Posts Tagged ‘Members’
The Supreme Spirit: Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15
Life presents us with a mystery and our deepest desire is to solve it. Sometimes the mystery presses on us as a question demanding an answer, at others as a vague feeling of incompleteness. The world proceeds in space and time according to the laws of cause and effect. The origin of all this is…
Read MoreThe Self as Bliss
Shankaracharya (c.700), the foremost authority on the non-dual teachings, had a contemporary called Mandana Mishra whose work called the Brahma Siddhi later became influential in Shankara’s own school. One of the aims of Mandana’s teaching is to defend the Upanishadic doctrine of liberation as the realisation of one’s true nature as infinitude and bliss. It…
Read MoreThe Alchemy of Happiness
The Muslim philosopher and sage, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111), begins his short book, The Alchemy of Happiness, with the words: ‘Know, O beloved, that humankind was not created in jest or at random, but marvellously made and for some great end.’ The book shows how this goal transcends the limitations of our life in the…
Read MoreThe Way to the Goal of Life
Part of a lecture given by Hari Prasad Shastri I offer you some practical teachings that, if applied in daily life, will enable you to discover the highest Good in the mind itself. There are two worlds: the external world extended and divided by time and space, and the inner world of thoughts, emotions, ideals,…
Read MoreFreeing the Will
It was fashionable, at one time, to divide the mind into a number of distinct faculties, like the will, reason and emotions. Immanuel Kant, for instance, speaks of the mind in this way. But since William James, Western psychology has come much nearer to the yogic teaching, which is that these different parts of the…
Read MoreGerard Manley Hopkins
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1844-1889) is generally considered to be a difficult poet, owing to the strangeness of his style and condensation of thought which obscures his meaning. But close study reveals the thought of a profound religious poet with the power to kindle the heart and uplift the mind of the reader. Hopkins was born…
Read MoreThe Inner Path to Fulfilment
A man once consulted a fortune-teller seeking to know the time and place of his death. He explained that such information would help him plan the rest of his life more effectively. The fortune-teller replied that none was granted that knowledge, for it was withheld by the Creator. The man pleaded: ‘Can’t you give me…
Read MoreAn Outline of Patanjali’s Yoga
YOGA in its wider meaning stands for the age-old methods whereby we, who suffer while we believe ourselves to be confined within a body and narrow individuality, can come to recognise our innate freedom and infinitude. The traditional view is that the highest Yoga is a divine gift revealed by the Lord and through His…
Read MoreWeaving the World: Bhagavad Gita Chapter 14
Chapter 14 of the Bhagavad Gita begins with these five verses: I shall explain again the sublime knowledge through which the sages have reached perfection. Those who turn to this knowledge and attain identity with Me are not born at the time of creation nor disturbed at the end. The great Brahman is my womb.…
Read MoreThe Light of Lights
From a Lecture by Hari Prasad Shastri I have known the great self-effulgent essence beyond darkness, knowing which one overcomes death. There is no other way to proceed. Shvetashvatara Upanishad 1:11 A lamp shines under the light of electricity; electricity shines under the light of the sun; the sun shines under the light of the…
Read More