Path to Eternal Truth: Volume Ii - Softcover

Rao, Manjula

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1504314050 ISBN 13: 9781504314053

Verlag: Balboa Press AU, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

The Path to Eternal Truth Volume II presents the Shankaracharyas principles of Sanatana Dharma, the eternal law, which has no beginning and no end. By following his teachings, we can bring abundance into our lives and spread love, joy, and happiness. And by following his path, we can achieve the ultimate goal in this life itself and fulfil the only desire that can be fulfilled, which is to find the Lord and merge with him. Translator Manjula Sudhindra Rao faithfully offers these teachings in English for seekers and travellers on the direct path to self-realisation. His Highness writes, It is a universal principal that every human being is in the search for peace, for the easy attainment of his goals. From the beginning of life, to the end, this quest continues. Love, joy, abundance, and happiness can be achieved by everyone by following the path of Sanatana Dharma, which is about living a fulfilling and more invigorating lifestyle of righteousness.

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His Holiness Jagadguru Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Sarasvati is the present Shankaracharya of Dwarka and Jyothirmath. He is a liberated sage and a living example of one who has followed Sanatana DharmaHinduismthroughout his life. Manjula Sudhindra Rao is a spiritual person, and from a very young age she pursued the path of spiritual truth, culminating in higher studies of the philosophy of Adi Shankaracharya at Mumbai University. She had the divine fortune of being accepted as a disciple of His Holiness Jagadguru Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Sarasvati who was impressed by her dedication on the spiritual path and permitted her to bring his teachings to the outside world.

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Path to Eternal Truth Volume II

By Manjula Rao

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2018 Manjula Rao
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1405-3

CHAPTER 1

SEEK SHELTER IN GOD

Our sastras consider dharma (righteousness), artha (wealth), kama (desire), and moksa (liberation) to be the four goals. Man makes one, two or all of these his purpose and absorbs himself in attaining them through various means. As against this, some devotees relinquish the desire for these four goals and instead, totally devote themselves to the worship of God. According to them, the love for God is the fifth goal.

If one thinks it over, one realises that the main cause for all attainments is dharma. The attainment of artha and kama depends upon the dharma of one's present or past lives. The jnana, the means of attaining moksa, the awakening of devotion can take place only in the mind that is free from desire and purified by following dharma. Dharma also forms the basis of making dharma the goal. In this modern age, people are forgetting this principle. This is because the basis of religious belief is the eternal nature of the soul and the power of the omnipresent, omniscient God. But Man today is forgetting this. If these two beliefs are firmly established in the heart of Man, he can never falter from the path of dharma. It is confirmed that after death, the individual soul persists as it has to bear the fruits of the good and bad karma performed in the present life. The omniscient God is aware of all of Man's karma and accordingly decides to bestow upon Man the life that he deserves, decides how long he should live and what are the experiences he has to go through. However as clever a person may be, nothing about him remains hidden from God, as "You can deceive those with two eyes but never the One with a thousand eyes".

rama jharokha baithake sabaka mujara leya jakÍ jaisÍ cakarÍ tako taiso deya.

-This excerpt has been taken from the teachings of Saint KabÍra.

God gives us the fruits of our karma and controls the entire universe. He is omniscient and insightful. Insightful is the one who lives in this world and has control over it. God shows the right path to those who have faltered from it. He favours dharma, nyaya and sadguna. He destroys arrogance and vanity in Man being beyond the universe. Unobtrusively, He discourages evil qualities and encourages divine ones. He is the sole support of the needy, weak and the distressed. If Man becomes blinded due to the intoxication of his wealth, youth and luxuries and becomes oblivious to God, there will come a day when God will create a situation which will compel Man to open his eyes and realise his mistake.

Sometimes God sends a warning to the mind which people call the inner voice. However, not everyone can hear it. It gets suppressed due to the predominance of desires. In fact, some people are deluded into thinking that their desires are the urging of God. Only can the person whose mind is free from desires, who has relinquished his wants, has surrendered himself to God, and considers himself to be a machine and God as the operator, can hear His voice.

Lord Krsna says in the GÍta

isvarah sarvabhutanam
hrddeser'juna tisthati
bhramayan sarvabhutani
yantrarudhani mayaya
tam eva saranam gaccha
sarvabhavena bharata
tatprasadat param
santim sthanam prapsyasi sasvatam

- BhagavadgÍta 18. 61

"Oh Arjuna! The insightful Supreme Being, mounted atop the machine which is Man, resides in his heart and in accordance to Man's karma, takes him on a journey with his supernatural powers".

"Oh Bharata! Seek shelter in God. Only there, with His blessings, will you find true peace and a permanent refuge".

When the mana (mind), vacana (words) and karma (deeds) are all devoted to God, adharma cannot touch the person. He will never lie, never have evil thoughts and his senses will never go astraya. Only such a person is considered to be truly virtuous and benevolent towards others. The benevolence of a person who disregards the Lord, only feeds his own ego. However, those who have sought shelter in God (saranagati) have an egoless benevolence and have a simple nature.

para upakara vacana mana kaya
santa svabhava sahaja khagaraya

To be truly benevolent, one has to sacrifice selfishness. However, when the limited ego is present, all deeds of Man, knowingly or unknowingly, are for selfish purposes and for the satisfaction of the ego. It is impossible to be selfless in such a state. Those who have laid down their lives for their community, society and their country are called selfless. Actually, upon reflection, the boundaries of their selfishness widen, but the selfishness remains. The one who totally dedicates and surrenders himself to the Supreme Power or God, is the one who is truly selfless.

This Supreme Power which continuously pours out love and compassion is reflected through the mana, vacana and karma of those dedicated to Him.

Man today, is in search of peace. It is a rule that Man, for the fulfillment of his purpose, should adopt means which are in accordance with his philosophical beliefs. "Fulfillment of desires brings peace". This has become the philosophy of our lives today. However, this is wrong. Fulfillment of one desire gives rise to many more desires which, being impossible to fulfill, give rise to discontentment or restlessness. The one who is restless will never find peace. "asantasya kutah sukham" In other words, only can the elimination of desires bring peace and happiness but those who disregard God will never be free of desires and hence will never find true happiness. By renouncing worldly attachments and dedicating oneself to the one and only God and seeking shelter in His highest abode and through endless faith and devotion to him, can one turn towards God. This is the saranagati. Desire and selfishness are permanently eliminated from the heart of a saranagata devotee. The Vedas say that God has thousands of heads, thousands of limbs and thousands of eyes and in reality, our body, senses, mind and intellect are all parts of that vast, universal Supreme Being. We have mistakenly considered ourselves to be different from God. In fact, all that we have belongs to him. What is there for us to dedicate?

A poet has said -

mera mujhame kucha nahi jo kucha hai so tor
tera tujhako soupate kya lage hai mor

All that I have belongs not to me but is Thine
What I dedicate to You has never been mine

King Bali asked God to claim the earth in three steps. God assumed a huge form and in just two giant steps covered the earth, the cosmos and heaven. He then asked King Bali, "Where should I put my third step?" Bali replied that till now, only the objects possessed by the owner had been offered, not the owner himself. He said, "Put your third step on my head because I am the owner of the earth and so I am greater than it". This was true, but Bali had coordinated his body, senses, breath, mind and intellect and had still retained his limited ego. He was therefore bound by varuna pasa.

Bali's wife VindhyavalÍ prayed to God and implored, "Oh Lord! You have meted out the right punishment to my husband. The world is your playground. You have created it and it...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Balboa Press AU
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1504314050
• ISBN 13: 9781504314053
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 132
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland