MERRILL AB - LET'S SEARCH ROOTS

One of the earliest descriptions of Being in the Upanishads can be found in the discussion between Ajatashatru and Gargya in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Ajatashatru, the king of ancient Kashi, offered a thousand cows to Gargya, a brahmana, if he could provide a satisfactory explanation of Being. (Brahmanas refer to texts, as well as priests.)  Gargya said, “The person within the Sun, indeed he is the Being I meditate upon.” The king replied, “Please do not talk to me about that being. While he is the head of all beings, he is not Being.” Gargya went on to talk about the essence of the moon, lightning, space, air, fire, water, sound, the person in the mirror and his shadow. When all his explanations of Being were rejected, the brahmana requested the king to teach him. Ajatashatru led him to a sleeping person and said, “When this person fell asleep, his consciousness gathered together all his senses, including his mind, and restrained them. When he lies dreaming, his consciousness ...

This verse shows four ways to achieve ultimate freedom. The fourth is to overcome pain and happiness, life and death, and be in balance. This means we stop fighting and fighting, judging and choosing, and let life happen and give its opinions. Stanza 4 Poetry helps us escape the lifestyle. Most of our suffering comes from our likes and dislikes. Dealing with something we don't like can be just as painful as parting with something we love. We go through an emotional rollercoaster as we oscillate between the poles of attraction and repulsion, with obsessions that we cannot easily get rid of. We spend our lives seeking happiness and fulfillment, searching for things that seem to make us happy and avoiding things that seem to prevent us from being happy. We deserve and prove our denial and neglectful, assertive attitude. pain or develops. There aren't many people who go through this pain. When some people realize they are lost in their thoughts and desires, the alarm goes off and i...

This third part of the blog is the commentary of the third verse of Ashtavakra Samhita. This blog would be a bit confusing but possess a very deep knowledge. The first verse said that "we are detached from the entire universe", then the second verse said that "the entire universe is in us" and now the third says, "the entire universe is not in us". The literal meaning is not to be understood here. Rather, the deep knowledge behind it is the glory of Ashtavakra Samhita.  The appearance of the universe is not at all denied in a self but the existence is. In Vedanta the appearance is seen as something which does not have its own identity and is Mithya. The experience of the universe and then the appearance of it is not denied but it is also said to be "not real", in its appearance. We, the infinite existent consciousness bliss are mistaking our own real nature for this world. The rope mistaken as a snake is a very famous example for this.We know the...

This is the second part of the blog where the second verse is being commented. The last blog showed how we are separate from the universe and only our consciousness is true self but in this blog there's a paradox where Ashtavakra's second verse says that the universe is within us and we are that pure consciousness which makes all those things come and go like a light in a room it doesn't come or go with us as we enter or exit it just shows the thing it itself experiences. Three ideas are present in this verse. The first one is that the Self is the cause of life as well as creation. The second one is that universe belongs to the Self. The third one is that the Self has manifested and unmanifested states. In the former he has materiality and in the latter he has nothing. Let us examine them in some detail. In spiritual life, worldly success has significance mainly as a teacher. Life teaches us many lessons, and success teaches its own. Through success and failure, we realize ...

This blog is the first part of the upcoming four blogs which would be tough to accept but the highest non-dual knowledge is like looking at the sun straight away rather enjoying moon light reflected by the sun itself. This knowledge of Ashtavakra can make or break a being. According to Ashtavakra, renunciation (sannyasa) is not an outward practice. It should be the spontaneous expression of inner detachment, without any motive or desire. If we practice renunciation with an intention or desire, it cannot truly be considered renunciation since renunciation itself means giving up all desires. Renunciation must be a natural act. It must be an expression of the soul rather than the mind or the ego. We practice it, not because our guru initiated us or our tradition demands it. It must be spontaneous, natural and free from motives, and must arise from soul-centric awareness. If we want to achieve liberation, we have to cultivate soul-centric awareness and see things from the perspective of th...

The Upanishads basically identify two types of knowledge: the lower knowledge of the rituals, sacrifices, obligatory duties, occupational knowledge, and the higher knowledge of the Atman and the Supreme Self. The former is often equated with ignorance Avidya and the latter with true knowledge Vidya. Inferior knowledge or ignorance arises from our mind. Their interaction with the phenomenal world is responsible for our experience of duality and non-duality. From this perspective, even the knowledge we gain from the study of the scriptures, unless it is augmented by spiritual experience, is considered inferior. Many spiritual teachers believe that mere book knowledge does not help much in our liberation. Some even say that it becomes an obstacle and comparatively an empty mind is better suited for spiritual sadhana than an intellectual mind full of theories and concepts. This knowledge is considered inferior, because it does not liberate us from the cycle of births and deaths. Instead, i...

One needs to do some work. People can only get rid of the shackles of work by working, they do not run away from work. Complete removal comes later. A person cannot remain idle for a moment. "Everything must be patient, because all our places are determined by actions. Likewise, actions will be canceled by actions. If we do good things, we eliminate the bad things of the past. Past sins can be overcome through meditation, japa and spiritual meditation.  There are very few people who can think and practice Japa at all times. In the beginning, they apply these teachings seriously, but in the long run, their brains warm up by sitting on the prayer rugs over and over again. They are very arrogant. They also experience emotional stress due to thinking about different things. It is better to work on your emotions than to let them go. Because when the mind has free space to travel, it causes a lot of stress. Naren (Swami Vivekananda) thought about these and created intelligence with whic...

This blog would cover the four obstacles to meditation. This is in relation to the obstacles we face, once we sit for meditation rather than the obstacles in sitting to meditate. 1. Iccha or Desire This means desire. It refers to the desire to do something and includes planning and intentions. When you're in the grip of iccha, it feels like there is a rock in your head. For most of us, this will be the primary disturbance in meditation. Wants work, family, or social commitments and the associated planning will tend to bombard the mind for many meditators. 2. Dwesha or Hatred This means aversion, hatred, or enmity. This also feels like you have a rock in the head and you're unable to meditate. If you sit with the intention of meditating when you are in the grip of dwesha, and keep holding on to it, you'll really appreciate the truth of the teaching, "it is we who suffer when we don't accept others". 3. Sukha or Happiness In this context, this means too much exc...

This blog would cover the topic sense from Vedantic point of view and make this clear that it's our senses that deceive us or report the reality to us. If we get the conclusion from evolutionary science or modern cognitive science, it's that our senses deceive us i.e. they do not report the reality to us. This straight away doesn't mean that senses are misreporting, because if we observe, evolution has not designed our senses to report reality. Rather, evolution has designed our senses to protect us and make sure that we survive and pass on our genes to the next generation. That's just the conclusion of the Darwinian science . In fact, in Darwinian psychology , our body & mind is designed as vehicles for our genes, which will be transmitted to the next generation. So, what makes sense is that, senses are not meant to report the reality but to report that thing in such a way that it enables this human-animal to interpret that reality to survive. This concept cou...

This blog will try to make us all understand the existence of the Universe when we see it from a Vedantic point of view while keeping Brahman into the play. The Universe is not separate from Brahman. The reason for this is that we call Brahman being existing by itself. So if we logically think that there is something as 'existing by itself' and then if something is separate from its existence, it itself becomes non-existent. For e.g. something other than wood is not wood likewise something other than existence is non-existent. So, if we say the Universe is other than Brahman, we are actually saying that it is separate from existence, which concludes that the Universe is non-existent!. We positively, therefore, have to conclude that the Universe cannot be apart from Brahman. If we conclude this, our next question that arises would be of the Universe being the same as Brahman. But, we cannot say this too, because the universe has all the sufferings, people getting happy, peopl...

1853 , before this year the Indian Education System, was one of the best ways to be educated. In A.D. 458 Aryabhatta invented 0 (zero). Without this invention of zero mathematics can't ever be completed which we now perceive for almost everything. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was started on October 1, 1958. Their research on solar eclipse and moon eclipse is given more acknowledgement rather if we go to Varanasi, we have well-learned Vaidic education scholars who can easily tell the exact date and time of the eclipse. But this proclamation would never be given importance as we are bodily Indian but our mentality is shaped like the English Schools and not as Gurukula where we learn Vaidic Studies.  Acharya Agnivrat  who is a scholar in Vaidic Physics  has proved so many things wrong about the theories for the Universe and has also added an ample of knowledge to the search for the Universe. At the World Congress Conference in 2004, many Dharma Gurus ...

Guru is a very important term in the spiritual life, especially in the Indian tradition. One reason is that this is a knowledge consisting of tradition and knowledge always requires a teacher to be well explained. In Hinduism we conceive God or Brahman as the  Adi Guru  (first Guru), there is a very famous  Guru Stotram  for this. Now the question is whom should we select as our Guru? Usually, we hear from our tradition that Guru is already selected for us, but there are certain criteria mentioned for Gurus in our Vedantic text especially the Upanishads. Let's first understand the meaning & then learn the term. There are basically three criteria for a Guru to be chosen:- The person whom we are going to choose as our Guru should be well versed in the tradition.  Here the term tradition is chosen because this explanation was in the Vedanta  & so the tradition mentioned here refers to Vedantic tradition. And just being versed doesn't work, one should b...

This blog is inspired by Dr Veerle Van Tricht who was impressed by my blogs and told me to write a blog on her book. Such things really motivate me to write such more blogs. Recently, I read the book " My Surgeon Talks To Angels-A Journey From Science To Faith " by Dr Veerle Van Tricht . I was a bit amazed after reading this book. This book has some mentions of the events happening with the writer which were Angelic. She has mentioned all the angelic activities happening with her since she was six years old. She shares her experiences when she was six years old, that how she left her body every night when she went to sleep and travelled with an angel through space. She was an unusual child. The most interesting thing is, she is still alive and confidentially claims that she is more engaged with angles than all of us. Although, listening to angelic experience from a science student was a bit awkward for me, but as I kept reading her book, I realized how she was into angelic ...

Let's analyse the functioning mind of a worldly occupied person and the mind of a Yogi. Let's discover some similarities if any or, how they differ from each other. Although, talking about "the mind" Yogi has no place or a stand because, for a yogi, the body and the mind are separated from the pure existing self. But this blog would be on how the mind functions and what are the extra locks or keys in Yogi's mind which makes a being so adorable and Priestley. A philosophical view to understanding the functioning of these two different sorts of mind is by taking the example of the river. The river in the monsoon season has a much higher volume of water which is flowing vigorously, that is compared to the mind of a worldly occupied person. There are so many thoughts flowing, that are not in control and are also changing very fast. Also when there are landslides the river gets muddy, and then this drinkable water cannot be used by us, nor can we offer it to someone. ...

Knowledge is an awareness or understanding of someone or something, such as facts or skills. Knowledge is distributed on practical and philosophical grounds. Let's perceive each ground. Philosophy about knowledge says that knowledge is what is known as opposed to what is not known to a human being. It is the product of thought, which usually employs or works with concepts, like truth and belief. The definition of knowledge should comply with the prerequisites of a definition and should reflect the nature of knowledge. Therefore, the best way to interpret information is to make comparisons and use it as a model for interpreting information. Advaita Vedanta is about knowing that you alone are enough. But the kind of knowledge that Advaita is talking about is living a life where we can tell ourselves that we really are and that that's what we really mean and that's not what we're going into based on what we've learned a little bit of background. We must have faith like...

Duty is a word that describes moral obligation towards someone or something. An honest commitment is a commitment that is followed, not just wishful thinking or agreement. The term "Duty" is defined in Vedanta as "Swadharma" (your own dharma). It was easy to use this explanation in ancient Indian times, but it is not so easy today. This is because rigid structures such as caste and ashrama (filter and division of life) were used in the past. There are also usually four groups: priests, soldiers, merchants, and workers. Our lives are also divided into four stages: students, sleepers, elderly and workers. Now what needs to be understood here is that the structure of the Vedanta concept of responsibility is built around this, according to ancient Indian scriptures their duty/Swadharma is to complete the five Dharmas:- Ashrama Dharma: The role we undertake Our situations in life change, so do our responsibilities in life. It changes. Varna Dharma: Tasks were determined ...

Watching the rise and fall of desire through thought or changing desire from negative to positive requires deep meditation, which is not easily achieved. So what should we do with angry desires and how should we create them? Let's understand the real meaning of desire. Desire is a strong feeling of wanting something or hoping that something will happen. The universe began not with light, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, but with desire, the "first germ and germ of the soul." < br>< br>Psychology says that desires constantly appear in our hearts and are then replaced by other desires. Without this desire there would be no point in doing anything. Life cannot stand up, just like those who cannot think. Short-term desire corresponds to boredom, long-term desire corresponds to melancholy. The paradox theory of desire says that we are born with desire and cannot remember a time when we did not have desire. We may act on our desires without being aware of them a...

Death is something which is inevitable and every organism is going to die if it takes birth, but let's not keep it till here. As there are much more things to be experienced than just accepting death as the end of our life. Let's Search the Roots..... The personification of the power that destroys life, often represented in art and literature as a skeleton or an old man holding a scythe. This is what and how death is explained and again this has a connection with the body and the mind as a base of 'I'. This is something that Vedantists strongly oppose. In psychology, Terror Management Theory suggests that a large part of all human behaviour is generated by unconscious fear of death. This fear generates a fundamental anxiety and unease, which we try to offset with behaviour such as status-seeking or strongly defending the values of our culture. We feel threatened by death and so seek security and significance to defend ourselves against it. Studies have shown, for examp...

We understand non duality first and then we have a question that "How can we be always tagged with this non dual state?", this question inevitably comes to known non duelists. But let's first understand non duality and then answer this question. In spirituality, non dualism, also called non-duality, means "not two" or "one undivided without a second". Non dualism primarily refers to a mature state of consciousness, in which the dichotomy of I-other is "transcended", and awareness is described as "center-less" and "without dichotomies". Although this state of consciousness may seem to appear spontaneous, it usually follows prolonged preparation through ascetic or meditative/contemplative practice, which may include ethical injunctions. For a much easier and more relatable understanding of non-dualism refer my blog No Mind? Mind! . The whole field of psychology can be seen as a misunderstanding about the irreconcilable world...

The C-19 has left us with inner and outer stress/depression, where the resulting economic crisis are a topic of great concern for all where the inner self/the mental self is left disturbed and depressed. India's population strength is about 130 Crores, that has now become a weak link since only 30% of the population is on the field and the balance 70% are at their homes, due to some reasons or other due to this pandemic that has lead them to a state of depression, as they have a family to sustain and they have to also care about them. But the fear of failure to keep their family happy leads them to their mental disorders leading to depression. What the encyclopedia of psychology says about depression is that it is a feeling that goes beyond just sadness. This feeling or mental state leads us towards lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt leading even to recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. Given this background, how does one deal ...