Ramblings on Spirituality

Hi Daisycutter,

As on Substantiating my points on " Gandhiji attained mukti even while alive [ they are called juvanmukti ] ", i'm herewith attaching a page from Ramana Maharishi's " Talks with sri Ramana Maharishi " .

There are also other key verses from "The Bagawad Gita " , i shall try to browse thru' my copy and tell u the verses. I don't want to discuss The Gita givine the verses and their meanings here, i shall also try to state the answer thru' one of the verse from " The Gita " itself. But, i'm afraid that i may need a lot of time to go thru' it . But, i'll definitely do it.

 

Hi daisycutter,

Pls don't mention. Of course, what u've read , sh'd be contemplated upon and simultaneously practiced to attain liberation.Gita is practical , not theory. I obviously didnot attain it, but am practicisng it in a desire to be liberated one day .

Me too, i enjoy this conversation too. Thx for opening this thread.

 

Hi daisycutter,

I find this page totally complete to substantiate my point. In that case, even Ramanar never called himself as " bagawan". It is the ppl who call him so, same is true with mahatma too . Only others call him so , not him. This explanation too is found in the book " Talks".

Since u said u had studied Gita, i had presumed something. That page talks abt Bliss . What is bliss if not, liberation? Ramanar himself substantiates it with Thayumanavar's lines. [ Thayumanavar a tamil saiva saint . if u don't know tamil, he is an equivalent of Saint Kabir ].

Finally, all the books only talk of liberation. they don't make us liberated. It is for u to work out individually. What is TATTVAMASi?
Tattvamasi = tat + tvam + asi = that + u + are.

What did Gandhiji utter while dying ? Is it not " Rama". That again is the direct evidence.

If everything is still a maze, i'm attaching 2 more pages from the same book . pls read them at y'r leisure.

To share my experience, i n'ver understood this book, until i contemplated it upon, practiced it , still studying to understand the next step, and to again practice........ This is a v. direct book on liberation. The one thing that Swami Vivekanandas' lacks is the practical moksha, or to put it in a different way, the last part of karmayaogi attaining liberation is not said in Vivekananda's. He anyway says , tattvamasi.


But, once u understand, it is only the everyday mental work that u've to do. It becomes that easy and simple.

Also, do read Ramanar's explanation on The Bagawad Gita. It is simply superb, wow what can i say..............

 

In plain words, you cannot generalise sprituality as RAMBLING for few 1 off people who misused it. Right power in right hand is fruitful to the community... and power is power it doesn't become a rambling just because someone set a wrong example using it.

If you're confused about its usage then either be specific to a person who misused it or wait for the right time to earn insights.

People who are forced into it or take it for BENEFITS other than spiritual discourse and set bad examples do not cancel the overall concept which is too pious to some people.

Also if this topic was baseless then indusladies would have never dedicated a SUB FORUM and further SUB FORUMS under it.

 

Daisy,

On a scale of 1 to 10, if one is 'escape' and ten is 'liberation/moksha/nirvana'= then like most intoxicants religion/spirituality, can be a means to both. I am using religion and spirituality in generic terms here, not really differentiating between the two. I don't blame your cousin or judge him on any of his actions. Maybe in a stormy domestic environment, he found solace in religion which he called spirituality. He escaped into religion assuming that he had sought liberation in spirituality. And in his mind, he must have gone deep into it.More on this depth later--.

Seeking refuge in the Himalayas then, and in blissful married life now- both must seem logical and natural to him. At that point, he must have attained peace in religious books and in the Himalayas. He must have outgrown or better still, evolved out of that state, and found his true calling as a happy householder.

I guess we should not judge him. How can we assess at which stage was he more spiritual? Maybe as a gruhasta, he is more spiritual than he was as a seeker earlier in life.

Regarding the depth that each seeker follows, for a person like me fasting as a means of spiritual expression is totally beyond me. If in a day, I can control my pangs to gulp a spoon of condensed milk every now and then, I would consider myself restrained. For a Jain monk, spending months in sallekhana, without even water, would be an expression of piety. Am I inferior to the Jain monk? Maybe yes, maybe no. But hey, who is judging??

Nityananda was a sad moment for true spirituality. But we created the Frankenstein, we have only ourselves to blame for the Nityanandas of the world.

I dont know much about spirituality. But I do know that some of the most spiritual people have nothing to do with religion. I have seen genuine spirituality in communists in Kerala, in voodoo practitioners in Africa.

And the converse is equally true. Some of the most visibly religious persons are far removed from spirituality. The Pope in His previous stage as Fr.Ratsinger was endowed with the task of guiding the choice of the new Pope. He made a comment then about the Papal aspirants, which was like, most of these men of religion have nothing to do with holiness.

It beguiles me to even think on spirituality.

 

dear Daisy,

what is your doubt? can you please ask the questions for which you need the answers.

cheers.

 

DaisyC,

I could fly, thanks for liking my reply!!! Honestly, I am not searching for liberation or enlightenment. That should tell you how down below I stand in spiritual evolution. Right now, if I get a slokam that says, chant for 100 days and become rich, I will do it.

Anyway, saw your words on Vrittis in another thread, and was most impressed, educated. Could you write here on the bhashyams you have written on the Gita?

Autobiography of a Yogi- waiting for a friend to return from the US to send me a copy.Will read and join you all in discoursing.

These days, I am getting all my spirituality ready made through Swami Udit Chaitanya's discourses. He is so enlightened. Just thinking loud here. To me, sloughing the mind of hate is liberation. Maybe I am growing old, but even the thought of having an enemy inTimbuctu makes me sad.

 

hi daisycutter,

whatever i've said is not my opinion/ views. We can't and don't have our own version of alphabets. Neither can we create a new language. We neeed indigenous things , which are as such given by the Lord. We simply follow our teachers and parents. Similarly, i follow the teachings of the realised souls thru' their books , which contains their statements and not interpretations to their statements.

So, from whatever i've understood let me see if i can explain. Ramanar uses 3 states to explain us the path of realisation, vis waking, sleep and dream. I'm not going to talk abt dream,; u may follow the book in case u're interested.

There is a difference between the 2 states - waking [ w ], and sleep [ s ]. In s, the ego [ also called the I thought ] is totally absent. For eg., When i disturb u in the middle of s and ask u , who u're, u're not aware of u'r own self ; u blabber and doze of again. But, teh self [ soul ] is present , although wrapped in ignorance.

During w, as u wake up , the I [ ego ] thought arises and clouds the soul . The state of absence of I thought , which happened in s has to be achieved for in the w state. But, there is a huge difference here. In w, soul is in ignorance, but during realised state soul alone remains, everything else vanishes. This state is called the liberalised state and has to be achieved in w state. How is it to be achieved and accomplished? The answer is explained in detail in the book , " Talks ".


Though while reading Gita, u might read abt all the methods dealt with in the book TALKS, u wouldn't have known the real execution or the impediments in the execution. U'r answers to all these are found in this book.

Do study this book.