Blog

May 1, 2007

Ethics in Our Human Relationships

Our lives become meaningless when we lose the value of justice and ethics. We all have an equal right to pursue happiness; no one wants pain and suffering. And yet justice and equality are uniquely human principles. We should not sacrifice these principles in the pursuit of power or material wealth. Instead, we should employ them in serving others’ interests. But to do so, we need a firm foundation in ethics.
April 1, 2007

“Dive Deep,” Said Ramakrishna

Spiritual progress depends to a considerable extent upon one's earnest personal endeavor. "Arise, awake! Approach the wise teachers and learn from them," the Katha Upanishad says. Throughout the Bhagavad Gita we find Sri Krishna exhorting his disciple Arjuna in a similar strain: "O mighty descendant of Bharata, arise; shake off all doubt and hesitation and hold fast to the practice of yoga."
March 1, 2007

Yoga and Self-Realization – Part 2

After the Shvetashvataropanishad, descriptions of yogic practice continued to evolve, and finally Patanjali gathered together all that was known from the experience of the seers and yogins before him and systematized it as the eight-limbed yoga (ashtanga yoga). His Yogasutra is the classic manual on the technology of spiritual science, and the core of its teaching is the series of eight steps that Patanjali lays out for us to follow.
February 1, 2007

Yoga and Self-Realization – Part 1

In the 1920s, when archeologists were excavating a ruined city near the Indus River, they discovered a huge chapter of Indian cultural history that had been long forgotten. Four and a half thousand years earlier, Mohenjo-daro had been one of the largest cities of the Bronze Age world, with broad avenues, marketplaces and residential districts, a municipal sanitation system, and impressive public buildings.
January 1, 2007

The Hindu Tradition

Every religious tradition offers the world a unique and particular gift, without which humankind would be infinitely poorer. The Hindu tradition's unique gift to the human family is the concept of the Atman, the ultimate Reality which lies at the core of our being. While the religious traditions of the West categorize human beings in terms of a body/mind dichotomy, the Hindu traditions see all living beings as trichotomous—that is, possessing three aspects—body, mind and Atman. The Atman, the ultimate divine Reality which lies within us, is one with Brahman, the infinite divine Reality which pervades the universe.