick forest-like locks of hair, and on the neck, where the lofty snake is hanging garland, and the Damaru drum making the sound of Damat Damat Damat Damat, Lord Shiva did the auspicious dance of Tandava and may He shower prosperity on us all.

जटाकटाहसंभ्रमभ्रमन्निलिम्पनिर्झरी-

matted hair-a well-agitation-moving-celestial river

विलोलवीचिवल्लरीविराजमानमूर्धनि |

agitating-waves-rows-glorified-head

धगद्धगद्धगज्ज्वलल्ललाटपट्टपावके

Dhagat dhagat dhagat-flaming-forehead-flat area-fire

किशोरचन्द्रशेखरे रतिः प्रतिक्षणं मम ||२||

baby-moon-crest jewel-love-every moment-for me

I have a very deep interest in Lord Shiva, whose head is glorified by the rows of moving waves of the celestial river Ganga, agitating in the deep well of his hair-locks, and who has the brilliant fire flaming on the surface of his forehead, and who has the crescent moon as a jewel on his head.

धराधरेन्द्रनंदिनीविलासबन्धुबन्धुर

King of mountains-daughter-sportive-kith-beautiful-

स्फुरद्दिगन्तसन्ततिप्रमोदमानमानसे |

glorious-horizon-all living beings-rejoicing-mind

कृपाकटाक्षधोरणीनिरुद्धदुर्धरापदि

compassion-look-continuous flow-obstructed-hardships

क्वचिद्दिगम्बरे मनो विनोदमेतु वस्तुनि ||३||

some time-in the omnipresent-mind-pleasure-may seek-in a thing

May my mind seek happiness in the Lord Shiva, in whose mind all the living beings of the glorious universe exist, who is the sportive companion of Parvati (daughter of the mountain king), who controls invincible hardships with the flow of his compassionate look, who is all-persuasive (the directions are his clothes).

लताभुजङ्गपिङ्गलस्फुरत्फणामणिप्रभा

creeping-snake-reddish brown-shining-hood-gem-luster-

कदम्बकुङ्कुमद्रवप्रलिप्तदिग्वधूमुखे |

variegated-red dye-melting-applied-directions-beloved-face

मदान्धसिन्धुरस्फुरत्त्वगुत्तरीयमेदुरे

intoxicated-elephant-glittering-skin-upper garment-covered

मनो विनोदमद्भुतं बिभर्तु भूतभर्तरि ||४||

mind-pleasure-wonderful-may it seek-in him who supports all life

May I seek wonderful pleasure in Lord Shiva, who is supporter of all life, who with his creeping snake with reddish brown hood and with the luster of his gem on it spreading out variegated colors on the beautiful faces of the maidens of directions, who is covered with a glittering upper garment made of the skin of a huge intoxicated elephant.

सहस्रलोचनप्रभृत्यशेषलेखशेखर

Indra/Vishnu-and others-all-lined up-heads-

प्रसूनधूलिधोरणी विधूसराङ्घ्रिपीठभूः |

flower-dust-force-grayed-feet-seat

भुजङ्गराजमालया निबद्धजाटजूटक

snake-red-garland (with) tied-locked hair

श्रियै चिराय जायतां चकोरबन्धुशेखरः ||५||

for the prosperity-for a long time-may he be-Cakora bird-relative-on head

May Lord Shiva give us prosperity, who has the moon (relative of the Chakora bird) as his head-jewel, whose hair is tied by the red snake-garland, whose foot-stool is grayed by the flow of dust from the flowers from the rows of heads of all the Gods, Indra/Vishnu and others.

ललाटचत्वरज्वलद्धनञ्जयस्फुलिङ्गभा-

forehead-flat area-flaming-fire-sparks-luster

- निपीतपञ्चसायकं नमन्निलिम्पनायकम् |

devoured-God of Love-bowing-Gods-leader

सुधामयूखलेखया विराजमानशेखरं

cool-rayed-crescent-beautiful-head

महाकपालिसम्पदेशिरोजटालमस्तु नः ||६||

for the Siddhi-prosperity-head-locked hair-may it be-to us

May we get the wealth of Siddhis from Shiva's locks of hair, which devoured the God of Love with the sparks of the fire flaming in His forehead, who is bowed by all the celestial leaders, who is beautiful with a crescent moon.

करालभालपट्टिकाधगद्धगद्धगज्ज्वल-

dreadful-forehead-flat area-dhagat-dhagat-flaming

द्धनञ्जयाहुतीकृतप्रचण्डपञ्चसायके |

fire-offered-powerful-God of Love

धराधरेन्द्रनन्दिनीकुचाग्रचित्रपत्रक-

king of mountains-daughter-breast-tip-colorful-decorative lines

- प्रकल्पनैकशिल्पिनि त्रिलोचने रतिर्मम |||७||

drawing-sole-artist - in the three-eyed -deep interest-mine

My interest is in Lord Shiva, who has three eyes, who has offered the powerful God of Love into the fire, flaming Dhagad Dhagad on the flat surface of his forehead who is the sole expert artist of drawing decorative lines on the tips of breasts of Parvati, the daughter of the mountain king.

नवीनमेघमण्डली निरुद्धदुर्धरस्फुरत्-

new-cloud-circle - obstructed-harsh-striking-

कुहूनिशीथिनीतमः प्रबन्धबद्धकन्धरः |

new moon-midnight-darkness-tightly-tied-neck

निलिम्पनिर्झरीधरस्तनोतु कृत्तिसिन्धुरः

celestial-river-wearing-may he bless-skin-red

कलानिधानबन्धुरः श्रियं जगद्धुरंधरः ||८||

moon-lovely-prosperity-universe-bearer of the burden

May Lord Shiva give us prosperity, who bears the burden of this universe, who is lovely with the moon, who is red wearing the skin, who has the celestial river Ganga, whose neck is dark as midnight of new moon night covered by many layers of clouds.

प्रफुल्लनीलपङ्कजप्रपञ्चकालिमप्रभा-

well-opened-blue-lotus-universe-darkness-luster

- वलम्बिकण्ठकन्दलीरुचिप्रबद्धकन्धरम् |

hanging-inside-temple-luster-tied-neck

स्मरच्छिदं पुरच्छिदं भवच्छिदं मखच्छिदं

Manmatha-killer-city-destroyer-mundane life -destroyer-sacrifice destroyer

गजच्छिदांधकच्छिदं तमंतकच्छिदं भजे ||९||

elephant-killer-demon-killer-him-destroyer of Lord Yama-I worship

I pray to Lord Shiva, whose neck is tied with the luster of the temples hanging on the neck with the glory of the fully-bloomed blue lotuses which looked like the blackness (sins) of the universe, who is the killer of Manmatha, who destroyed Tripuras, who destroyed the bonds of worldly life, who destroyed the sacrifice, who destroyed the demon Andhaka, the destroyer of the elephants, and who controlled the God of death, Yama.

अखर्व( अगर्व) सर्वमङ्गलाकलाकदंबमञ्जरी

great-all-auspicious-art-variegated-bunch-

रसप्रवाहमाधुरी विजृंभणामधुव्रतम् |

enjoyment-flow-sweetness-flaring up-bees

स्मरान्तकं पुरान्तकं भवान्तकं मखान्तकं

Manmatha-destroyer-city-destroyer-worldly bond-destroyer -sacrifice-destroyer

गजान्तकान्धकान्तकं तमन्तकान्तकं भजे ||१०||

elephant-killer-Andhaka-demon-killer-him-Yama-controller-I worship

I pray to Lord Shiva, who has bees flying all over because of the sweet honey from the beautiful bunch of auspicious Kadamba flowers, who is the killer of Manmatha, who destroyed Tripuras, who destroyed the bonds of worldly life, who destroyed the sacrifice, who destroyed the demon Andhaka, the killer of the elephants, and who controlled the God of death, Yama.

जयत्वदभ्रविभ्रमभ्रमद्भुजङ्गमश्वस-

victorious-foot-sky-whirling-roaming-snake-breath-

- द्विनिर्गमत्क्रमस्फुरत्करालभालहव्यवाट् |

coming out-shaking-evident-dreadful-forehead-fire

धिमिद्धिमिद्धिमिध्वनन्मृदङ्गतुङ्गमङ्गल

Dhimid-dhimid-dhimid-sounding-drum-high-auspicious-

ध्वनिक्रमप्रवर्तित प्रचण्डताण्डवः शिवः ||११||

sound-series-caused-fierce-Tandava dance-Shiva

Lord Shiva, whose dance of Tandava is in tune with the series of loud sounds of drum making Dhimid Dhimid sounds, who has the fire on the great forehead, the fire that is spreading out because of the breath of the snake wandering in whirling motion in the glorious sky.

स्पृषद्विचित्रतल्पयोर्भुजङ्गमौक्तिकस्रजोर्-

touching-varied-ways-snake-embodied-garland

- गरिष्ठरत्नलोष्ठयोः सुहृद्विपक्षपक्षयोः |

most precious-gems-brilliance-friends-enemies-two wings

तृष्णारविन्दचक्षुषोः प्रजामहीमहेन्द्रयोः

grass-lotus-eyes people and the great emperor

समप्रवृत्तिकः ( समं प्रवर्तयन्मनः) कदा सदाशिवं भजे ||१२||

equal-behaviour-always-Lord Shiva-worship-I

When will I worship Lord Sadasiva (eternally auspicious) God, with equal vision towards the people and an emperor, and a blade of grass and lotus-like eye, towards both friends and enemies, towards the valuable gem and some lump of dirt, towards a snake and a garland and towards varied ways of the world

कदा निलिम्पनिर्झरीनिकुञ्जकोटरे वसन्

when-celestial river-bush-hollow place(in)-living

विमुक्तदुर्मतिः सदा शिरः स्थमञ्जलिं वहन् |

released-bad mind-always-on the head-folded hands-

विमुक्तलोललोचनो ललामभाललग्नकः

agitation-shaking-eyes-the best-forehead-interested

शिवेति मंत्रमुच्चरन् कदा सुखी भवाम्यहम् ||१३||

"Shiva" -mantra-uttering-when-happy-will-be-I

When will I be happy, living in the hollow place near the celestial river, Ganga, carrying the folded hands on my head all the time, with my bad thinking washed away, and uttering the mantra of Lord Shiva and devoted in the God with glorious forehead with vibrating eyes.

इदम् हि नित्यमेवमुक्तमुत्तमोत्तमं स्तवं

This-indeed-daily-thus-said-the best of the best-stotra

पठन्स्मरन्ब्रुवन्नरो विशुद्धिमेतिसंततम् |

reading-remembering-saying-a person-sanctity-gets-always

हरे गुरौ सुभक्तिमाशु याति नान्यथा गतिं

in Shiva-in Guru-deep devotion-quickly-gets-no-other-way

विमोहनं हि देहिनां सुशङ्करस्य चिंतनम् ||१४||

removal of delusion-indeed-for the people-blessed Shiva's thought

Whoever reads, remembers and says this best stotra as it is said here, gets purified for ever, and obtains devotion in the great Guru Shiva. For this devotion, there is no other way. Just the mere thought of Lord Shiva indeed removes the delusion.

पूजावसानसमये दशवक्त्रगीतं

worship-end-time-Ravana-sung

यः शंभुपूजनपरं पठति प्रदोषे |

who-Shiva-worship-dedicated-reads-early in the evening, after sunset

तस्य स्थिरां रथगजेन्द्रतुरङ्गयुक्तां

to him-stable-chariot-elephant-horse-having

लक्ष्मीं सदैव सुमुखिं प्रददाति शंभुः ||१५||

Lakshmi-always-definitely-favourable-gives-Shiva

In the evening, after sunset, at the end of Puja, whoever utters this stotra dedicated to the worship of Shiva, Lord Shiva blesses him with very stable Lakshmi (prosperity) with all the richness of chariots, elephants and horses.

इति श्रीरावण- कृतम्

thus sri-Ravana-done

शिव- ताण्डव- स्तोत्रम्

Shiva-tandava-stotra

सम्पूर्णम्

ends.

Thus ends the Shiva-Tandava Stotra written by Ravana