Vedanta

[Giridhar]

namaste.

                I have not received the digest for the past two days,
maybe because of email problems on my end. However, at the risk of the
issue being already addressed, I would like to state some points.

                Before we start about setting the world right, should we
not enquire as to what the world is. Is the world at any point
different from our perception ? Does everyone view the world
to be the same ? As Bhagavan says on 19-10-1945, "As about
the world, if you know your own reality, these questions
will not arise. All these differencesm the pains and miseries,
as you say, do they exist independently of you ? It is you
who sees these things and ask about them. If by the enquiry,
"Who am I" you understand the seer, all problems about the
seen will be completely solved."

Often, aesthetic values of a beautiful universe confer certain pleasurable
moulds in the mind. If anything happens to destroy these values, a sense of
frustration at our failure to hang on
to them overcomes us. Sure of our competence to prevent such destruction,
we form an organization and try to prevent this with a determination. This
consuming passion to set the world right without setting ourselves right is
anger. What causes hatred, anger, a consuming passion ?
        The base emotion is fear. Whenever there is the thought of an other,
there is fear. So long as the ego exists, duality exists. When the ego
arises, the sense of separateness arises and this generates the fear which
drives us to protect ourselves from the other. However, soon it is
recognized that the self can not be separated from the society, and
universe in general.
     The solution in creating a peaceful world, in an environment conducive
to everyone lies not only in education but within ourselves. Unless we give
up the false idea of an independent self, and begin to see the creation as
an indivisible whole, we are circling the solution without ever coming
close to the center.
The peace movement must always begin in our own hearts
for it to blossom and last.

                It does not mean that we should remain unmoved by
the pain. See the answer of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi
below.

D : But we see pain in the world..Are we to call it a dream and remain
unmoved by his pain ?

     M : Till you reach the state of jnana and thus wake out of this maya,
you must do social service by relieving the suffering whenever you see it.
But even then you must do it, as we are told, without ahamkara i.e without
the sense of "I am the doer.' but feeling 'I am the Lord's tool.' Similarly
one must not be conceited, 'I am helping a man below me ...' All such
service too is for the Self, not for anybody else. You are not helping
anybody else, but only yourSelf.

Secondly, we should examine whether we are following the
dharma prescribed for everyone. The difficulties in
following them have remained the same over several
generations i.e., the difficulty is in the control of our mind
and not of external circumstances.

Finally, these words of MTV culture etc. sometimes worries
me. It seems to project an image of India, which has left
out Her cultural values. On the contrary, I find my country

to much more spiritually concerned than any other country
I have visited and stayed. For example, five lakh youngsters (i.e., 15-30
yrs) visited Thiruvannamalai on Chaitra Purnima. I could not even enter the
temple. Wherever I go,whether it is to a discourse or bhajan, I find people
of this age group dominating the group.

                30% of the TV watching community watches Jai Hanuman
and AUM namah shivaya, a still larger community watched
Mahabharata and Ramayana on TV. In US, they would kill to
get 30% ratings for any program (and only sitcoms like
Seinfeld and finals of sports could even manage close to that, not any
religious program !).

        60 years back, our grandparents felt that the values of our
parents were going to the dogs. We feel the same regarding the
next generation, but it is not true. MTV or no mtv, I would be
glad if some of the crowd kept away from discourses, temples
and watched television. Then I can get a good darshan of the
Lord in the temple. Just kidding !!!

                Thanks for listening and reading...

namaste

gm