Wisdom & Its Significance
Q: How do the past and the future destroy your peace of mind in the present? A: The mind is consumed by past attachments and future anxieties. So, these two forces take you away from being in the present. When you try and practise detachment to these qualities, automatically you remain in the present. You…
Wise people do not get carried away by the ephemeral and fall prey to immediate pleasures. They are able to differentiate between Nitya and anitya. Such people escape the suicidal urge of the deluded mind. As a result, they do not covet anything of others, living a life of immense satisfaction. By whom the end…
The Lord created the senses with outgoing tendencies; therefore, man beholds the external and not the internal Self. But a rare wise one desirous of immortality, with eyes withdrawn, sees the Atman within. Everyone is born with the senses that get attracted to the world and go outward towards the sense objects. Eyes want better…
The shastras take a logical approach to convey the unknown truth through known faculties. The Lord uses the sensory perceptions and negates them so that you cannot reach God through your organs of perception, emotion or thought. God is not an object that can be captured with your limited equipment of body, mind, and intellect….
Having realised that, which is without sound, without touch, without form, without decay, and also without taste, without smell, without beginning, without end, beyond the Mahat, eternal and unchanging, is freed from the jaws of death. The Shruthi is explaining the transcendental nature of the inexplicable Atman, which is the absolute state of perfection. It…
Arise, awake; having reached the great ones know (Atman). Like the sharp edge of a razor is that path, hard to tread and difficult to cross — thus say the wise. Arise and awake refer to arising and awakening from this life of samsara, terrestrial entanglement. When you experience tragic moments, shocks of life, or a…
Mahat can also be referred to as macro intellect, contrary to micro intellect. Microcosm is the individual, and macrocosm is the totality. Microcosm has no existence without the macrocosm. It is the total mind and intellect around us, and we are influenced by the thoughts of the totality. If you are in an environment that…
Lord Yama is talking of the chariot metaphor and the importance of the intellect. ‘Know the Atman as the Lord, body as the chariot, know the intellect as the charioteer and the mind as verily the reins.’ Arjuna represents the state of mind; the battlefield is the world. ‘They say, the senses are the horses,…
Know the Atman as the Lord, body as the chariot, know the intellect as the charioteer, and the mind as verily the reins. The very famous chariot metaphor, which appears in the Kathopanishad, got prominence in the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 1, verse 14. In the battlefield of Kurukshetra, the Gita was imparted in the chariot…
Nachiketa was given three boons. First, he asked the Lord to satisfy his father. Second, he is asking to teach him the Vedic fire ritual of performing yagna, which is a community worship. The second boon he is asking to give him the capacity to perform actions that will serve society at large. One should…
