Journal Content Archive

A Verse by Shri Shankara

Cover of Self-Knowledge Journal Spring Issue

With a commentary by Hari Prasad Shastri That Brahman (the Absolute) who, though unborn, yet applying the Yoga of His divine power has taken birth; who has inactivity and motionlessness as his chief characteristics and yet who makes Himself appear endowed with motion and action; who is One-without-a-second, and who, to those labouring under the…

Shankara’s Response to Buddhist Philosophers

The Buddha came, about 500 BC, to formulate a simple path, the Noble Eightfold Path, to effect that final release from suffering that had also been taught by the seers of the Upanishads. In both traditions such release comes through transcendence—transcendence of the ignorance which binds us to the suffering inherent in bodily existence. The…

The Universal Form: Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita

In the Bhagavad Gita the pupil is taught in many ways that the mind cannot grasp the supreme being, ultimate reality, as the mind is a detail within that reality, and the supreme being transcends all the qualities that the mind can understand. And yet, it is taught further that it is possible to uncover…

The Spirit of Zen

An autumn eve She comes and asks Shall I light the lamp? (Etsujin) The verse is full of deep spiritual meaning. The poet sits looking out at the fast-dying day, the last of all days, that so quickly, yet so slowly is passing. The autumn evening darkens and the poet’s wife comes to ask him…

Aids to the Inner Enquiry

The inner enquiry begins when we start to ask fundamental questions about the meaning and purpose of life, and, in particular, of one’s own life. There is a poem by Guru Nanak, and in every verse come the words: ‘Pause and consider’. First, pause: that is, consciously stand back from our activities, and then consider…

Dreams and Facts

While we dream, we take the dream as fact. We do not doubt that we are in a real situation, moving our real body among real objects and people. We live as if the dream were the only reality. Sometimes when we awaken, the dream continues to haunt our mind. More commonly, the dream world…