Devotion Common to all Faiths

All religious traditions have one purpose, to elevate man by freeing him from his cares and worries. A human being has worries that are not shared by other creatures. But it must be noted that all religious systems proclaim that man can not only free himself from his cares, if he makes an effort, but that he can also attain the  enlightenment that is not within the reach of other creatures. They speak in one voice that he will be rid of his cares if he goes for refuge to the Great Power that rules all worldly activities.

Devotion or bhakti is a feature common to all religious schools- Advaita (non-dualism), Dvaita (dualism), Visistadvaita (qualified nondualism), Saiva Siddhanta, Christianity, Islam and so on. The Buddha did not speak of devotion but it seems his followers cannot regard their master without bhakti. They have deified the Buddha and created images of him that are bigger than those sculpted for any deity. In very recent times a number of jnanins have laid stress on inquiry into the Self as the sole means of liberation. But they are themselves worshipped as God by their followers. Bhakti is an inborn characteristic of man; it is indeed an organic part of him.

Devotion in the Advaita system implies adopting an attitude of nondifference between the worshipper and the worshipped; that is the devotee must look upon Isvara as not being different from himself. It might be asked: "The devotee who worships the omnipotent and omniscient Lord has only very limited strength and knowledge. How can the two of them be the same? “But the question also arises:  "Does God regard us as being different from himself? If there are objects, entities, different from God how did they originate? If they came into existence as entities separate from Him how can He hold sway over them? ".

If we think on these lines it will become clear that the one and only Paramatman exists in various forms: if the ocean stands for Isvara we have in contrast the pond, the well and the little quantity of water contained in a spoon and soon that stand for diverse living beings. The water in all is the same. There maybe differences in the strengths of the various entities. But if you go to the base, the ground or root, you will discover that they are the same. If we go to the root we will become one with the root. This is liberation according to Advaita. Merely to talk about non-dualistic liberation is nothing more than an Intellectual exercise and will serve no purpose. The truth of such liberation must become an inward reality. In other words the quest must culminate in actual experience and it can be had only with the grace of God. Great sages proclaim that it is only with the blessings of that Power which keeps us in

a constant whirl of action that the whirl will stop and that we will have the Advaitic urge to seek the ground. "Isvaranugrahadeva pumsam Advaitavasana.”

Even in the initial stages when we feel that Isvara and his devotee are separate, we must try to cultivate the awareness, albeit to a small degree, that the Paramatman who appears as Isvara is the same as the Paramatman that has become "us". If such be our approach, our love for the Lord will become more intense. After all, is there anything or anyone we love more than ourselves?

Isvara awards us the fruits of our actions. If we become more and more devoted to him, as recipients of his grace, we will get closer and closer to him. He will himself reveal to us who he is and there will be no need for us to inquire about him or into him. In response to our devotion he will deign to reveal his true nature to us. He declares so in the Gita: "Bhaktya mam abhijanati yavan yascasmi. . . .” (By devotion he comes to know who in truth I am. . . )

Countless are the attributes of Isvara that bespeak his surpassing beauty and auspicious qualities. Devotees find constant delight in contemplating them. But for the jnanin, the enlightened one, the ideal is the Godhead that has no attributes and it is in his Godhead that he is finally absorbed. Sagunopasana (worship of Isvara with attributes) is the first step towards this end. For it our religion has evolved the concept of "istadevata" ("the deity of one's choice", "the deity one likes").

What is special about sanatana dharma or Hinduism as it has come to be called? Alone among all religions it reveals the one and only Godhead in many different divine forms, with manifold aspects. The devotee worships the Lord in a form suited to his mental make-up and is thus helped to come closer to the Lord with his love and devotion. These different forms are not the creation of anyone's imagination. The Paramatman has revealed himself in these forms to great men and they have had close contact, so to speak, with the deities so revealed. They have also shown us how we too may come face to face with these divinities, given us the mantras to accomplish this and also prescribed the manner in which the divine forms, whose vision they have had, are to be adored.

Bhakti or devotion is common to all religions whatever the manner of worship they teach. It is not exclusive to our faith in which different deities are reverenced.

Man and Beast

Animals grow transversely. That is why they are called "tiryak" in Sanskrit.Man who grows upright ought to have, unlike beasts, a high ideal before him. He will then obtain more happiness than all other creatures. But what do we see in reality? Man experiences greater sorrow than all other creatures. Animals do not know so much desire, so much sorrow and so much humiliation, as do humans. More important, they are innocent of sin. It is we humans who keep sinning and suffering as a consequence.

It seems that God has not endowed us with the same advantages that he has endowed animals with. We are not fitted with weapons of defense. If a cow feels threatened it has horns to defend itself. The tiger has its claws. We have neither horns nor claws. Sheep have hair to protect them from the cold of winter, so too other animals. But man is not similarly equipped. So he cannot repulse an attack; nor can he run fast like the horse, which has no horns but is fleet-footed. Against all these handicaps, man has the advantage of being more intelligent than all other creatures.

In order to protect himself from the cold of winter, man removes the fur of animals and weaves it into rugs. When he wants to travel fast he yokes a horse to his cart. God has furnished man with this kind of skill; though he has neither claws nor horns to defend himself, a human being can forge weapons on his own. With the strength of his intelligence he remains the master of all other creatures and also rules over the entire world of inert matter.

All species of animals have their own habitats. Some types of bear that are native to the cold climes do not thrive in our country. The elephant is a denizen of the forests of India and some other countries of South-East Asia and Africa, but it does not flourish in a cold climate. But man inhabits the entire earth. He uses his brains to make any part of this planet fit for him to live.

But, even with his superior intelligence, man suffers. All hardships stem from the fact of birth. How can one save oneself from being born again? But, then, what is the cause of our birth? The wrongs committed by us are the cause of our birth and we have taken this body of flesh and blood to suffer punishment for the same. Suppose a certain number of whiplashes are to be administered according to the law. If the body perishes after ten lashes, we take another birth to suffer the remaining strokes. The sins we commit in satisfying our desires are the cause of our being born again and again. If there is no "doing", there will be no birth also. Anger is responsible for much of the evil we do and desire is at the root of it. It is of the utmost importance that we banish desire from our hearts. But it is not possible to remain without any action after having cultivated so many attachments. If the attachments were done away with we would cease to sin.

What is the cause of desire? Desire arises from the belief that there is something other than ourselves and our being attached to it. In truth it is the one Sivam that manifests itself as everything.

The cow sees its reflection in the mirror and charges it imagining it to be another cow. If a man sees his own image thus, does he think that there is another person in the mirror? He is not perturbed by his image because he knows that it is himself. Similarly, all that we see is one and the same thing. Desire springs from our belief in the existence of a second entity, and it causes anger, which, in turn, plunges us in sin. A new birth becomes inevitable now. If we are enlightened enough to perceive that all objects are one, there will be no ground for desire. There must be an object other than ourselves, a second entity, to be desired. No desire means no anger and no sin. In this state there will be neither any "doing" nor any birth. And, finally, there will be no sorrow.

How do we obtain such enlightenment or jnana? Our body is sustained by our mother's milk. It is Amba who nourishes us with the milk of jnana.She is indeed the personification of jnana. We will be rewarded with the light of wisdom if we firmly hold her lotus feet and dissolve ourselves in her. One who does so becomes God.

The first step in this process of enlightenment is to make a man truly a man, by ensuring that he does not live on an animal level. The second step is to raise him to the heights of divinity. All religions have this goal. They may represent different systems of thought and philosophy. But their concern ought to be that man is not condemned as he is today to a life of desire and anger. All religions speak in one voice that man must be rendered good and that he must be invested with the qualities of love, humility, serenity and the spirit of sacrifice.

The Purusharthas

Religion is the means of realizing dharma, artha, kama and moksa. These four are called purusarthas.

“Artha” occurs in the term “purusarthas”, but it is itself one of the purusarthas? What a man wants for himself in his life- the aims of a man’s life- are the purusarthas. What does a man want to have? He wants to live happily without lacking for anything. There are two types of happiness: the first is ephemeral; and the second is everlasting and not subject to diminution.Kama is ephemeral happiness and denotes worldly pleasure,worldly desires. Moksa is everlasting happiness, not transient pleasure. It is because people are ignorant about such happiness, how elevated and enduring it is, that they hanker after the trivial and momentary joys of kama.

Moksa is the state of supreme bliss and there is no quest beyond it. We keep going from place to place and suffer hardships of all kinds. Our destination is our home. A prisoner goes to his home after he is released. Since we are now imprisoned in our body, we commit the grave mistake of believing that we are the body. The body is in fact our goal.

Moksa is the state of supreme bliss and there is no quest beyond it. We keep going from place to place and suffer hardships of all kinds. Our destination is our home. A prisoner goes to his home after he is released. But the word moksha also means release or liberation. Since we are now imprisoned in our body, we commit the grave mistake of believing that we are the body. The body is in fact our goal.

Our real home is the bliss called moksa. We must find release from the goal that is our body and dwell in our true home. God has sentenced us to goal (that is he has imprisoned us in our body) for our sins. If we practice virtue He will condone our sins and release us from the prison of our body before the expiry of the sentence. We must desist from committing sinful acts so that our term of imprisonment is not extended and endeavor to free ourselves and arrive in our true home, our true home that is the Lord. This home is bliss that passeth understanding, bliss that is not bound by the limitations of time, space and matter.

Last but not the least we would now discuss the first purusartha, Dharma. Dharma denotes beneficent action, good or virtuous deeds. The word has come to mean giving, charity. “Give me dharmam. Do dharmam, mother, “cries the beggar. Looked at in this way, giving away our artha or porul will be seen to be dharma. But how do we, in the first place, acquire the goods to be given away in charity? The charity practiced in our former birth- by giving away our artha- it is that brings us rewards in this birth. The very purpose of owning material goods is the practice of dharma. Just as material possessions are a means of pleasure, so is dharma a means of material possessions. It is not charity alone that yields rewards in the form of material goods; all dharma will bring their own material rewards.

If we practice dharma without expecting any reward in the belief that Isvara gives us what he wills- and in a spirit of dedication, the impurities tainting our being will be removed and we will obtain the bliss that is exalted. The pursuit of dharma that brings in its wake material rewards will itself become the means of attaining the Paramatman. Thus we see that dharma, while being an instrument for making material gain and through it of pleasure, becomes the means of liberation also if it is practiced unselfishly. Through it we acquire material goods and are helped to keep up the practice of dharma. This means that artha itself becomes a basis of dharma. It is kama or desire alone that neither fulfils itself nor becomes an instrument of fulfilling some other purpose. It is like the water poured on burning sands. Worse, it is an instrument that destroys everything dharmic thoughts, material possessions, liberation itself.

All the same it is difficult, to start with, to be without any desire altogether. Religion serves to rein in desire little by little and take a man, step by step, from petty ephemeral pleasure to the ultimate bliss. First we are taught the meaning and implications of dharma and how to practice it, then we are instructed in the right manner in which material goods are to be acquired so as to practice this dharma; and, thirdly, we are taught the proper manner in which desires may be satisfied. It is a process of gaining maturity and wisdom to forsake petty pleasure for the ultimate bliss of moksa.

Moksa is release from all attachments. It is a state in which the Self remains ever in untrammeled freedom and blessedness. The chief purpose of religion is to teach us how this supreme state may be attained.

We know for certain that ordinary people do not achieve eternal happiness. The purpose of any religion is to lead them towards such happiness. Everlasting blessedness is obtained only by forsaking the quest for petty pleasures. The dictates of dharma help us to abandon the pursuit of sensual enjoyments and endeavor for eternal bliss. They are also essential to create a social order that has the same high purpose, the liberation of all. Religion, with its goal of liberation, lays down the tenets of dharma. That is why the great understand the word dharma itself to mean religion.

There's more to what is Dharma which will be discussed as comprehensively as possible in the ensuing posts

Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitaha- Dharma alone protects!!

There is a law governing the behaviour of everything in this universe. All must submit to it for the world to function properly. Otherwise things will go awry and end up in chaos. It is the will of the Lord that all his creation, all his creatures, should live in happiness. That is why he has ordained a dharma, a law, for each one of them. It is compliance with this dharma that ensures all-round harmony. While Isvara protects his children from rain and sun, he also provides them, when needed, with the warmth of the gentle sun. His love for his children is expressed in the schema ordered by him for the functioning of Nature and the law he has laid down for trees is a part of it.

To be worthy of Isvara's love we must possess certain qualities, certain virtues. If there is a law that applies to trees, there must be one that applies to us also. We shall deserve the Lord's love and compassion only by living in accordance with this law and by working for the well-being of all mankind. What is called dharma is this law, the law governing the conduct of man. Isvara has endowed man with intelligence, but it is by using this very intelligence that human beings keep violating their dharma.

I guess at one point in life or the other  each Individual is faced with questions like "Why did I take birth in this world?" "What would happen when I die?" "Did I take birth only to Die?" and so on..The great men who emerged from time to time in various climes came to believe that the entity called man did not cease to exist even after his body perished. The truth dawned on them that the money and property acquired for the upkeep of a man's body served no purpose after his passing. As a next step they formed a view of what a human being must do in this life to ensure for himself a happy state in afterlife.Religious leaders in different countries taught different ways to achieve
this.

"Love everyone.” "Live a life of sacrifice." "Serve mankind.” Such are the teachings of the various religions. If a man lives according to these tenets,it is believed that his soul will reach God after it departs from his body. Those who subscribe to Advaita or non-dualism declare that the soul will become one with the Godhead. According to another system of belief, after reaching the Lord, the soul will serve him and ever remain happy as the recipient of his compassion. There is no need to quarrel over the nature of the final state. "By following one path or another we attain the Lord. And that will be the end of all our sorrows, all our frustrations and all our failures in this world. There will now be nothing but bliss, full and everlasting. “No more than this do we need to know for the present.

If the Paramatman is to draw us unto himself we must, without fail, perform our duties to him as well as to the world. It is these duties that constitute what is called dharma. Again, it is dharma that serves us when we dwell in our body and when we cease to dwell in it. It serves us in life and afterlife. When we are in this world we must do that which would take us to a desirable state after we depart from it. We take an insurance policy so that our relatives will be able to take care of themselves when we are gone. But is it not far more important to ensure that we will be happy in our after life? Dharma is after life insurance. But in this life too it is dharma that gives us peace and happiness.

To a son going on a long journey the mother gives food to take with him. Kausalya does the same when her son Rama leaves for the forest, but she does so after much thought, for she wants the food to last during all the fourteen years of his exile. And what is that food? Kausalya gives Rama the eternal sustenance of dharma. Raghava, she says to him,"it is dharma alone that will protect you, and this dharma is what you yourself protect with courage and steadfastness.” It is the escort of dharma that the mother provides her son sent out from his kingdom.

 If a man treads the path of dharma he will win universal respect. If he slips into adharma, unrighteousness, even his brother will turn a foe. The Ramayana illustrates this truth. Sri Rama was regarded with respect by the vanaras. What about Ravana? Even his brother Vibhisana forsakes him. Dharma --- and dharma alone is our protecting shield. How did Ravana with his ten heads perish and how did Sri Ramachandra rise with his head held high as Vijayaraghava (the victorious Raghava)? It was all the doing of dharma.One's religion is nothing but the dharma practiced by one's forefathers.

One of the verses by the great Sivavakiyar known as the Sivavakiyams thus says...

Aadu Naadu Thediyum Aanai Senai Thediyum.

Kodi Vaasi Thediyum Kurukke Vanthu Nirkkuma??

Ooki itta pitchaiyum Vanthu Seitha Dharmamum

Saadi vitta Kudharaipol Dharmam vandhu Nirkkumey!!!!

In the ensuing posts we would see as to what does the Hindu religion defines to be dharma.

May all adhere to their dharma with unwavering faith and courage and be rewarded with everlasting bliss.

About the Mahaswami..A true Seer, The Walking God

While during our great and unique freedom struggle of India, Pt Nehru embarked on a journey of "Discovery of India". The 68th Seer of Kanchi Kamakoti Pitha  went about guiding his devotees on a journey towards Discovery of India, a discovery in the spiritual realm,

The Sage of Kanchi was spiritually supreme, intellectually pre-eminent. He was verily an akshayapatra - inexhaustible reservoir - of the spiritual wisdom of India dating back to the beginning of Time, and of Vedic Dharma. So was he with regard to modern knowledge, current affairs and contemporary men
and matters.

In a special easy in the Bhavan's journal this true sanatani hailed Gandhiji,a staunch Hindu and a secularist nonpareil, as one of the "greatest redeemers of Hinduism". Hailing Gandhiji's services to Hinduism, he said: "From the time Gandhiji came into the arena, he augmented his political movements by his spiritual researches and devotion. Almost all the features of Hinduism that were discarded as weeds by the previous reform movements were clearly explained by Gandhiji as being of indispensable utility.

His views on Ramanama, the Ramayana, Varna dharma, Aharaniyama and his definition of God are such that the most faithful Hindu cannot but profit spiritually by digesting them." During one of the satsangas, some members of the Bhavan’s(publisher of Kanchi Kamkaoti peetham's work) family were privileged to have with him, this remarkable advaitin said that Jawharlal Nehru was "an advaitin at heart."

The Mahaswami will shine forever as one of the greatest exemplars of sanatana dharma, the Universal Way of Life. This sanatani extraordinary personified in himself all that is best and noblest in Hinduism. He always stressed that Hinduism is the latter-day name given to mankind's earliest religion - sanatana dharma. It is beginning less (anadi), endless (ananta) and hence eternal (sanatana), because it is in consonance with Nature's Laws.

To drive home the eternal or the sanatana aspect of our religion, the Mahaswami used to narrate a telling episode: "There was a palm-tree around which a creeper entwined itself. The creeper grew fast and within
months it entwined the entire tree. 'This palm has not grown a bit all these months,' said the creeper laughing. The palm-tree retorted: 'I have seen tens of thousands of creepers in my life. Each creeper before you said the same thing as you have now said. I do not know what to say to you'. Our religion is like this tree in relation to the countless detractors it faced."

I am fortunate to have lived in the times, and to hear and view frequently the words and the work of one with such "illuminated Consciousness", whose nearly 100-year- long Pilgrimage on Earth ended on January 8, 1994. He was a realized soul, and whenever he spoke, he spoke in the accents of the Vedic seers precise, profound and authentic words that found a permanent lodgment in the hearts of his listeners.

An Introduction

Dear All,

Iam starting this blog to share with you all  that I have learnt about the religion that is called "Hinduism". The bulk or i must say all of  my posts will be excerpts from a book called "Hindu Dharma The Universal Way of life" which is a compendium of various discourses rendered by HH Chandrashekarendra Saraswati over a period of time during his Life. Although I maybe posting my personal views about it.

The objective of this Blog is not to claim superiority over the other religions. There will be comparisons with other religions but just to understand the "Hindu" Religion better and not to claim superiority over other religions.

Even the Mahaswami doesnt claim any superiority of the "Hindu" Religion over others but urges its followers to live life as per the tenets of the religion..

In am simply voicing his words and I hope that His messages are driven home to the readers just like his own voice used to drill the tenets of "Dharma" in the minds of His audience