6 Moksha
Preparation 6-1
Preparatory Action 6-1-2
6-1-2-11 Dharma and Harmony 3(10 to 16)
Karma yoga is proper action with the proper attitude. Sri Krishna presents another facet of karma yoga. A human being is a product and part of nature. If any harm is caused to the whole, the part is also affected. A human being should live in harmony with nature. It is included in the proper attitude of karma yoga. Creation is not an accident. It follows cosmic rules. This cosmic rule may be viewed as a sacrifice or yajna of the creator. The human beings are born of the sacrifices.
Tag Archives: moksha
Bhagavad Gita (Topic-wise) Pt 12
6 Moksha
6-1 Preparation
6-1-1 Preparatory Knowledge
6-1-2 Preparatory Action
6-1-2-6 Rituals
6-1-2-7 Self-effort 3(33,34), 6 (5 to 7)
Inherent nature, i.e., nature one is born with, and self-effort are two important factors in human life. Nature is an aggregate of impressions of virtue, vice, etc. acquired in past lives and which become manifest in the current life. 3(33) says that all creatures behave according to their nature. If this is so, there would be doubt about the purpose of scriptural teaching in the absence of personal effort. To dispel it, it is said in 3(34) that a person engaged in scriptures should not come under the influence of love and hatred despite his nature impelling otherwise. When he controls love and hatred with the help of their opposites, then he is in sync with scriptural teachings, and he is not solely led by his nature.
Bhagavad Gita (Topic-wise) Pt 11
6 Moksha
6-1 Preparation
6-1-1 Preparatory Knowledge
6-1-2 Preparatory Action
6-1-2-5 Asuri Sampati 16(6 to 21,23)
Human birth is because of karmic balance at the end of the previous birth. Karmic balance is due to Self-ignorance. It continues in the current birth because a person is attracted to a materialistic life of desire and wealth and does not make efforts for spiritual growth. Scriptures are meant to guide people to lead a dharmic life on way to moksha. It is not a sin to pursue desire and wealth within the bounds of dharma. With maturity, it is necessary to make a shift to spirituality.
Bhagavad Gita(Topic-wise)Part 10
6 Moksha
6-1 Preparation
6-1-1 Preparatory Knowledge
6-1-1-8: Yog-bhrasta Chapter 6 has discussed dhyana yoga-Vedantic meditation called nidhidhyasana- the last stage of jnana yoga- for the benefit of a sincere seeker. His goal is moksha, and he is not interested in wealth or punyas. Arjuna wants to know the fate of a seeker who is sincere but has not completed jnana yoga and is not liberated. He has not earned sufficient punyas to go to Swarga. Arjuna apprehends that such a seeker is lost like scattered clouds. Continue reading
Free Will and Choice in the Dualistic World
S&T is a creature of S and T!
In the absence of S and T, S&T gets asphyxiated; S&T doesn’t survive.
Perhaps, you have already guessed S&T stands for Science and Technology; S and T are Space and Time.
Science and Scientists work where Space, Time and Substance (material) exist out there facilitating an observation. Their entire edifice is based on causal relatonships – a prior cause, p1, giving raise to an effect, p2, over a time interval. The mAdhyamika Buddhist philosophy also is based on this principle. A given effect in the present is said to result from summation of all the antecedent causes. The cause-effect relationship invokes “Mind space,” when there is no tangible physical space present,
But what happens if Space and Time are merely “unreal or imaginary”? Can causal relationships exist without a mind? Continue reading
Dharma and Ishvara
There are two notions that are intimately involved in this topic – ‘justice’ as seen from the Eastern perspective: 1) Dharma, and 2) Ishvara or the creating and controlling aspect of God or the absolute reality.
The notion of dharma is paramount in the Eastern philosophico-religious traditions and is used in many combinations of words. The main meaning is ‘law’ or ‘order’ as it exists in the universe. Rather than man-made, it is a divine ordinance or, alternately, a cosmological law that maintains all things in equilibrium. As such, it cannot be far distant from the Western idea of justice (‘law and order’ and all its derivations and conditionings). It is a universal law from which nothing can deviate (literally, ‘what holds together’), whether in the social, the individual, or the moral realms.
The four important divisions or goals of life in the Indian tradition are artha (re material possessions), kāma (pleasure and love), dharma (religious and moral duties), and mokṣa (spiritual release or delivery). Some of the Dharmaṣāstras – Books of the Law – are attributed to mythological personages, such as Manu, ‘forefather of man’, and are filled with religious, social, and ritual prescriptions.
An important treatise, encyclopedic in its coverage, is the ‘Kauṭiliya Arthaṣāstra’, from the 4th Cent. BC.
As far as the individual is concerned, the particular application of the law (dharma) is called ‘sva-dharma’, for s/he cannot escape it – in this or in another life (‘reincarnation’). There are different ways to look at it: merits and demerits, intimately tied up with (the law of) karma; duties pertaining to one’s station in life: student, householder, retiree, and, finally, renunciant or liberated one (mukti) – released from all duties and tasks and dedicated exclusively to contemplation of the divine or ultimate reality (traditionally referred to as ‘forest-dweller’).
The Indian tradition is prodigious in its elaboration and codification of all the branches of the sciences and of the arts: music, dance, philosophy, linguistics, mathematics, geography, rituals, types of meditation, moral laws, etc.
Imaginary ‘mokSha’ for Imagined ‘bandha’ – Shri P. Neti – 3/3
[Continued from Part – 2]
Question 3: The body that (notionally) housed previously a seeker….
Please Sir, body does not really house Consciousness. Not even the so-called limited consciousness. But it is Consciousness in which body appears just like any other object – and this is easily graspable even to the so-called limited consciousness, with a bit of subtle and impartial observation.
Question 3 (Contd.): … who is now liberated, (the body) is just a part of the ‘world’ which only exists as an “appearance” in the perception of the ‘ignoramuses.’ That body is now ‘without’ anyone as a claimant of ‘ownership’ to it. …
Let it be so. What is the problem if there is no claimant of ownership to a body?, I ask the ignoramuses. Continue reading
Only ‘mukti,’ No ‘mukta’ — Shri P. Neti – 2/3
[Continued from Part – 1]
Does this all amount to showing disrespect or arriving at too quick an intellectual claim that “I am brahman and after all this guru (of mine) is also my dream character?”
The answer is that it will never be the case for a proper adhikAri.
It is always like how bhagavatpAda Shri Shankara expresses in a concluding salutation for mANDUkya kArikA:
यत्प्रज्ञालोकभासा प्रतिहतिमगमत्स्वान्तमोहान्धकारो
मज्जोन्मज्जच्च घोरे ह्यसकृदुपजनोदन्वति त्रासने मे ।
यत्पादावाश्रितानां श्रुतिशमविनयप्राप्तिरग्न्या ह्यमोघा
तत्पादौ पावनीयौ भवभयविनुदौ सर्वभावैर्नमस्ये ॥ — verse 3, Shankara at the end of mANDUkya kArikA. Continue reading
On ‘jIvanmukti’ – Shri P. Neti – 1/3
[‘jIvanmukti,’ as per Advaita Vedanta shAstra, has been recently explained by Shri Prasanth Neti Ji in a profound and refreshing way (not usually available) at a Social Networking site. I have taken the liberty to post a slightly edited version, as the topic may be of interest to many Readers here.]
What Vedanta (or Acharya) refers to as adhyAsa or avidyA is only a label used for the sake of instruction while imparting the Non-dual (Advaita) message. Shankaracharya never actually meant that an entity called avidyA/adhyAsa ever really exists.
And this labelling is made taking into account the already *observable and existing* human behavior. That is why we do not explain avidyA/adhyAsa as anything other than (or beyond) the very natural human behavior based on the fundamental notions — ‘I am this’ and ‘this is mine.’ This is a very very important point to be always kept in mind, in my opinion. Continue reading
Q.526 MithyA
Q: In your comment on the article by Arun Kumar, I was confused but intrigued that you define Mithya as something that simply explains the fundamental nature of the Brahman in life and its objects. I have not so far found any dictionary that defines mithya as anything other than false or illusory nor discovered any major scholar-philosopher who thought that Shankara viewed this world as a reality – as real as the ornament in your metaphor. You say that Shankara himself by discriminating between the waking and dream states suggests that novel meaning of Mithya. Is this your own interpretation or does Shankara himself link the ability to differentiate between those states to explain mithya?
You raise the example of how jumping into the middle of traffic would help one realize why this world is NOT an illusion… but it is not convincing enough. Potentially, both a person jumping in front of a truck and his consequent “death” could be perceived as illusory events too. The real question I have is whether Shankara himself viewed this world as illusion and used Mithya to convey that or not. And, if it was an illusion for him, what did he think the meaning of life was? If on the other hand life was Not an illusion to him, as you seem to suggest, what was its purpose in that case?
Continue reading