Flashes from Swami Vivekananda - 4

Philosophy of Education - 3

Service as worship

Liberty is the first condition of growth. It is wrong,
a thousand times wrong, if any of you dares to say, 'I will
work out the salvation of this woman or child.' Hands off! They will solve their own problems. Who are you to assume that you
know everything? How dare you think that you have the right over God? For, don't you know that every soul is the Soul of God?

Look upon every one as God. You can only serve. Serve the children of the Lord if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help anyone of His children, blessed you are. Blessed you are that that privilege was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as worship!

Assimilation of ideas

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library. If education were identical with information, the libraries would be the greatest sages in the world and encyclopedias the rishis!

Getting by heart the thoughts of others in a foreign language and stuffing your brain with them and taking some university degrees, you consider yourself educated. In this education? What is the goal of your education?

Wrong education

Either a clerkship, or being a lawyer, or at the most a Deputy Magistrate, which is another form of clerkship, isn't that all? What good will it do you or to the country at large? Open your eyes and see what a piteous cry for food is rising in the land of Bharata, proverbial for its food. Will your education fulfil this want? The education that does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle for life, which does not bring out strength of character, a spirit of philanthropy and the courage of a lion - is it worth the name?

The needed education

We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded and by which one can stand on one's own feet. What we need is to study, independent of foreign control, different branches of the knowledge that is our own, and with it the English language and western science, we need technical education and all else that will develop industries, so that men, instead of seeking for service, may earn enough to provide for themselves and save against a rainy day.

The goal of man-making

The end of all education, all training, should be man-making. The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow. The training by which the current and expression of will are brought under control and become fruitful, is called education. What our country now wants are muscles of iron and nerves of steel, gigantic wills which nothing can resist, which can penetrate into the mysteries and secrets of the universe and will accomplish their purpose in any fashion, even if it meant going down to the bottom of the ocean, meeting death face to face. It is the man-making religion that we want. Man-making theories are that we want. It is man-making education all round that we want.

Thirukkural verses 5: Married Life

English Translation of Kaviyogi Maharishi Shuddhananda Bharatiar

The ideal householder is he,
Who aids the natural orders there.

His help the monk and retired share,
And celibate students are his care.

By dutiful householder's aid,
God, manes, kin, self and guests are served.

Sin he shuns and food he shares
His home is bright and brighter fares.

In grace and gain the home excels,
Where love with virtue sweetly dwells.

Who turns from righteous family,
To be a monk, what profits he?

Of all who strive for bliss, the great,
Is he who leads the married state.

Straight in virtue, right in living,
Make men brighter than monks praying.

Home-life and virtue, are the same;
Which spotless monkhood too can claim.

He is a man of divine worth
Who lives in ideal home on earth.

Flashes from Swami Vivekananda - 4

Philosophy of Education - 2

The Cask of Glass

The Light Divine within is obscured in most people. It is like a lamp in a cask of iron: no gleam of light can shine through. Gradually, by purity and unselfishness, we can make the obscuring medium less and less dense, until at last it becomes as transparent as glass. Sri Ramakrishna was like the iron cask transformed into a glass cask, through which can be seen the inner light as it is.

You cannot teach a child any more than you can grow a plant. The plant develops its own nature. The child also teaches itself. But, you can help it to go forward in its own way. What you can do is not of a negative nature but positive.

You can take away obstacles, and knowledge comes out of its own nature. Loosen the soil a little, so that is may come out easily. Put a hedge round it, see that it is not killed by anything. You can supply the growing seed with the material for the making of his body, bringing to it the earth, the water, the air that it wants. And there your work stops. It will take all that it wants by its own nature.

It so is with the education of the child. A child educates itself. The teacher spoils everything by thinking that he is teaching. Within man is all the knowledge, and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the work of the teacher. We have to do so much for the boys that they may learn to apply their own intellect to the proper use of thier hands, legs, ears and eyes.

Free Growth

The system which aims at educating our boys in the same manner as that of a man who battered his donkey, being advised that it could thereby be turned into horse, should be abolished. Owing to undue domination exercised by parents, our boys do not get free scope for growth. In every one there are infinite tendencies which require proper scope for satisfaction. Violent attempts at reform always end by retarding reform. If you do not allow one to become a lion, one will become a fox.

Positive Ideas

We should give positive ideas. Negative thoughts only weaken men. Do you not find that where parents are constantly taxing their sons to reread and write, telling them that they will never learn anything, and call them fools and so forth, the latter do actually turn out to be so in many cases?

If you speak kind words to them and encourage them, they are bound to improve in time. If you can give them positive ideas, they will grow up to be the best men and women. In language and literature, in poetry and arts, in everything we must not point out the mistakes, but how can they do it better. The teaching must be modified according to the needs of the taught.

Past lives have molded our tendencies. Take every one where he stands and push him forward. We have seen how Sri Ramakrishna would encourage even those whom we considered worthless and change the very course of their lives thereby! He never destroyed a single man's special inclinations. He gave words of hope and encouragement even to the most degraded of the persons and lifted them up.

Metta Bhavna: Loving with an Open and Sweet Mind

The article in today's TOI is today's need for life to be. If each human being lives by the Metta principle, we could see the world change in front of our eyes.

Thanks to TOI and Marguerite. May all beings be Happy!

Metta Bhavna: Loving with an Open and Sweet Mind

By Marguerite Theophil

Loving kindness is a meditation practice that was taught by the Buddha to help us develop the habit of selfless or altruistic love. It is a truly universal practice which need not be associated with any particular religious concept.

What makes this so effective is that by arousing within ourselves feelings of goodwill towards ourselves, those near to us, and all beings, we make it more likely that it is these feelings that will arise rather than other less desirable, unwholesome feelings. Anger cannot coexist with loving kindness. We end up supplanting thoughts rooted in anger with thoughts rooted in love, which, as my teacher so beautifully put it, “...can help keep the mind open and sweet”.

A pattern you can follow is: start with yourself; then do the meditation for a respected, beloved person such as a spiritual teacher; a personal loved one like a close family member or friend; a ‘neutral’ person, somebody you know but have no special or strong feelings for; someone you are currently having difficulty with, and towards who you may have negative feelings.

Eventually we can include all people, animals and birds, and nature around us, as well as the entire universe. We must, however, start with ourselves. If we cannot love and accept ourselves exactly as we are, how can we expect to love others?

For some people, it is easier to send Metta to others and harder to feel it for themselves; while some others experience resistance when asked to send Metta to others. You can simply be aware of what is true for you, but without judging, and just being aware that are all connected. So when you experience loving kindness for yourself, all beings are included; when you experience it for others, you are included.

There are many forms of Metta practice, but here is a very simple one that’s easy to remember. You need to be aware of this — it’s less significant to get the words or the order of recitation right; more important is your awareness and connection to the loving and compassionate feelings that arise as you do this mindfully: May i be safe from harm. May i be happy and peaceful. May i be strong and healthy. May i take care of myself with joy. May all be safe from harm... May all be safe from harm...

Sometimes, commuters can send waves of loving kindness to people on the bus, a train compartment, to the entire train, to all other trains or buses criss-crossing the city, to people on all trains or buses all over India. Whenever you do this, the trip is not so bad! Try this on a flight: sending loving kindness to all co-passengers, all airplanes at the airport and those taking off and landing and all planes all over the world. See what it does for your journey. The endless waiting in hospitals is better used by sending Metta to all the patients, their families and all who work there; everyone needs it.

Having taught this to many people from different faiths, different ages and walks of life, i am awed at how doing this seems to free up a side of people that was hidden under layers of habit of thought; a side that facilitates self-healing, as it is so much part of the Higher Self within each and every one of us.

The writer is a Mumbai-based organisational consultant, personal growth coach and workshop leader. E-mail: weave@vsnl.net

Thirukkural verses 4: The Power of Virtue

English Translation of Kaviyogi Maharishi Shuddhananda Bharatiar

From virtue weal and wealth outflow;
What greater good can mankind know?

Virtue enhances joy and gain;
Forsaking it is fall and pain.

Perform good deeds as much you can
Always and everywhere, o man!

In spotless mind virtue is found
And not in show and swelling sound.

Four ills eschew and virtue reach,
Lust, anger, envy, evil-speech.

Do good enow; defer it not
A deathless aid in death if sought.

Litter-bearer and rider say
Without a word, the fortune's way.

Like stones that block rebirth and pain
Are doing good and good again.

Weal flows only from virtue done
The rest is rue and renown gone.

Worthy act is virtue done
Vice is what we ought to shun.

He just left 'this' world

He left this world at 102. Dr. Albert Hoffman's spirit still stays alive in the manipulated minds of so many. His problem child transformed the way the world thought, taking people beyond thier mundane perceptional comprehension.

Alex Grey called him Saint Albert.

Hofmann believed it could still serve a valid purpose in medicine, as it did for Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World who used the drug to ease his final suffering. Hofmann -- who believed LSD was useful in analysis of how the mind works, hoping it could be used to recognise and treat illnesses like schizophrenia -- defended his "wonder drug" for decades after it was banned in the 1960s.

The Human Species is so Special

Another 'Special' article by Dr. Ranade: [Credits TOI. Click here for Article link ]

Human beings feel very vulnerable. Totally at the mercy of destiny, and forever battling circumstances, waging a war against financial, emotional and social insecurity. We are perennially choosing from a myriad options and we keep hoping we’ve made the right choice. The fear of the unknown tends to loom large and we spend most of our present worrying about the future.


This despondency drives many to soothsayers, clairvoyants, astrologers and palm readers and futurologists. If we look around and take a few cues from nature, it seems animals and birds live life with scarce planning, manipulation or worrying about tomorrow. And they manage all right, too.

Humans are unique in that they are bestowed with frontal lobes, those extensions of the brain that insinuate between the eyebrows and the hairline, which also cleave us from our immediate ancestors, the apes. Frontal lobes are the seat of abstraction, intellect, and empower us with qualities like imagination, and conceptual thought.

Our primitive nervous system was designed to enable us to perceive and interact with the environment. Successive evolutionary improvements in the nervous system served to increase the speed and complexity of the response, albeit only as a reaction to the environment. But with the frontal lobes appearing in us humans, we could engage in abstraction.

Philosophy, poetry and culture are some intangibles that the human brain could delve into.

But then came the catch. This added faculty - the power to use creative imagination - also became a tool to conjure abstract fears. The fear of the unknown, the concept of destiny, suspicion, anxiety and the entire spectrum of
"imaginary" fears and angst. But then was that the objective of this latest edition of the brain?

To believe that this device was designed only to make life more comfortable is a bit far-fetched. We can take the credit for advancing technology, making inventions, and generally utilising the tool effectively. But we still have to realise that we just utilised the tool. We are not the creator of this tool. So what is the objective of this very versatile complex nervous tissue that has helped man transform the external world? Was it to distort and manipulate the external world? Couldn’t the creator have done so himself?

Abstraction was given as a boon to us to comprehend the 'inner' world. It is unlikely that other species would query "Who am I?", or "Why has this creation been made?" These are doubts that can arise only as an extrapolation of the thought process beyond the travails of daily mundane living.

So this heightened ability of imagination and comprehension was made available for the human mind to fathom itself.

An ability no other animal possesses. Needless to say almost all fears arising in the mind are a side-effect of this enhanced cognitive ability. Nothing more than that. The knife with a sharp cutting edge is a very versatile instrument if it is used appropriately.

We as proud owners of this add-on gadget need to realise that this tool has to be utilised for the appropriate objective of self-knowledge. To understand the self. To look within and not misuse it to end up as hypertensive and diabetics, disorders very human-specific stemming from gross misuse of this magnificent evolutionary upgrade.

(The writer is a consultant neurosurgeon. E-mail: deepakranade @ hotmail.com)

Sankara takes you on an Unusual Pilgrimage

A nice article by Pranav Khullar was published in the Speaking Tree of TOI.

In the Brahmn-Sutra Bhashya, Sankara says: “Brahmn alone is real, the world is illusory. The individual and the universal soul are One”. Using everyday references to illustrate abstract advaitic concepts, Sankara begins by stating that the Atmabodha will serve as a primer for those who wish to experience liberation, equipped with the tools of discernment. The second declares that knowledge alone can be the cause of liberation, just as fire is the direct cause of cooking. This may include the requirement of water, pots and pans but it is essentially fire that makes cooking possible.

Sankara saya that karma or action is powerless to destroy ignorance for “...it is not in conflict with ignorance”. The Self can be known only through knowledge, just as light alone can dispel darkness. He compares jnana abhyasa or the practice of knowledge which purifies by removing ignorance, with the traditional method of purifying muddy water in rural India with kataka-nut powder.

Just as the powder sprinkled on the surface of the water forms a film and drags all the impurities to the bottom, leaving pure water on the surface, constant use and practice of knowledge removes the dirt of ignorance. And just as the kataka-nut powder dissolves in the water after doing its work, knowledge too disappears after the Self emerges.

Sankara uses the example of the illusion created by oyster shells scattered along the beach on a moonlit night. We mistake them for silver, only till we recognise the reality of the oyster shells. Similarly, the world of names and forms exists only till self-knowledge dawns. The phenomenal world exists in the mind of the perceiver alone, and names and forms exist like ornaments. Vishnu, the allpervading consciousness, is like gold. Sankara reinforces the spirit and content of the Upanishads by alluding to the Mahavakyas, in his delineation of the nature of Brahmn, reiterating the wellknown method of arriving at the definition of Brahmn, through the process of elimination “...neti, neti...not this, not this”.

Meditation is essential to refocus on the Self. The flame of knowledge can only be kindled by constant meditation, Sankara compares this to the act of rubbing two pieces of wood together to create fire. Meditation is the friction between the mind-wood and the Om-wood pieces. The story of Rama is allegorised as Atmarama, who derives satisfaction from the Self alone, having crossed the ocean of delusion to vanquish the creatures of passion, just as Rama crossed the ocean to kill Ravana.

In the concluding verses Sankara seems to speak from a meditative trance, as he alludes to the nature of Brahmn — sat-chit-ananda or knowledgeexistence-bliss. These verses reflect the cosmic nature of his thought. He says, “...all things which can be perceived or heard, are Brahmn itself and nothing else...and though atma is reality, it can be perceived only by the one who has the eye of wisdom”.

Sankara asks us to undertake the real pilgrimage to “the shrine of the atma”, which will bestow upon us real equanimity. The Atmabodha, like its companionpiece the Vivekachudamani, is a call from the heart. It reflects Sankara’s attempt to reach out to not only the intelligentsia of his time. It conveys the profound, yet simple philosophy of Oneness to anyone who is curious to know more about the nature of consciousness and the path to liberation. It is a pilgrimage of the mind.

Thirukkural verses 3: The Merit of Ascetics

English Translation of Kaviyogi Maharishi Shuddhananda Bharatiar

No merit can be held so high
As theirs who sense and self deny.

To con ascetic glory here
Is to count the dead upon the sphere.

No lustre can with theirs compare
Who know the right and virtue wear.

With hook of firmness to restrain
The senses five, is heaven to gain.

Indra himself has cause to say
How great the power ascetics' sway.

The small the paths of ease pursue
The great achieve things rare to do.

They gain the world, who grasp and tell
Of taste, sight, hearing, touch and smell.

Full-worded men by what they say,
Their greatness to the world display.

Their wrath, who've climbed the mount of good,
Though transient, cannot be withstood.

With gentle mercy towards all,
The sage fulfills the virtue's call.

Flashes from Swami Vivekananda - 4

Philosophy of Education - 1

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man

Knowing is unveiling

Knowledge is inherent in man, no knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows' should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge. We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All the knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe. The external world is simply a suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was not the apple nor in anything in the center of the earth.

All knowledge is within

All knowledge therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind. In may cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say 'we are learning', and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this process of uncovering. The man from whom this veil is being lifted is the more knowing man; the man upon whom it lies thick is ignorant; and the man upon whim it has entirely gone is the all-knowing, omniscient. Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge exists in the mind; suggestions is the friction which brings it out. What we call powers, secrets of nature and force are all within. All knowledge comes from the human soul.. man manifests knowledge, discovers it within himself, which is pre-existing, through eternity.

Infinite power is within the soul

No one was ever really taught by another. Each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion which makes the internal teacher to work and understand things. Then things will be made clearer to us by out own power of perception and thought, and we shall realize them in our own souls. The whole of the big banyan tree which covers acres of ground was in the little seed which was perhaps no bigger than one-eighth of a mustard seed. All that mass of energy was there confined. The gigantic intellect, we know, lies coiled up in the protoplasmic cell. It may seem like a paradox, but it is true. Each one of come out of one protoplasmic cell, and all the powers we possess were coiled up there. You cannot say they came from food, for if you heap up food mountains high, what power comes out of it? The energy was there, potentially no doubt, but still there. So is infinite power in the soul of the man whether he knows it or not. Its manifestation is only a question of being conscious of it.

Inspiration for Change

Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it all has finally come together.

Difficulties are opportunities to better things, they are stepping stones to greater experience.


With faith anything is possible...just believe

How do you find inspiration to heal and overcome difficulties? To be inspired what does that mean to you? So much is wrong in the world today. We are surrounded with war, poverty, starvation, disease and more. Millions of families are torn and in despair due to economics, natural disasters, laws and regulations. Some continue to seek a cause as a necessity to harm others.

More can be found on this link

Thank you inspirationforch.