1. I
would like to begin with two mantras:- one , we cannot defy or deny the
existence of anything that impacts or influences our life even remotely. Two
that there are no perennial taboos or trends to pin down life.
2.
I also would
like proceed with a premise which Ram Dass very beautifully has said, “Across
planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things
can be simultaneously true.”
3.
We must admit we are all seekers of
reality. We are not realized souls. Different approaches appeal to and/or
suitable to different people as different dosages of the same medicine to
different patients.
4.
We must be tolerant towards whatever approach
that an individual seeks, if not we are self centered and fanatical individuals
trying to foist our ideological, ritualistic, cultural, traditional belief
systems etc on others.
5.
We all must in all humility accept that
none of us have seen, unfortunately, Divinity face to face in any form tangibly
to say I have met Divinity and I know his requirements or what he wants me to
do etc which in itself is a paradoxical statement because to say that a omnipotent and
omnipresent divinity is constantly expecting us to perform something for him.
6.
We all can easily see through that most
of the acts that we perform for the sake of divinity or in the name of divinity are things marketed by
religious people or we ourselves take pleasure in doing them or we are used to
performing them because from childhood we have been habituated to and told to
do them without questioning about doing them and this is one of the reasons
that almost all religions and religious practices become a person’s second
nature.
7. If
we bother to study ,most of the enlightened souls, then we would realize that none
of them have despised rational approach and unending questioning of beliefs ,
tradition ,religious practices etc starting from Adi Shankara to Swami
Vivekananda to Bhagwan Sri Ramanamaharishi to Sri Aurobindo to J.Krishnamurthy
to Neale Donald Walsch to Echort Tolle.
8. As
long as human beings have those additional faculties of conscious awareness, thinking,
reasoning etc they would use them to scan everything that comes into the radar
of their conscious awareness or everything that is forced on them and arrive at
a perception based on their limitations of knowledge and reasoning powers, their
convenience, whatever is more suitable at that particular situation etc.
9. Therefore,
there is no fit all or suit all panacea for everything and everyone.
10. Even
highly religious people in the recent past like Swami Chinmayananda , seeing the
rift that was being created between the generation/group of people who insist too much on following
traditions and rituals blindly and the unwillingness and disinterest of the
generation/group which shows the least interest in these activities and in
order to avoid them were tending to adopt indifference towards anything
that comes in the name of religion, wrote an excellent small booklet titled ‘Logic
of Spirituality’ intended more for the group which thinks following rituals is
the only way to realize reality.
11. Even
if other religions prescribe unquestioned faith and belief as the sin quo non
of relating with divinity , at least Hinduism gives a very wide spectrum of
methods to grasp the reality or supreme power that propels life of all species
,including rational questioning atheism as a scripture itself in the form of
two broad schools of philosophy in Hinduism namely Mimamsa and Samkhya.
12. I
have attempted to always question everything as that is the only way I am good at and
comfortable with. I have made no secret of my approach through many of my
interactions, interests ,intentions, involvement etc. However, I have supported
and participated and continue to participate in if not all, at least many, of the
rituals for social obligations, in order not to hurt the sentiments of others,
as well as continue ,sincerely, to pursue whether at some moment of spark, imbued with hope, that I will
get the grace and blessing of the divine for which people perform these rituals
and traditions with utmost sincerity and unfailing regularity, something which I
do not do. Momentary hypocrisies
are justifiable rather than hard- hearted haughty and hurting refusals to
participate in the society where we live and in its activities. But when it comes
to priorities of living I am very firm that humanitarianism, compassion and cohabitation etc take precedence and are more
vital to social human life than anything and everything else.
13. I am able to feel the pulse of divine wisdom
exuding in the philosophies of Bhagawat Geetha, in the speeches of Swami
Vivekananda , J. Krishnamurthy , Ramana
Maharishi, Rajneesh, writings of Saint Francis
of Assisi, Neale Donald Walsch, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Meera’s Bhajans, Saint
Tyagaraja’s music, Kabir’s sayings,Tirukural , Guy Murchie’s writings etc
14. Shri S.Gurumurthy Talk on Peace Through
Religious Harmony at SASTRA University
15. Culture, Philosophy,
Literature and Religion Revisited.* By Prof S.A.R.P.V Chaturvedi
16. Here are some of my write ups on
these pet topics relevant to this posting. I would like you to go through all
these patiently with all the links embedded in them at your own leisure and may
get back to me if you feel like, with unbiased interactions.
A ] New Year with a New
Realization of Reality
B ] SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY
“Sanathana dharma is perhaps the best known way
which gives sketchy guideline for this process of soul’s slow but sure search
for spiritual enlightenment /evolution/improvement. The crux of the matter is
to grasp the essence of spiritual vibrations in every aspect of life in our own
way and leave out the extraneous factors, however greatly revered by tradition
or promoted by religious institutions or eulogized by the elite. Everything in any
process of growth is just a step, important and inevitable, but not a stop. It is so with mother’s milk [our biological aspect of
life]; it is so with learning of alphabets, words and numbers [our intellectual
aspect of life]; it is so with hugging, kissing and cajoling as babies [our
emotional aspect of life]; it is so with our learning and understanding of
different concepts [ our philosophical aspect of life]; it is so with all forms
of worship, devotion and all its concomitant rituals and religious practices [
our spiritual life] and so on. This is the inherent wisdom. A normal human
being has to go through a process to grow in everything or into something but
ultimately grow out of it . There may be exceptions like a Adi shankara, or a
Bhagawan Ramanamaharishi.
We can neither avoid the steps nor get struck to them. That’s why I cannot accept the snobbism of so called intellectuals parroting pet slogans like religion without rituals, god without religion or religion without gods, spiritualism without god or religion etc. In fact I have books titled in each part of the slogan.”
We can neither avoid the steps nor get struck to them. That’s why I cannot accept the snobbism of so called intellectuals parroting pet slogans like religion without rituals, god without religion or religion without gods, spiritualism without god or religion etc. In fact I have books titled in each part of the slogan.”
E] SWAMI VIVEKANANDA MY OBSERVATIONS
17] http://www.deeshaa.org/is-sri-sri-ravi-shankar-a-con-man/
where in the author writes very clearly
“Depends on your
definition of ‘great’ I suppose. My informal ranking is thus:
I. Enlightened (and Great, Good, Useful)
II. Great (and Good, Useful)
III. Good (and Useful)
IV. Useful
In “Enlightened” I
would put the historical Buddha, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Mahavira, and a few
others.
Great would include
Einstein, Newton, Shakespeare, Tagore, Krishnamurty, Nisargadatta Maharaj,
Darwin, and many more.
Good would include
many people who have invented stuff that have benefited mankind – from the
inventors of dynamite to penicillin.
The useful category
is for the rest of us – you and me and a few billion others. We don’t do
anything really harmful such as killing others. Some of us are known – as Sri
Sri Ravi Shankars and Deepak Chopras. Some make big bucks – such as Gates. But
most are merely useful and mostly harmless.
(I am not including
the negative side of the scale here: that would include Stalin, Bush, Bin
Laden, Hitler, the founders of the monotheistic faiths, and so on.)
I believe that Ravi
Shankar falls in the “Useful” category.”
18] I would like to
end with a quote which reflects different perception of spirituality.
“In societies where coolness and being cool is a top
priority, the religious replace the word 'religious' with 'spiritual' to make
their faiths seem less extreme.” –Criss
Jami.
19] I always fancy quoting this particular
verse of Tirumoolar the great Saint
This verse is titled as ‘Kelvi kettamaidal’ which
could be translated roughly in this context as ‘ask all questions and remain silent.”
VERSE NO.126. முப்பதும் ஆறும் படிமுத்தி ஏணியாய்
ஒப்பிலா ஆனந்தத் துள்ளொளி புக்குச்
செப்ப அரிய சிவங்கண்டு தான்தெளிந்து
அப்பரி சாக அமர்ந்திருந் தாரே.
ஒப்பிலா ஆனந்தத் துள்ளொளி புக்குச்
செப்ப அரிய சிவங்கண்டு தான்தெளிந்து
அப்பரி சாக அமர்ந்திருந் தாரே.
126: They Walk Into Light of Siva
Ascending thus the
steps,
Thirty and six of
Freedom's ladder high,
Into the peerless
Light of Bliss they walked;
And Siva, the
inexplicable, they saw--
Having seen, realized
and so stayed.
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