Excerpts From Vedas

The one who loves all intensely
Begins perceiving a part of himself in all living beings
He becomes a lover of all
Part and parcel of Universal Joy
He flows through a stream of happiness
And is enriched by each soul.
-- Yajurveda

Excerpts from Vedas - 2

The human body is a temple of God
One who kindles the light of awareness within
Gets to be truly enlightened
The sacred flame of your inner shrine is constantly bright
The human endeavors are expressions of fulfilment
And thus mysteries of human life are revealed.

Excerpts from Vedas - 1

Sing the song of celestial love O singer,
May the divine fountain of eternal joy and peace enter your soul
May Brahma pluck the strings of your eternal soul
With his celestial fingers and feel his own presence within
Bless with a divine voice
That we may tune up the harp strings of our divine life
And sing songs of Love to you..

Rig Veda

6/9/2015 Swadhyay Pravachan November 4, 1990.

Ishavasyam Continued.

God is omnipresent. He is everywhere but most importantly; he is present within me. And so is he very much present in others. The reason why we do not like doing things alone. We like to share our joys, sorrows, laughter etc with others. We enjoy doing things for others.

Sharing is divine and pleasurable.

To make the mind more powerful and receptive to fresh ideas and to be able to gain knowledge; devotion plays an important part. Bhav bhakti and kruti bhakti. are two aspects of devotion.
Devotion is easier when done via idol worship, as it is easy to focus devotion on an idol rather than the whole world; as god is present everywhere.

Bhaav bhakti can be performed alone, but it is human nature to be krutisheel.. or doing work. The kruti bhakti needs others. To sing hymns in the Lords praise, listening to His stories, doing His work, all of this requires "others". One can not survive alone in this world. So the idea of co-existence. This  can be sustainable if loving and peaceful. So the concept of oneness. That is me. What I like, the other likes, what I dislike, the other also dislikes. But that other is mine. This concept is Advait. This has its own charm.
The shlok
ॐ सह नाववतु ।
सह नौ भुनक्तु ।
सह वीर्यं करवावहै ।
तेजस्वि नावधीतमस्तु मा विद्विषावहै ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Meaning 
1: Om, May God Protect us Both (the Teacher and the Student),
2: May God Nourish us Both,
3: May we Work Together with Energy and Vigour,
4: May our Study be Enlightening and not give rise to Hostility,
5: Om, Peace, Peace, Peace.

Us and together are the key words. 

(At this; I couldn't help thinking about Modijis mantra - Sab ka saath, sab ka vikaas.)

Insaan bhagwaan se khud ke liye maangta hai, rishi Vishwa ke liye maangta hai.

Knowledge, culture, wealth when shared with others increase the love for them. 

Communism is a result of the irritation of the "have nots" with those who "have".

Those who have have an inclination to have more. The mentality of accumulation stems from a deep sense of dissatisfaction. But it is often not realized that satisfaction comes not from accumulating, but giving, sharing.

Giving also has to be done gracefully, without making the other inferior. With a feeling of "This belongs to the Lord, we are just sharing his gift to us."
Individualistic society leads to unhappiness. Indian culture is benevolent but Indians are not. 

Reaching out to people is very important and so is making them feel like your own. Aryans came from the North. Laden with divine knowledge, they embraced locals, of various tribes, cultures and various traditions. Epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata, stories, street plays and Puranas played an important part in unifying the diverse cultures which might have existed in this huge land of diversities.

Hence we see the Vedas completely different from the Puranas. Vedas is pure knowledge and rituals where as Puranas have fantastic stories which is a result of incorporating customs and beliefs of various tribes. For example, the worship of "Nagas" by some tribes may have led to the weaving of story of Vishnu lying on the Sheshnaag and the Neelkanth wearing the snake in the neck. The Vedas have no such depiction of the snake or for that matter Vishnu or Shiv.

So is the story of Tridev and their 3 consorts. The concept of 3 processes - creation (Brahma), sustenance(Vishnu) and destruction(Shiva)  with the 3 instruments of Knowledge(Saraswati), wealth (Lakshmi) and power(Shakti)

Vedic culture is the Ganga-Yamuna culture. Both arise in the mountains of Himalayas but while Ganga is pure and white, Yamuna is dark and not pious. The story goes that Ganga is praising Yamuna and considers it shreshtha because Yamuna is witness to Krishna leela and bhakti. Whereas Yamuna considers Ganga to be shreshtha as it bears witness to sages and their divine knowledge. But their Samgam is considered most pious by the Hindus; hence indicating the equal importance and meeting of Gyaan (knowledge) and Bhakti (devotion). 

This symbolizes the merging of the dark and fair too.. of the oneness or inclusiveness of the various strata of society. 

The need for unification of people irrespective of their work, social or economic status gave rise to the need for a structure or building where all would come together and participate as one. Thus the concept of temples. And the common activity of worship and prayers, and of imparting knowledge of unification through entertainment and recital of stories like Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Bhagvat Puranas and other mythological stories. 

Over the centuries, the purpose got lost and just a caricature remains which is an inadequate representation of our glorious culture and our gift to the world. 

When Hindus gave up reaching out to others and started becoming individualistic, the degradation of society started. 
(Rise of conversions as a result of this) 

Upanishad

Up - Near
Ni - Nishchay Se - Undoubtedly
Shad - 3 dhaatu - gati, himsa, avsaran - Dheela karna -
This knowledge gives us strength to detach oneself from the Maya. The worldly woes stop bothering us once we have the knowledge. Agyaan is Apoorna gyan. No full knowledge about the world, self, God.

Half knowledge is more harmful. This knowledge is useful for those seeking knowledge.

Upanishad is not the name of a book, but the knowledge contained in the vedas.

White Yajurvedas contain the Upanishad and the 40th adhyay is Ishavasyam.


Karma is essential. What is the objective of Karma? We wrongly believe it is to better this world or helping someone, This is completely untrue. We are here for ourselves. Ego. I. is inseparable from us. Lack of Karma is heavy on the conscience. Objective of karma is the cleansing of the conscience.

om purnam adah purnam idam
purnat purnam udachyate
purnasya purnam adaya
purnam eva vashishyate

Adah- that
Idam - This
Purnam- Complete.

That as well as this both are complete.

Purnaat Purnam udachyate
Completeness or the whole emerges from the whole.

Pooransysa Poornam adaya
If you remove the whole from the whole..

Purnameva vashishyate..
The completeness or wholeness remains.

This is so visible from observing the Universe. Einstein proved that energy can neither be created not destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form to another.

“The Self is one. Unmoving, it moves swifter than thought. The senses do not overtake it, for always it goes before. Remaining still, it outstrips all that run. Without the Self, there is no life.”

ishavasyam idam sarvam

yat kincha jagatyam jagat

tena tyaktena bhunjitha

ma gridhah kasya svid dhanam

The Lord is enshrined in the hearts of all.
The Lord is the supreme Reality.
Rejoice in him through renunciation.
Covet nothing. All belongs to the Lord.

कुर्वन्नेवेह कर्माणि जिजीविषेत् सतं समाः
एवं त्वयि नान्यथेतोऽस्ति न कर्म लिप्यते नरे…

kurvanneveha karmāṇi jijīviṣet sataṃ samāḥ
evaṃ tvayi nānyatheto'sti na karma lipyate nare…

‘In the world, one should desire to live a hundred years, but only by performing actions. Thus, and in no other way, can man be free from the taint of actions.’

असुर्य नाम ते लोका अन्धेन तमसावृताः ।
तांस्ते प्रेत्याभिगच्छन्ति ये के चात्महनो जनाः ॥

asurya nāma te lokā andhena tamasāvṛtāḥ |
tāṃste pretyābhigacchanti ye ke cātmahano janāḥ ||

‘In to the worlds of the asuras, devils, enveloped in blinding darkness, verily do they go after death who are slayers of the Atman, the Self.’

In this verse we are warned as to what happens to us if we forget and neglect the Atman, if we ignore It, and live merely trivial lives. A deep philosophical truth is couched in mythical, symbolic language. Life lived without the consciousness of our divine nature is trivial; it is life of darkness and sorrow. The word ‘darkness’ used in this verse is not physical darkness, but the darkness of ignorance; it is spiritual blindness. The verse compares this darkness to hell. In myths, hell is abode of the asuras, the demons. An alternating reading is asurya, literally ‘without sunlight’, absolute darkness. Imagine a cavern which has been dark from the beginning of time, a place where the rays of the sun have never penetrated. What would be the condition of a man if he had to spend his whole life in such a cavern? Such is the condition of one who passes through life without the least awareness of his divine nature. It is this awareness that evolves the moral man, out of the given individual, to ignore this ever-present reality of the Self is to keep away from light and clutch at shadows.

The verse further tells us that those who prefer to live in such spiritual blindness are really killing themselves. Ātmahana means ‘people who kill themselves’. In ordinary suicide we kill only the body, which is something external to us, but here we kill ourselves, our real Self. The death of the body is not so serious as the death of the soul. By neglecting our true nature, by ignoring it by clutching at the shadows of the non-Self all the time, we commit suicide of the most serious kind.

अनेजदेकं मनसो जवीयो नैनद्देवाप्नुवन्पूर्वमर्षत् ।
तद्धावतोऽन्यान्नत्येति तिष्ठत् तस्मिन्नापो मातरिश्वा दधाति ॥

anejadekaṃ manaso javīyo nainaddevāpnuvanpūrvamarṣat |
taddhāvato'nyānnatyeti tiṣṭhat tasminnāpo mātariśvā dadhāti ||

(4th Mantra, Isha-Upanishad)

‘The self is one. It is unmoving: yet faster than the mind. Thus moving faster, It is beyond the reach of the senses. Ever steady, It outstrips all that run. By its mere presence, the cosmic energy is enabled to sustain the activities of living beings.’

तदेजति तन्नैजति तद्दूरे तद्वन्तिके ।
तदन्तरस्य सर्वस्य तदु सर्वस्यास्य बाह्यतः ॥

tadejati tannaijati taddūre tadvantike |
tadantarasya sarvasya tadu sarvasyāsya bāhyataḥ ||

(5th Mantra, Isha-Upanishad)

‘It moves; It moves not. It is far: It is very near. It is inside all this: It is verily outside all this.’

What profound ideas are contained in these and the next three verses! The more profound an experience, the more indescribable it becomes; language fails; thought also fails. What remains mere hint and suggestions. These verses are, therefore, a little difficult to understand. They are enigmatic and paradoxical. Yet it is here, in these profound ideas, that we get those intimations of immortality that guide us onwards towards truth.

यस्तु सर्वानि भूतान्यात्मन्येवानुपश्यति ।
सर्वभूतेषु चात्मान ततो न विजुगुप्सते ॥

yastu sarvāni bhūtānyātmanyevānupaśyati |
sarvabhūteṣu cātmāna tato na vijugupsate ||

(6th Mantra, Isha Upanishad)

‘The Wise man, who realizes all beings as not distinct from his own Self, and his own Self as the Self of all beings, does not, by virtue of that perception, hate anyone.’

यस्मिन्सर्वानि भूतानन्यात्मैवभुद्विजानतः ।
तत्र को मोहः कः शोक एकत्वमनुपश्यतः ॥

yasminsarvāni bhūtānanyātmaivabhudvijānataḥ |
tatra ko mohaḥ kaḥ śoka ekatvamanupaśyataḥ ||

(7th Mantra, Isha Upanishad)

‘What delusion, what sorrow can there be for that wise man who realizes the unity of all existence by perceiving all beings as his own Self?’

The Upanishad now confronts the aspirant with the consequences of the idea that the infinite Atman is his true nature, the true nature of every man and woman. The man who realizes himself as the Atman perceives also that he is one with all beings, that none is separate from him. Then who can hate whom? He, the Knower, the Self, is one with all; the only life expression of this vision is universal love and service free; love is a binding force, whereas hatred proceeds from a sense of separateness. This realization, according to Indian thought, modern as well as ancient, marks the highest point of human excellence. These two verses convey a message of the highest spirituality, where the highest vision becomes embodied as the highest character. All the great ones of India have reacted to these two verses with a whole-hearted response. The saints and sages, intellectuals and devotees, of our country accord the highest place to this spiritual attainment. Through this realization man realizes his basic oneness with all men, with all beings; through this he achieves life fulfillment.